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Conservative
evangelicals angered by Obama victory
"Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself", except when he's
called President-elect Barack Obama
[God
might tell Palin to run in 2012]
While most of the
country, Republicans included, are celebrating Barack
Obama's historic victory, one group of voters is angry and
bitter.
| White, conservative
evangelicals -- the Dr. James Dobson, guns, babies, and anti-gay
brigade -- cannot comprehend that a liberal African-American
has become president of the United States. Whereas black preachers
see God at work in Obama's victory, white |
James Dobson |
ultra-conservatives
such as Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family see dark
and sinister forces at work. They fear the Boy Scouts will
be disbanded, they see American cities under attack.
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Victory in defeating gay
marriage in California -- done with the aid of black
voters who supported Obama -- is not a high enough prize
for Christian extremists such as Dr. Dobson.
Not so many years ago,
fundamentalist Christians helped build a winning
right-wing coalition. Moderate and libertarian Republicans
were willing to work with conservative evangelicals to
secure election victory.
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EVANGELICAL
SARAH PALIN trusts God to show her a way to the
White House. Speaking in Alaska, she said: "Putting
my life in my creator's hands -- this is what I
always do... I'm like, OK, God, if there is an open
door for me somewhere, this is what I always
pray, I'm like, don't let me miss the open door.
Show me where the open door is...
"Even if it's cracked up a little bit, maybe
I'll plow right on through that and maybe
prematurely plow through it, but don't let me miss
an open door."
"And if there is an open door in 12 or four
years later, and if it is something that is going to
be good for my family, for my state, for my nation,
an opportunity for me, then I'll plow through that
door."
Anyone care to translate? |
Now, the moderates and
libertarians have tired of the ranting, evangelical
agenda, which is seen as intolerant, racist, homophobic,
narrow, shallow, and unwilling to accept or comprehend
that the nation is changing, becoming less white, less
Christian -- in fact, less religious -- and more open to
alternative lifestyles and alternative definitions of
family.
Conservative Christianity
is viewed by growing numbers as anti-science with its
defense of "intelligent design". It has no
answers to the questions posed by cultural diversity, is
at a loss how to tackle gay issues other than to insist on
reeducating gay people, and it persists in believing, and
promoting, that its "one way to absolute truth' must
be accepted by all. All else, according to the
evangelicals, leads to damnation.
The conservative
evangelical message is based on fear. Focus on the Family
could easily and accurately be re-named Focus on Fear. Its
agenda's main item is resistance to change, which
resonates among people with low education in rural areas,
but is becoming increasingly irrelevant in America's
cities and among the educated.
Dr. Dobson has every
right to believe what he wishes, even though he hurts
millions of people with his hateful message. And his
opponents have the duty to resist him at every
opportunity.
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OBAMA
CHALLENGES EVANGELICAL EXTREMISM
"And even if we did
have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every
non-Christian from the United States of America, whose
Christianity would we teach in the schools? Would we go
with James Dobson's, or Al Sharpton's? Which passages of
Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go
with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is okay and that
eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with
Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he
strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the
Sermon on the Mount -- a passage that is so radical that
it's doubtful that our own Defense Department would
survive its application? So before we get carried away,
let's read our Bibles now. Folks haven't been reading
their Bibles... Democracy demands that the religiously
motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather
than religion-specific, values. What do I mean by this? It
requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and
amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for
religious reasons, to take one example, but if I seek to
pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to
the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to
explain why abortion violates some principle that is
accessible to people of all faiths, including those with
no faith at all."
Barack Obama at the
"Call to Renewal" conference on June 28, 2006.
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