The moral issues

In previous posts, we have discussed the "moral" issues deemed most important by the christianists on the right.

Almost without exception, for right wing christianists, the term "moral issues" refers to abortion and homosexuality. Once in awhile, "socialism" is also thrown into the mix, but for the most part moral issues are the holy duo of abortion and homosexuality.

We've mentioned that this is an unholy disregard for other, more significant moral issues, such as preemptive war, stealing from the poor to enrich the rich, denying people their rights under the Constitution, health care, education, poverty, global warming, the environment, etc.


But from our inception as a nation, the major moral issue has revolved around our treatment of minorities. Genocide was our national policy for years as we systematically killed the natives whose land we wanted for our own. Slavery, from the beginning, has hung like a dead weight around our collective necks. And as various immigrant groups found their way to our shores, they were routinely derided, defamed and made to bear the burden of hate.

All of this is racism, which in its multitudinous forms, continues to be a moral issue in this country. That's why the election of Barack Obama, a "mutt," as he called himself today in his first press conference -- half white, half black -- is such a milestone and why it should be a cause for celebration for all Americans. It was a giant step up from the mire of racial hatred.

Anna Quindlen, writing in this week's issue of Newsweek, referred to a speech given by President-elect Obama some months ago. Obama spoke of the problem of race, and about people living with "systemic poverty, bad schools and broken families. Obama said that "Many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow."

No one with a modicum of knowledge about our history would disagree. And as we noted in a previous post, slavery "by another name," which involved the selling of blacks - arrested on bogus charges - to plantation owners and steel mills to be worked until they dropped or died in their shackles, existed in the South until the 1940's.

Quindlen continues: "But Obama said something else in that speech, something both simpler and more profound that has special resonance now that his improbable candidacy has prevailed. He made the political spiritual.

"'In the end, then,' he said, 'what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand--that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.' He asked the American people to be fair and just, to be kind and generous, to put prejudice behind them and be one people because that is, not a legal or social imperative, but a moral one."


It would be nice to hear something from the christianists on the right about the moral issue of racism in our midst, and it would be nice if they could admit that Obama was speaking the truth and praise him for it.

But they're too busy preaching God is exclusive, not inclusive. They're too busy spreading their hate for those who believe differently about abortion -- and many of them lie about Obama's position on abortion, claiming he wants to kill babies born alive after botched abortions! The christianists on the right are too busy spreading their prejudice against gays and lesbians, picking and choosing a couple of bible verses to bolster their animosity.

[As regards socialism, the Book of Acts in the New Testament would seem to support a socialistic system, for it describes the early followers of Jesus as living in a community where all shared what they had with each other. Sounds like socialism, albeit primitive, to me!]


One cannot find any justification in the life or teachings of Jesus as he is presented in the gospels for the hatred expressed by christianists on the right for those we describe today as pro-choice or people born homosexual. In fact, just the opposite is true. The gospel writers are one in their portrayal of Jesus as being especially accepting of those society has cast aside.

The people Jesus really had problems with were the pompous, pious, pretenders to righteousness who failed to see they shared a common humanity with all people, and failed to realize that god's love was unconditional.

If the shoe fits...

Reeking of racism

You can dress it up however you wish. You can say he's a Muslim. You can say he's an Arab. You can decry his "palling around with terrorists." You can whine about something his former pastor said a long time ago. You can bitch about his lack of experience (or the fact he wasn't the mayor of some teeny little burg in the snowy wilderness). You can pretend his birth certificate isn't valid. You can protest he will change our national anthem, or re-arrange the American flag, which he doesn't salute anyway.

There are all sorts of things you can say about President-elect Barack Obama; in fact most of them have been said - over and over again, ad nauseum.

But those things are all a cover for another word that most people are hesitant to speak out loud: he's a n------!


Robin Shulman writes in the Washington Post of a journey to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a town which contains not a few people who still cling to their guns and religion along with hatred of black people.

Shulman spoke with a couple eating breakfast at Denny's the morning after...you know, after "that one" won.

The woman is 62. She wears a diamond-studded cross around her neck.

She says, "I don't believe a black person should be president."

And there you have it. Racism front and center. From someone wearing what has been the symbol of Christianity for 1700 years - since the time of Constantine. Ironically, the person wearing that symbol denies by her words, just like Peter, the savior that cross represents!

Shulman says, "Few people acknowledge racial prejudice as nakedly as" this lady. But it's found in every corner of this Pennsylvania town. Michelle Obama hates her country, says one. Obama can't be trusted, says another.

To be sure, there are many not overtly prejudiced and others who overcame whatever latent prejudice they may have had and voted for Obama because they were convinced he was the best man for the job.

But, in Wilkes-Barre, in Boston, in Atlanta, in Los Angeles, in Houston, in Minneapolis, in Chicago, in Boise, in Sacramento, in Colorado Springs, in Milwaukee, in Cleveland, in Detroit, in St. Louis, and in all the cities and towns in between, racism is alive and well. It may wear different clothes in all these places, but the clothing does not disquise what's underneath.

And sometimes racism rears its ugly head unexpectedly. Julie Myers, the Bush administration's Head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, came under fire in 2007 for attending a "Halloween party honoring a white employee dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and makeup that made him look African-American or Hispanic."

Myers apologized. She's leaving the Bushite family on November 15. Not soon enough!


Fortunately, not merely for Senator Obama, but for our nation, a sufficient number of our citizens rejected the racist claims when they entered the voting booths.


But, to our eternal misfortune, and to our ever-lasting shame, we shall always have people who reek of racism in our midst - those uneducated, mentally-deficient, ignorant, hateful and stupid people, who judge other human beings, not on their merits, but on the color of their skin.

We'll just have to overpower them whenever and wherever they appear - as we did yesterday!

The real Sarah Palin

[AP photo by Brian Wallace]

"According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat's primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would hear her, uttered the slur ['So Sambo beat the bitch!'] and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively. ...

"Besides insulting Obama with a Step-N-'Fetch-It, 'darkie musical' swipe, people who know her says she refers regularly to Alaska's Aboriginal people as 'Arctic Arabs' - efficient, lumping two apparently undesirable groups into one ugly description - as well as the more colourful 'mukluks' along with the totally unimaginative 'f**king Eskimos,' according to a number of Alaskans and Wasillians interviewed for this article."

"[A]n insurance agent in Anchorage who knows the Palin family, said 'The GOP is kind of like organized crime up here. It's corrupt and arrogant. They're all rich because they do sweetheart deals with the oil companies, and they can destroy anyone. And they will, if they have to.'"

There's much more here.

Also, check out the blog, The Immoral Minority here for additional info about Alaska and Ms. Palin.