Oh, For Christ's Sake!
How's this for a headline: "Faith adopts key role in 2008 campaign"? Apparently religion is going to play a key role in the presidential election, whether the candidates like it or not, according to an AP article published in yesterday's Sacramento Bee.
The personal faith of candidates has become a very public part of the 2008 presidential campaign. Seven years after George W. Bush won the presidency in part with a direct appeal to conservative religious voters - he cited Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher during one debate - it seems all the leading presidential candidates are discussing their religious and moral beliefs, even when they'd rather not.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have hired strategists to focus on reaching religious voters. Obama's campaign holds a weekly conference call with key supporters in early primary and caucus states whose role is to spread the candidate's message to religious leaders and opinionmakers and report their concerns to the campaign.
Democrats in general are targeting moderate Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and even evangelicals, hoping to enlist enough voters for whom religious and moral issues are a priority to put together a winning coalition. [Emphasis added]
How did we get to this point? When did religious beliefs become so much of a litmus test in a nation founded by people who had fled their homes to get away from the tyranny of state sanctioned religion?
I remember the presidential race in which the religion of John Kennedy played such a crucial role, but back then, no Roman Catholic had ever been elected president, and back then, people worried that the Pope in Rome was going to be dictating our nation's policy. This, however, is a decidedly different phenomenon, and I think a far more troubling one.
What is even more discouraging is that the mainstream media is not just reporting on the phenomenon, it is openly promoting it, as evidenced by another AP article also published in yesterday's Sacramento Bee.
The Associated Press asked the 2008 presidential candidates what their religion is, whether there is a particular church that they are a member of, and how often they attend services.
Like the majority of Americans, all the candidates are Christians. Seven are Roman Catholic, three are Methodist, three are Baptist, one is Episcopalian, one is Presbyterian, one is Mormon, and one describes himself simply as Christian. [Emphasis added]
A news outlet polling the candidates on their religious habits and then publishing the results? How weird is that?
And, how unAmerican.
The personal faith of candidates has become a very public part of the 2008 presidential campaign. Seven years after George W. Bush won the presidency in part with a direct appeal to conservative religious voters - he cited Jesus Christ as his favorite philosopher during one debate - it seems all the leading presidential candidates are discussing their religious and moral beliefs, even when they'd rather not.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama have hired strategists to focus on reaching religious voters. Obama's campaign holds a weekly conference call with key supporters in early primary and caucus states whose role is to spread the candidate's message to religious leaders and opinionmakers and report their concerns to the campaign.
Democrats in general are targeting moderate Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants and even evangelicals, hoping to enlist enough voters for whom religious and moral issues are a priority to put together a winning coalition. [Emphasis added]
How did we get to this point? When did religious beliefs become so much of a litmus test in a nation founded by people who had fled their homes to get away from the tyranny of state sanctioned religion?
I remember the presidential race in which the religion of John Kennedy played such a crucial role, but back then, no Roman Catholic had ever been elected president, and back then, people worried that the Pope in Rome was going to be dictating our nation's policy. This, however, is a decidedly different phenomenon, and I think a far more troubling one.
What is even more discouraging is that the mainstream media is not just reporting on the phenomenon, it is openly promoting it, as evidenced by another AP article also published in yesterday's Sacramento Bee.
The Associated Press asked the 2008 presidential candidates what their religion is, whether there is a particular church that they are a member of, and how often they attend services.
Like the majority of Americans, all the candidates are Christians. Seven are Roman Catholic, three are Methodist, three are Baptist, one is Episcopalian, one is Presbyterian, one is Mormon, and one describes himself simply as Christian. [Emphasis added]
A news outlet polling the candidates on their religious habits and then publishing the results? How weird is that?
And, how unAmerican.
Labels: Separation of Church and State
posted by Diane at 5:49 AM
1 Comments:
That quote from Bush was a set-up. You could tell as he chimed in like a grade school kid primed for a spelling-bee. It wasn't question-and-answer, it was prompt-and-repeat. One of the significant roles religion will play in this election is the Mormon/cult discussion. Otherwise any interjection of 'faith' and 'values' will be a club with which the MSM will beat the Dems.
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