Posted by ( Chris ) on March 20, 2008 at 7:24 am

The entire premise remains the same. You and others have continually attempted to assign guilt by association. You ASSUME that since he attended that church for 20 years that somehow makes him a sinister sycophant of Wright. How many times does the man have to tell you that he doesn’t agree with these particular inflammatory statements? Perhaps you won’t take him for his word because he has a “D” in front of his name. I find that rather interesting. In any event, the harsh reality is that you and others, are attempting to assert that guilt by association is a reality. That being said, I would assume that all catholics agree with the complacency of Rome in the pedophilia scandals. I’ll will have to ASSUME that you and others agree 100% of the time with your priest or pastor (which of course would say much about indpedent thinking). I would have to assume that every baptist thinks homosexuals are evil and that a woman must yield and submit to her husband on all matters. This reasoning makes no sense to me.

Years ago Frank Shaeffer wrote a book called “Whatever Happenned To The Human Race” in which he compared America to Nazi Germany. Mr. Shaeffer is also know as Pastor Shaeffer. This book is filled with hate and anti-American sentiment. Pastor Shaeffer is a well known right wing evangelist. Where were the Republicans denouncing this Anti-American crap? Well they were inviting Shaeffer to dinner. People like Reagan,Jack Kemp, George Bush and his son, and Gerald Ford welcomed this man with open arms. He dined at the White House. Why no outrage or guilt by association in this instance? It’s simple, those guys had an “R” in front of their name. Each Sunday from the pulpits of thousands of churches pastors preach sermons in which they tell us that America is complicit in the “murder of the unborn,” has become “Sodom” by coddling gays, and that our public schools are sinful places full of evolutionists and sex educators hell-bent on corrupting children. They say,that we are, “under the judgment of God.” They call America evil and warn of immanent destruction. Where is the outrage?

John McCain’s spiritual advisor, Rod Parsley, is a certifiable nut on the level of Wright. Where is the outrage and guilt by association. Oh, I forgot, McCain has an “R” in front of his name so we must assume that everything that comes from his mouth is the truth. We can take a Republicans word but when Obama specifically states he emphatically disagrees with the inflammatory statements of his pastor then he is lying. He is really a sinister racist and anti semite because of guilt by association and he has a “D” in front of his name.

Here is what Obama said Tuesday:
“I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.” Why isn’t that good enough?

Obama also said this Tuesday:
“Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.” Again not good enough, I guess.

Lastly Obama said this:

“For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.”

Is that what you want? Really??????

Posted by ( Chris ) on March 25, 2008 at 8:31 am

I replied yesterday but I think it didn’t go through to you. In any event, if you have it then please disregard this reply and post the other.

I’ll try this one more time as this issue is fairly important to me. The bottom line here Jody is that when you write:  “The fact that he continued to attend Wright’s church, knowing his views, tells me that he agrees with Wright, no matter what he says now.  His actions over the last 20 years speak volumes.” it shows nothing more than subjectivity. Simple math would tell us that in the past 20 years Rev. Wright has given around 960 Sunday sermons. Given your stance on this issue I must assume that you are familiar with the majority of these sermons? Or are you simply basing your view on sound bytes and videos on You Tube from about 6 of these 960 sermons? What evidence do you have, other than the words of another man, to arrive at your judgement that Obama is a racist?

This whole charade of guilt by association lacks the moral clarity we sorely need in today’s politics. Do you feel it would be unfair for me to emphatically state that everyone who was member of Jerry Falwell’s church agrees that God was punishing the United States for 9-11 because of homosexuality? Would it be correct to assume that just because a person attended Falwell’s or Robertson’s church for years they MUST automatically agree with every inflammatory statement uttered by those men? I would submit that plenty of the members of those churches would be quite surprised to learn that just because they attended those churches and didn’t leave after hearing inflammatory remarks, such as these: “If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being’ or “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” or “Good Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions” or “Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan” then they hold these same views.

Perhaps many of the folks who attended Falwell’s church went because that is the church in which they felt close to the saviour. Perhpaps folks continued to go to Falwell’s church despite these horrid remarks because most of the time Falwell preached about the love of Christ. Perhaps Obama did the same. But I guess since he did not act as YOU would have then he must be a militant racist just as those who continued to go to Falwell’s church are bigots.

That type of thinking makes no sense to me. I’m not saying that you are wrong, but we obviously disagree in that I believe that a man should not be judged by the words or actions of another man. I don’t take offense to your indication that somehow my priorties lack in morality. That is clearly what you indicated either on purose or by chance. That is o.k. I have never indicated that what Obama’s preacher said is not important. What is important is that some people feel it is o.k. to make a judgement of a church member based on the words of a pastor. That is where we differ. I give the benefit of the doubt to not only Obama but to those who attend Falwell’s church and those who attend thousand of other fundamentalist churches across this country. I don’t judge a son based on the words of a father. Yes, we do differ in how we see this issue.

Obviously you have chosen to make your judgement of Obama on sound bytes and You Tube videos. You seem to ignore Obama’s reasoning about his decision to remain at his church and not disown Wright. Here is what Obama indicated in his speech about his relationship with the church and Wright: “There will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way.” Powerful observation don’t ya think?

He also said this: “But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine” Not good enough right?

He said this: My experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.”

I’ll end this long winded tirade with this statement from his speech: “Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork”

Can you believe the nerve of such a racist like Obama to pretend to be truthful?????

BTW, Obama brought up race because it was a speech about race and this whole issue with Wright is about race. If addressing the issue of race by using the word race is playing the “race card” then so be it.