New Rule: Catholics Must Get Up Out of the Pew and Walk Out of the Church Forever
Bill Maher nails it:
When Barack Obama didn't hear Reverend Wright say those awful things about America, he still should have rushed the stage, smite Reverend Wright with the cross, and left the church. If there's anything the right wing can agree on, it's that. And that gays are going hell, right after they suck them off in the airport bathroom.But it raises an obvious question, one that I haven't heard asked, which is strange because it's so obvious: If you leave a church when the head of the church says bad things about America, what do you do when your church hierarchy is caught up in a systematic and decades-long sex abuse scandal? And did I mention the people being sexually abused were children? Hundreds of them?
How about when the head of that church, or Pope, associated with and promoted members of the clergy who not only facilitated the sexual abuse and rape of hundreds and hundreds of children, but engaged in a decades-long cover-up of those crimes?
Reverend Wright associated with Farrakhan. The Pope works with Cardinal Law. Which is worse? Isn't it the man who shuffled "priests" like Shanley and Geoghan and many others from parish to parish with the full knowledge of their crimes, and then claimed he had no idea?
Yes, by Sean Hannity's own logic, Catholics like him, en masse, would be expected to abandon their church. Which shouldn't be a problem, because they worship Reagan anyway.
COLMES: Then shouldn't John McCain say he doesn't support the views of a man who makes anti-Catholic statements?
OBENSHAIN: He did, I believe. He said I'm not--I don't agree with everything -- a
COLMES: And Obama says he does not support anti-Semitism, as expressed by Louis Farrakhan.
HANNITY: Leave the church.Well, what about it, Sean? Shouldn't you leave your church? I mean, like, five years ago?
And since you haven't, how do we know you're not also a secret child fucker? Again, just using your logic:
HANNITY: ...What if he really deep down in his heart thinks like Pastor Wright?
LUNTZ: It's not for anyone to answer that question.
HANNITY: Well, is that dangerous for this country? I think that would be dangerous. That would mean we would have -- if he agreed with Wright, and I don't know that he does, but if he did, that would mean a racist and an anti-Semite would be president of the United States.Side note: Does it occur to anyone that, for the past five years, the nuts every politician has been busy distancing themselves from--Reverend Wright, Reverend Falwell, Reverend Hagee, Reverend Haggard, Reverend Robertson--are all, you know, reverends?
Why don't we just go back to the days when politicians kept their religions to themselves? Wasn't that better?
Comments
I'm totally with Maher on this one. Religion and politics are a bad mix.
The irony is that you have to be a Xtian of some stripe to be elected in this country - at least, that's the conventional wisdom.
Personally, I don't automatically assume anyone who doesn't go to church is some amoral sociopath. Rather, I think people who skip church are generally more intelligent and in less need of being told how to behave.
Posted by: Mixmaster Shecky | March 30, 2008 10:12 PM