June 25, 2008

James Dobson’s Attack on Barack Obama: Transcript and Rebuttal (Or: Never Let It Be Said We Never Defended Barack Obama)

Freedom Writer

The short version: Anti-gay crusader and all-around unlikable Radical Righty James Dobson accused Barack Obama of deliberately distorting the Bible, and of having a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution.

We accuse James Dobson of being a rabid wingnut, and devoid of any sense of irony whatsoever, since he’s the one with the “fruitcake interpretation” (and we mean “fruitcake” as Dobson does: in the raving-lunatic kind of way).

First, here’s what has me laughing: Dobson’s panties are in a twist over Obama’s 2006 “Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America” keynote address. Back in January of this year, I came down on Obama for the same speech — but for a very different reason.

When Obama showed way too much love for Ronald Reagan and the Republican Party, and was criticized widely for it, I wrote:

It’s not as if nobody saw this coming — the warnings were there, over and over and over again. Did anyone think the Donnie McClurkin flap was an isolated incident? The easy dismissal of the Baby Boomers? The attack on church-state separatists?

(What “attack on church-state separatists,” you ask? Better you should ask, “Which attack on church-state separatists?” But here’s just one example, from his keynote address at the Call to Renewal’s Building a Covenant for a New America conference: “At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word ‘Christian’ describes one’s political opponents, not people of faith.” Nice job broadbrushing those of us who believe in Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation” as a bunch of Christian-haters, Obama.)

So, my problem with Obama’s speech is that he was (as usual) sucking up like mad to Christians at the expense of non-Christians — painting non-Christians as intolerant and unreasonable, and expecting non-Christians to resign themselves to accepting the insertion of “religion in the public square.”

But, as you can guess, that’s not Jimmy Dobson’s problem with Obama’s speech.

Now, I’ll make the ultimate sacrifice and actually listen to Dobson’s latest insane rant, so you don’t have to (and so you can have a transcript — which you are welcome to reprint in part or full, on the condition you include a link back to The Lavender Newswire). You’re welcome.

After some crappy intro music, endless reminiscing about Tim Russert, some yammering about 13-year-old girls getting abortions, general slams at Democrats, and the dire warning that Republicans are in danger of losing the November election unless they start “articulating more conservative values” (how much more? would advocating public hanging, stoning, and flogging for heretics be enough?), Dobson and Focus on the Family’s “vice president of government and public policies” Tom Minnery finally get down to Obama — but not before Dobson makes a disclaimer about how they can talk about Obama all they want, because the program is being sponsored solely by whatever arm of Focus on the Family it is that doesn’t have to adhere to IRS regulations.

Dobson: “I show up in that speech. I never knew that I had come under fire there, and, uh, I think that’s a good place, Tom, to start our discussion here, because this speech is about Barack Obama’s views on religion and government, and it is very telling.”

Minnery: “… And before he diminshes you, Dr. Dobson, on the subject of religion, he diminishes religion itself…”

Obama: “90 percent of us believe in God, 70 percent affiliate themselves with an organized religion, 38 percent call themselves committed Christians, and substantially more people in America believe in angels than they do in evolution.”

Minnery: “Notice he said 70 percent of the people identify with an organized religion. That organized religion they identify with is the Christian religion, the Judeo-Christian tradition. Now, he allows that 38 percent are identified as committed Christians, but that’s a smaller number than the entire body of people who identify as Judeo-Christians, so he’s not even acknowledging the strong Judeo-Christian tradition.”

So, because he does acknowledge non-Christians, he’s dissing Christians? Oh, get off that cross, Minnery — we need the nails.

Beyond that, Minnery, are you implying that because Christians are in the majority, they should be allowed to run the country without concern for non-Christians? Actually, I’m sure that’s exactly what you mean.

Another gay-hater had this to say:

“Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).”

Minnery: “Then, he— later in the speech, he says: ‘Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.’

“Well I say, ‘Excuuuse me?’ 76 percent of the people identify themselves as Christians. There are only six-tenths of one percent who are Muslim, seven-tenths of one percent who are Buddhist, four-tenths of one percent who are Hindu…”

Uh-huh. And you have a problem with this why, exactly?

Not that I would ever compare Barack Obama to Thomas Jefferson, but it’s worth noting that Obama’s statement here is hardly a new idea:

“Where the preamble declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed, by inserting the word ‘Jesus Christ,’ so that it should read ‘a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion.’ The insertion was rejected by a great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend within the mantle of its protection the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”

— Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821
on the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

You got a problem with Thomas Jefferson, Mr. Minnery?

Minnery: “So he’s diminishing the idea that people of Christian faith have anything to say. And then he begins to diminish you.”
 

Obama: “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?”

Minnery: “Oh, we have to [camp?] on that for just a moment, because he has compared you somehow as being on the right when Al Sharpton is on the left. Al Sharpton achieved his notoriety in the eighties and nineties by engaging in racial bigotry, and many people have called him a black racist, and, uh, he is somehow equating you with that, and racial bigotry.”

Dobson: “Uh, you know, Tom, I don’t, uh, want to be defensive here. Uh, obviously, that is offensive to me. I mean, uh, who wants to expel people who are not Christians? Expel ‘em from what? From the country? Deprive them of Constitutional rights? Is that what he thinks I want to do?

I don’t know what Obama thinks, but I think you do indeed want “to expel people who are not Christians” from every American institution you can, Dobson. You’re the one crowing constantly about “restoring” the United States into the “Christian nation” it never was. You’re the one who belongs to the Coalition on Revival, along with every other whackjob whose primary goal is to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. You’re the one who trades votes for support of your maniacal crusade against non-believers through the all-powerful Council for National Policy.* You’re the one who wants a conservative Christian-only political party. You’re the one who hijacked the National Day of Prayer, specifically excluding “religions outside of the ‘Judeo-Christian’ tradition” from participation, keeping it “Christians-only spectacle” for the past 17 years.

And there’s no question you want to deny gay people their Constitutional rights, whether we’re Christian or not.

Dobson: “Why this man jump on me? I haven’t said anything near that.

Yes, he said, “Why this man jump on me?” not “Why did this man jump on me?” (For a Ph.D., Dobson takes a lot of liberties with the English language.)

Dobson: “He also equates me with Al Sharpton, who is a reverend. I am not a reverend, I’m not a minister, I’m not a theologian…”

Dobson proceeds down the list of his college degrees. We snore throughout.

Dobson: “…and there is no equivalence to us. I don’t want to overact to it, but…”

Minnery: “Well, you’re in good company, because from there he proceeds to disparage serious understanding of the Bible.”

Obama: “Which passages of Scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is ok and that eating shellfish is abomination? How about 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. Folks haven’t been reading their bibles.” [laughter]

Minnery: “That kind of commentary drives me crazy. It’s almost willful to confuse the dietetic laws of the Old Testament that applied to the Israelites to suggest that the Levitical law governing stoning of a belligerent, drunkard son somehow applies to the church age of the New Testament.”

Dobson agrees; there is some talk on Deuteronomy…

Minnery: “The Lord was trying to purify [the Israelites]… trying to create a holy nation… and laws that applied to them then, the Levitical code, the dietary laws, no longer apply. Many of the principles in the Old Testament apply, but not those laws. And it seems that he’s willfully trying to confuse people with what Jesus said in the New Testament.”

Here your transcriber stops to collapse in a fit of uncontrollable laughter, and then makes a mental note of this most excellent example of biblical cherry-picking, which will come in handy for future blog posts.

If Levitical dietary code no longer applies (and I’d like someone to show me where Jesus said it no longer applies), but everything else in Leviticus does apply, then such righteous men of God as Messrs. Dobson and Minnery should still be upholding the following Levitical laws:

• sacrificing goats for sin atonement (Lev. 4:22-28);

• undergoing cleansing rituals after touching a dead bug (Lev. 5:2-3) — which you shouldn’t do anyway (Lev. 11:31) — or having sex with a menstruating woman (Lev. 15:24, 20:18);

• staying away from menstruating women altogether (Lev. 15:19-30, 33);

• avoiding even looking at a woman while she’s menstruating (Lev. 18:19);

• making “wave” and “heave” offerings of animal fat, breasts, and thighs, which God commanded “by a statute for ever” (Lev. 7:30-36);

• purifying your woman for 33 days after she gives birth to a boy, or for 66 days after she gives birth to a girl (Lev. 12:1-5), and getting your priest to kill a lamb, a pigeon, a turtledove (or in some cases, two turtles) to cleanse your woman of her “blood issue” (Lev. 12:6-8);

• accepting the fact that if you accidentally get semen on yourself, your woman, or anything you own, you’ll all be unclean until nighttime, even if you wash it off (Lev. 15:16-18, 32);

• making sure your cow isn’t having interspecies sex, keeping the seeds you plant separate from one another, and never wearing linen-wool blends (Lev. 19:19);

• never making supernaturally-inspired predictions (Lev. 19:26);

• letting your hair grow long on the sides (like the Hasidim do), and never trimming your beard — you do have a beard, don’t you? (Lev. 19:27, 21:5);

• never getting a tattoo (Lev. 19:28);

• killing people who curse their parents (Lev. 20:9), people who use profanity in any way (Lev. 24:16), adulterers (Lev. 20:10), men who sleep with their mothers-in-law (Lev. 20:11, 14) or daughters-in-law (Lev. 20:12), gay men (Lev. 20:13), people who have sex with animals — and the animals, too (Lev. 20:15-16), people who consult psychics (Lev. 20:27), and girls who act like sluts (Lev. 21:9);

• eliminating divorcees, women who use dirty words (Lev. 21:7), and widows (Lev. 21:13-14) from your list of potential wives;

• keeping disabled people, ugly people (Lev. 21:18), people with broken hands or feet (Lev. 21:19), hunchbacks, dwarves, blind people, people with a Vitamin C deficiency, people with scabby skin, and men with damaged testicles (Lev. 21:20) out of your church;

• buying slaves (Lev. 22:11) and making slaves out of your neighbors and their families, forever (Lev. 25:44-46);

Dobson: “He’s equating that with the Sermon on the Mount.”

No, dummy, he’s not equating Levitical law with the Sermon on the Mount — he’s saying that if you want a theocracy, you’re going to have a hell of a time deciding whose version of Christianity will be the law of the land: your barbaric, wrathful, spiteful Old Testament, or his relatively saner, more loving New Testament.

Minnery: “And you remember, more recently, he quoted the Sermon on the Mount— cited the Sermon on the Mount as justifying same-sex marriage…

No, he didn’t justify same-sex marriage at all, Minnery.

Minnery is referring to a March, 2008, interview Obama gave to WTAP-TV, in which he said:

“I will tell you that I don’t believe in gay marriage, but I do think that people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and that the state should not discriminate against them. So, I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each other. I don’t think it should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state. If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans.”

Obama is plainly, unbudgeably opposed to same-sex marriage — which he reiterated in the statement with which you are taking issue here. But you didn’t play that sound clip, did you, Minnery? Of course not, because it would have exposed you as a liar.

(By the way, while I agree with Obama’s last sentence — that the Sermon on the Mount is more relevant “than an obscure passage in Romans” [he’s alluding to Romans 1:26-27], Obama infuriates me with his stubborn opposition to marriage equality. Surprisingly, a presumed Obama supporter named Carlos takes issue with this, right on Obama’s Web site: “Interesting use here of the Sermon on the Mount. It would be better for Obama to just say that he is against state sponsored marriage period. Otherwise, it sounds like gay marriage is second class and not worthy of state approval while non-gay marriage is ok. It looks to me that Obama’s belief about gay marriage is simply a tactic to bridge the cultural gap between people who are more open to homosexuality and people who have problems with it. By being against gay marriage, Obama is softening his pro-gayness with the anti-gay crowd in the hopes that the anti crowd will see his point about the Sermon on the Mount and treating people fairly.” Well said, Carlos.)

Minnery: “…so it seems that he is vastly confused about the details of biblical exposition, that he’s painting himself in this highly religious aura.”

Dobson: “And then says “Go read the Bible…’”

[laughter]

Dobson: “…as though he’s some kind of biblical authority.”

[crosstalk and boring stuff]

Minnery: “… I think he is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter. I just don’t know whether he’s doing it willfully or accidentally.”

Dobson: “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.”

Minnery: “Well, that’s exactly what he’s doing, and there’s another clip that gives everybody an understanding of his notion of morality.”

Obama: “…I do not believe that religious people have a monopoly on morality, I would rather have someone who is grounded in morality and ethics, and who is also secular, affirm their morality and ethics and values without pretending that they’re something they’re not. They don’t need to do that. None of us need to do that.”

Minnery: “See, he’s saying moral people do not have to be religious people — but religion is the grounding, the foundation for morality.”

So, animals are by nature immoral, because they aren’t religious? Mmm’kay.

Guess you’ve never heard of the Ethic of Reciprocity, Minnery.

Minnery: “I mean, read what George Washington said about that: “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” That’s our first president.”

Our first president also said:

“I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction. To this consideration we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna-Charta of our country.”

…responding to a group of clergymen who complained that the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ, in 1789, Papers, Presidential Series, 4:274, the “Magna-Charta” here refers to the proposed United States Constitution

 
“Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by a difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society.”

…letter to Edward Newenham, October 20, 1792, quoted from Albert J Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom, also James A Haught, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“If they are good workmen, they may be of Asia, Africa, or Europe. They may be Mohometans, Jews or Christians of any Sect, or they may be Atheists.”

…letter to Tench Tilghman asking him to secure a carpenter and a bricklayer for his Mount Vernon estate, March 24, 1784, in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion (1963) p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, “Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church”

 
“Among many other weighty objections to the Measure, it has been suggested, that it has a tendency to introduce religious disputes into the Army, which above all things should be avoided, and in many instances would compel men to a mode of Worship which they do not profess.”

…to John Hancock, then president of Congress, expressing opposition to a congressional plan to appoint brigade chaplains in the Continental Army (1777), quoted from a letter to Cliff Walker from Doug Harper (2002)

 
And here’s what some of George’s contemporaries had to say about our first president:

“Dr. Rush told me (he had it from Asa Green) that when the clergy addressed General Washington, on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never, on any occasion, said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion, and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to disclose publicly whether he was a Christian or not. However, he observed, the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly, except that, which he passed over without notice.”

…quoted from Jefferson’s Works, Vol. iv., p. 572. (Asa Green “was probably the Reverend Ashbel Green, who was chaplain to congress during Washington’s administration.” — Farrell Till in “The Christian Nation Myth.”)

 
“I know that Gouverneur Morris, who claimed to be in his secrets, and believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more in that system [Christianity] than he did.”

…in his private journal, February, 1800, quoted from Jefferson’s Works, Vol. iv., p. 572 (”Gouverneur Morris was the principal drafter of the Constitution of the United States; he was a member of the Continental Congress, a United States senator from New York, and minister to France. He accepted, to a considerable extent, the skeptical views of French Freethinkers.” — John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans.)

 
“[Washington was] a total stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of another.”

…in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion, Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963, p. 118, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, “Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church”

 
“Sir, Washington was a Deist.”

…rector of the church Washington had attended with his wife, to The Reverend Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, upon Wilson’s having inquired of Abercrombie regarding Washington’s religious beliefs, quoted from John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans

 
“I have diligently perused every line that Washington ever gave to the public, and I do not find one expression in which he pledges, himself as a believer in Christianity. I think anyone who will candidly do as I have done, will come to the conclusion that he was a Deist and nothing more.”

…in an interview with Mr. Robert Dale Owen written on November 13, 1831, which was publlshed in New York two weeks later, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27

 
“Though the General attended the churches in which Dr. White officiated, whenever he was in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, and afterwards while President of the United States, he was never a communicant in them.”

…from Wilson, Memoir of Bishop White, p. 188, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27

 
“…he was pleased to express himself gratified by what he had heard from our pulpit; but there was nothing that committed him relatively to religious theory.”

…in a letter to the Rev B C C Parker, dated November 28, 1832, from Wilson, Memoir of Bishop White, pp. 189-191, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27

 
“I do not believe that any degree of recollection will bring to my mind any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation further than as may be hoped from his constant attendance upon Christian worship, in connection with the general reserve of his character.”

…in a letter to the Rev B C C Parker, dated December 31, 1832, from Wilson, Memoir of Bishop White, pp. 189-191, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 28

 
“The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity…. Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism.”

…in a sermon preached in October, 1831, first sentence quoted in John E Remsberg, Six Historic Americans, second sentence quoted in Paul F Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15

 
“In regard to the subject of your inquiry, truth requires me to say that General Washington never received the communion in the churches of which I am the parochial minister. Mrs. Washington was an habitual communicant. I have been written to by many on that point, and have been obliged to answer them am as I now do you.”

…the first bishop of Pennsylvania, friend of Washington and bishop of Christ’s Church in Philadelphia, which Washington attend for about 25 years when he happened to be in that city, in a letter to Colonel Mercer of Fredericksberg, Virginia, on August 15, 1835, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 27

 
“I find no one who ever communed with him.”

…rector of Alexandria, Virginia, in response to a letter from Reverend Origen Bacheler, cited in The Bacheler-Owen Debate, vol. 2, p. 262, quoted from Franklin Steiner, The Religious Beliefs of Our Presidents, pp. 28

 
Thanks to Positive Atheism!

Minnery: “Our second president, John Adams, said: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Our second president also said:

“The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles?”

…letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 20, 1815

 
“Thirteen governments [of the original states] thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, and which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favor of the rights of mankind.”

…”A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America” (1787-88), from Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 258, quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, “Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church”

 
“We should begin by setting conscience free. When all men of all religions … shall enjoy equal liberty, property, and an equal chance for honors and power … we may expect that improvements will be made in the human character and the state of society.”

…letter to Dr. Price, April 8, 1785, quoted from Albert Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom (1991)

 
“As I understand the Christian religion, it was, and is, a revelation. But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed?”

…letter to FA Van der Kamp, December 27, 1816

 
“When philosophic reason is clear and certain by intuition or necessary induction, no subsequent revelation supported by prophecies or miracles can supersede it.”

…from Rufus K Noyes, Views of Religion, quoted from from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“Indeed, Mr. Jefferson, what could be invented to debase the ancient Christianism which Greeks, Romans, Hebrews and Christian factions, above all the Catholics, have not fraudulently imposed upon the public? Miracles after miracles have rolled down in torrents.”

…letter to Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1813, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.”

…letter to his son, John Quincy Adams, November 13, 1816, from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved — the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced!”

…letter to Thomas Jefferson, from George Seldes, The Great Quotations, also from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.”

…”this awful blashpemy” that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A Haught, ed, 2000 Years of Disbelief

 
“We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. … I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. … It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu.”

…one of his last letters to Thomas Jefferson, January 23, 1825. Adams was 90, Jefferson 81 at the time; both died on July 4th of the following year, on the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From Adrienne Koch, ed, The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society (1965) p. 234. Quoted from Ed and Michael Buckner, “Quotations that Support the Separation of State and Church.”

 
“The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.”

…carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams

 
Thanks again to Positive Atheism!

Dobson: “Related to that, Tom, there is another comment in Senator Obama’s speech that is of incredible importance in understanding his worldview. And it’s gonna be kind of difficult to explain — I ask people to really stay with me here — uh, he’s trying to make the case that it is anti-democratic to believe or fight for moral principles in the Bible that are not supported by people of all faiths, or presumably by those of no faith. Let’s listen to what he had to say: 
 

Obama: “Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, 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.”

Dobson: “What the senator is saying there in essence is that ‘I can’t seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial birth abortions, because there are people in the culture who don’t see that as a moral issue, and if I can’t get everyone to agree with me, it is un-democratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the scripture.’ Now, that is a fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution.”

Why is it “a fruitcake interpretation”? Obama’s admitting that he has no right to impose his religious beliefs through legislation.

Granted, Obama is being a total hypocrite here; he often cites (or blames) his religious beliefs for his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage equality. Typical (and just one of many examples, before and since) is this statement he made during an interview with WBBM-AM in 2004:

“I’m a Christian, and so although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”

I’ll give Obama credit for one thing (and one thing only): At least he, unlike you, Messrs. Dobson and Minnery, realizes he might be a misguided bonehead on this issue. As he wrote in The Audacity of Hope:

“It is my obligation, not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided, just as I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have been infected with society’s prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus’ call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I might be seen on the wrong side of history.

Sad, though, how willing he is to support abortion rights — which most Christians see as murder — and not marriage equality, which does no harm to anyone or anything, and in fact only enhances life and affirms love.

Nevertheless, Dobson, you’re wrong with your re-wording of what Obama said in his 2006 speech.

Dobson: “Uh, this is why we have elections, to support what we believe to be wise and moral. We don’t have to go to the lowest common denominator of morality, which is what he is suggesting. Remember, Tom, that Senator Obama is a man who, while he was in the state legislature, did not oppose the killing of babies who were aborted, but then somehow came into the world alive.”

Believe it or not, Dobson isn’t pulling the first part of the second sentence out of his butt. After passing by hundreds of hysterical wingnut media outlets, I finally found one source reliable enough to lend credence to the “living abortions” story, the Beeb: “One in 30 foetuses aborted for medical reasons is born alive, a 10-year study at 20 UK hospitals has found. …”

I’m not touching this one, folks, other than to reiterate that I’m one of those odd ducks who finds abortion morally reprehensible (yes, Dobson, we agnostics have “morals,” too), yet I am 100% pro-choice. In a nutshell: It is not my place to judge or deny a woman’s right to her own body (we are not baby-making machines), and thus I’ll continue to fight for a woman’s right to choose. Period.

That, ironically, puts me on the same page as Obama — at least as far as abortion is concerned.

I do have one question for Dobson, though: If you’re in such a state over “living abortions,” why aren’t you leading some sort of movement to adopt them? Or, as most radical righties, does your concern for human beings end once they’re out of the uterus?

However, I have no idea what Dobson is talking about when he says that as a state legislator, Obama “did not oppose the killing of babies who were aborted, but then somehow came into the world alive.” Was there a Let’s Kill Living Abortions bill in the Illinois state legislature? Methinks Dobson is indeed pulling this idiocy out of his butt.

Dobson: “That to him was a moral position.”

Huh? What are you talking about, and what do you mean?

Dobson: “To me its anathema. Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies?

“What he’s trying to say here is, unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe. I thank God that that’s not what the Constitution says.”

Well, I’ll give you that, Jimbo — that’s not what the Constitution says at all. Unfortunately (for you), that’s not what Obama was saying either. At all.

Dobson: “”Tom, as you can see, I’ve managed to raise my blood pressure here…”

. . .

Minnery: “He seems in this speech not to like pastors who he says deliver more screeds than sermons. Now, remember, this was delivered in oh-six — before anybody knew about his then-pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who has now become his ex-pastor.”

Obama: “They don’t want faith used to belittle or to divide. They’re tired of hearing folks deliver more screed than sermon.”

Dobson: “Tom, I, uh, read the transcipt of this, and this one jumped out at me. You know, how interesting it is that Senator Obama is condemning pastors there for their highly emotional diabtribe, when he sat for twenty years under the tutelage of his own pastor, and eventually had to disown him.”

Minnery: “And he only disowned him when it became public that Reverend Jeremiah Wright was delivering ‘more screed than sermon.’ Apparently, Senator Obama didn’t recognize it in his own pastor, in his own church.”

Well, I can’t argue with that.

Next, it’s onto John McCain, and “the marriage issue”:

Minnery: “We are on the lip of seeing the Arizona state legislature vote, out of the legislature to the people in the fall, a state marriage amendment. That’ll be the third marriage amendment on the ballot. California will be on the ballot, Florida will be on the ballot… But it is the Republican senate that is dithering — I think there’s a lot of political cowardice there — and whether this gets out or not, we don’t know.

“We have asked Senator John McCain’s staff to say — please! — ‘the senator says he supports state marriage amendments.’ Here’s a state marriage amendment in his own home state that dearly needs a word from him. Will he say something about it to encourage the, uh, Republican leaders in the senate in Arizona to have some backbone? Not a word has Senator McCain said!”

Dobson: “Not a word! And he has said on numerous occasions, ‘I believe marriage can be and should be protected at the state level.’ This is in his state, largely because the Republicans in the state senate who have the majority have not made it happen and, as you said, the senator has not said a word about it. That is very disappointing. So this is a year when we have a lot of frustration with both political parties.”

Heh! Try belonging to a party that’s supposed to stand up for gay rights, and whose silence, at large, is utterly deafening.

Minnery: “Even as we’re speaking today, that vote in the Arizona senate may happen — we don’t know. But if there was enough backbone, they could have gotten us out of the state senate early in the session, so — beyond the ballot — and we could be preparing for the campaign in the fall.”

That vote happened today, Tom:

Senators vote down measure to ban gay marriage

With the clock running out, conservative lawmakers in the Arizona Senate employed a rare procedural maneuver June 25 to force a vote on a proposal that would amend the state Constitution to effectively ban gay marriage.

But the ballot measure went down by a vote of 14-to-11; although a majority voted in approval, it needed 16 votes to pass.

If passed at a later date, SCR1042 would ask voters in November to define marriage in the Constitution to state that only a marriage between a man and a woman will be recognized by the state.

The legislation’s failure with only a few days left before the fiscal year ends was a setback for supporters who regard the legislation as a way to reinforce existing statute prohibiting same-sex marriage against what they see is an assault on traditional marriage from activist judges. They also contend that a statute could be changed; a constitutional provision would be hard to undo.

But an official for the Center for Arizona Policy, one of the conservative groups pushing for the measure, said the fight is not over. …

The vote was a temporary victory for Equality Arizona, a group representing the interests of the gay, lesbian and transgender community in the state.

“Today’s actions (bringing the measure to a vote) were an inappropriate use of power,” said Barbara McCullough-Jones, the group’s executive director. “Rather than taking care of the business of the people, political opportunists are using wedge politics to divide this state.” …

Crappy luck next time, Tommy.

Dobson: “OK, Tom, let’s get your blood pressure down. [laughter]

Before ending the show, Dobson slams all the candidates (including Hillary Clinton) for not talking about “preserving the family.”

Dobson: “It is as though the family does not matter… They don’t give a hoot about the family!”

---

* Check out what Dobson said in his 1995 speech to the CNP:

“Well, I don’t know if you saw the article on November 6th, right after that, in the Washington Post. This one really took my breath away! It is referring to a Dr. Michael Tuly. Dr. Tuly is a philosophy professor at the University of Colorado. He is what he calls a ‘eugenicist.’ That gives you a clue. He says, and Tuly does not bother with Pinker’s pretense that what’s under discussion here is only a rare act of desperation, the killing of an unwanted child by a frightened, troubled mother. No, no, no! ‘If it is moral to kill a baby for one, it is moral for all. Indeed, the systematic, professionalized use of infanticide would be a great benefit to humanity. Most people would prefer to raise children who do not suffer from gross deformities or from severe physical, intellectual or emotional handicaps,’ writes eugenicist Tuly. ‘If it could be shown that there is no moral objection to infanticide’ — why would there be no moral objection to infanticide? Because there’s no moral objection to anything! It’s all subjective — ‘the happiness of society could be significantly and justifiably increased.’”

The equation of abortion and infanticide aside, the question I’d like to ask Dobson is whether or not he condemns eugenics outright. What does Dobson think about “fetus washing” — “treating” fetuses by “washing” them with hormones, purportedly to influence their inborn sexual orientation — the latest desperate attempt by the Radical Religious Right to “cure” homosexuality in the womb?

(See also the gay sheep controversy.)

I love the current debate over “fetus washing”; it forces the gay-haters’ admission that we are born gay.

But here’s the best part of Dobson’s speech:

So, there is that perspective and where it leads is to the dehumanization of undesirables and we know where that led in 1938 and after, in Nazi Germany.

You should know all about “the dehumanization of undesirables” and where it leads, Dobson, as your lifelong commitment to the dehumanization (and demonization) of gay and lesbian people is as close to modern-day Nazism as you can get without burning crosses on our lawns.

By the way, Jimbo, you just invoked Godwin’s Law. You lose the argument. Ha-ha!

Filed under: Atheism/Agnosticism, Barack Obama, California, Christianity, Democrats, Election 2008, Florida, Focus on the Family/James Dobson, Hate Speech, Homophobia, Jeremiah Wright, John McCain, Marriage, Race/Ethnic Issues, Radical Religious Right, Random Stupidity, Republicans

---

---