John Hagee

Pastor John Hagee, who has endorsed Sen. John McCain, reiterated his belief that the devastation of Hurricane Katrina was brought on by a "sinful city" and its plans for a "homosexual rally."

I find it amazing that people are willing to accept such a grotesque construction of God—one that would cause so much suffering to so many people out of a distaste for, of all things, gay pride. One would think Hagee's followers would take great offense to such a blatant and malicious perversion of the thing they hold most sacred.

And what of John McCain? Does John McCain support the practice of contorting and corrupting the idea of God in order to advance a political agenda of hatred and bigotry? He may have distanced himself from some of Hagee's comments, but why has he not rejected and denounced the endorsement of John Hagee altogether? Does that mean that he secretly believes this stuff too? How much of an influence would Hagee be on John McCain should he win the presidency? What would a presidency governed by this sort of ideology—an ideology of hate—mean for the rest of us?

Most importantly, does John McCain really believe that the victims of Katrina got what they deserved? These are legitimate concerns, and the people of Louisiana as well as everyone else affected by Hurricane Katrina have a right to know whether or not John McCain loathes us as much as his friends do.

Rev. Jeremiah Wright: "Different Does Not Mean Deficient"

The entire video interview with Bill Moyers as well as a complete transcript can be found here. As always, Moyers does a great job of cutting through the sensational in order to get to the truth. Jeremiah Wright, in my opinion, comes off as intelligent and sincere. After watching this interview, the media's treatment of him seems absurd.




Wright also addressed the NAACP this weekend:




Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Update—Comments following Monday's speech by Rev. Jeremiah Wright refueled the outrage:



The entire speech can be found here, here, and here. The follow-up question and answer session can be found here, here, and here.

Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama responded to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's latest appearance with this:



In all honesty, with the exception of blaming the US government for AIDS (an a few other comments) I've found most of what I've heard from Wright to be acceptable—even reasonable. I do, however, wonder why he's decided to fan the flames lately. In light of this, I can understand the need for Obama to distance himself from Wright. I just hope he hasn't taken it so far that this escalates into weeks or even months of public bickering. I suppose that this could end up being good for his campaign (in the long-run), but it certainly wouldn't be good for the rest of us.

Images have a long lifespan.

Michael Moore during a blog post endorsing Obama:

"Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

Yes, that is President Clinton and Rev. Wright at the White House.