Globally Rational

Everybody involved with American politics has been hearing a lot recently about Jeremiah Wright, the radical leftist pastor at Barack Obama’s church. What I ask is this… why is it that these sorts of statements are a major issue, but we don’t care about the fact that John McCain (among others) vies for the support of radical right-wing religious leaders like Pat Robertson

I won’t make any comparisons between Robertson and Wright; I’ll let you do that yourself. However, here are some things that Robertson has said over the course of the last few years (to give credit where credit is due, I got a lot of these from Wikipedia):

• He said, “You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense. I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.”
• The acceptance of homosexuality could lead to hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and “possibly a meteor.”
• He repeatedly spoke in favor of Charles Taylor, a Liberian war criminal with whom he is said to have had some business dealings.
• Speaking about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, he said “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than starting a war, and I don’t think any oil shipments will stop.”
• When Ariel Sharon (former Israeli President) had a stroke, Robertson said that it was God’s way of seeking retribution for the fact that Sharon considered giving some land back to the Palestinians.
• He has repeatedly denounced Islam, including saying that “Islam, at its core, teaches violence” (which is obviously not true… Islam never taught me any violence, for instance). He also called Muslims “Satanic” and made various other radical statements.
• He named 101 liberal American professors and accused them of being “racists, murderers, sexual deviants and supporters of Al-Qaeda.” He also said that they are “communists, they are radicals, they are, you know, some of them killers, and they are propagandists of the first order”. Honestly, I’m not sure how an Al-Qaeda supporter can be a Communist… and he seems to ignore the fact that he himself is a propagandist.
• He predicted a terror attack on US soil in 2007, a tsunami (or a hurricane) in 2006 (there were no hurricanes in the US in 2006), and Doomsday in 1982.
• He accused “pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians” of contributing to the 9/11 attacks (this statement was made 2 days after the attacks).

I’m not saying that Robertson is any better or worse of a person than Wright… but to me, these statements seem just as radical as the ones that have been all over the news recently. Meanwhile, Republican leaders aren’t bothered at all for getting support from these evangelicals; Obama has been hassled a lot for having supporters like Wright and Louis Farrakhan.

Is Wright really any more radical than Robertson?

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