OPINION
| March 01, 2012
Campaign Stops: Leaps of Faith
By MOLLY WORTHEN
What do President
Obama's conservative Christian critics really mean when they portray him as an
enemy of religious freedom?
Today's "Campaign Stops" feature of the NY Times features the above essay by Molly Worthen. It follows a recent revival of the irrational elements of the President's critics in seeking to villify Obama's character, his politics, the authenticity of his citizenship, and the nature, if any, of his religious beliefs. The worst in the latest chain of insane allegations is the revival of the long-settled issue of Obama's birth certificate. This most recent appeal to the paranoid element in American conservatism, made by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, claims to have evidence that the birth certificate produced by the president as a means of closing the shameful chapter in our history, when the birther movement was taken up by Donald Trump, was an electronic forgery, not a copy of an original hardcopy. (That Sheriff Joe's efforts coincide with a Justice Department investigation of chronic violations of federal law with racial profiling and abuse of Latinos run amok is not likely a mere coincidence. Yet it shows the Right's absolute absence of shame in treating this president as "not one of us."
The most recent attacks by Rick Santorum and Senators Blunt and Rubio of Obama's assault on the First Amendment's separation clause in the provisions guaranteeing contraceptive coverage to women in the employer-based insurance policies that will continue under the aegis of "Obamacare" are a new twist on the efforts of his critics to demonize Obama. The proposition that the Affordable Care Act contains provisions by this president to deprive American's of religious freedom is preposterous on its face. But then again, it wasn't long ago that Frankling Graham, son of the aging "Pastor to Presidents," the Reverend Billy Graham, accused Obama of being a Muslim by virtue of his father's religious heritage. But the new narrative taken by the Obama haters goes further, insisting that this president is seeking to impose his own religious views -- "phoney theology," as Santorum puts it -- on Americans who have religious reasons to oppose the use of contraceptives.
Why the combination of fear tactics with projected (paranoid) attitudes -- "worldviews" that some Christians take offense with -- in the latest round of Obama assaults? Is there something here that I'm missing? Is this truly a sense that Christians have a point on? Or is it, as Jonathan Chait's essay in the New York magazine noted by Mr. Nelson's earlier post, a desperate attempt by a demographically shrinking Republican base to cast their political aspersions on the president dressed up in a sublimated form of White Christian Identity Politics in the parts of the South where race and religion are a dangerous mix in the animosity toward those with different views and different skin color?
Another concourse awaits interrogation.
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Yet again, I am not surprised by the lengths in which the Republican party will go to, in order to belittle and accost a Democrat. In the era of G.W., all he had to say was that he was saved by the Lord and people hung on his every word. If Obama were to attempt that, he would be "crucified," for lack of a better word. There is no winning no matter what he does. Had he refused to provide a birth certificate, he would have been hiding the fact that he wasn't American. Had he bit his tongue on the issue of the contraceptives in the health care reform, he would have been deemed a crazed socialist who doesn't care about his people once a piece of legislation is passed.
ReplyDeleteThe fact of the matter is, the idea of separation of church and state should mean just that. If your religion makes you opposed to contraceptives, fine. No health insurance program is forcing you to buy them. They are being made available to those who want them. And let's be honest, if Obama did not have a real birth certificate, would he honestly have been elected into the presidency? Come on.
These issues are ridiculous and simply fuel in a fire made of opposition towards those of a different race and belief, as highlighted by DT.