Obama's flip-flops are growing worrisome

I’m worried about Obama. It’s not the usual right-wing bombast (he’s an anti-Israeli-crypto-Muslim). In fact, my problems are the opposite of theirs. Now that the nomination is surely his, he’s taken some “centrist” positions in a vain hope to win over moderate Republican support.

First it was agreeing with the Supreme Court’s gun decision. That strict constructionalists failed to notice the words referring to the maintaince of a well regulated militia as the raison d’être of the Second Amendment’s very limited acquiescence to individuals bearing arms amazes. In 1973 the Court said, “Let the slaughter intensify, legally” and it did. Now the Justices are saying it again, and it will. And Obama supports them. Narrowly the case was about whether people in Washington, DC had the right to a loaded gun in their house for self defense and a rifle for hunting, but the chuckleheads who constitute the NRA are going to take this as the opening shot to bring home an alleged right for anyone not yet convicted of a crime to pack a rod.

Then it was his advocacy of federal funds going to faith-based groups. That sound you hear is Thomas Jefferson rolling over in his grave, or maybe it’s the wall of separation between church and state cracking. Or both. Have we learned nothing from the Jim Jones fiasco? You remember Jim. He established Jonesville in the jungles of Guyana after first conning such luminaries as Vice President Walter Mondale and First Lady Rosalynn Carter, and then when his frauds were becoming public he had an investigating congressman and his entourage murdered and then ordered the mass suicide of his 900 Kool-Aid-drinking-faith-based-community. And now in his swing to the right Obama wants to give money to people who on the one hand say “We will use it wisely” and on the other object to government scrutiny of how they spend money—based on their constitutional right of separation of church from state.

Not that Obama isn’t getting pilloried from those with whom he is trying to make friends on the right. He is. When he spoke of giving federal funds to religious groups he hedged. “First, if you get a federal grant, you can’t use that grant money to proselytize to the people you help, and you can’t discriminate against them—or against the people you hire—on the basis of their religion.” Bill Donohue (I wrote about him in the December 8, 2006 edition of the Voice & Herald, you may recall) shouted “Fraud!” Donohue, who fronts the “Catholic League,” fulminated: “What Obama wants is to secularize the religious workplace.” He argues that Obama’s position is “a body blow to religious groups that apply for federal funds.”

And in this Donohue may be right (I hate to write that). Obama, who billed himself in this specious speech as “someone who used to teach constitutional law” ought to know better. Part of the reason for the separation of church and state is actually to protect religion from the state. If government can impose a requirement that religious institutions can not insist that people hired share their religious convictions and sensibilities than government would, in effect, be delivering the body blow of which Donohue protests. Oh what a tangled web Obama weaves when first he practices to, to what? To deceive? Maybe.

And has he changed his position on bringing the troops back from Iraq within 16 months of his taking the oath of office? I don’t know. He says “yes” and explains “no.” He challenges those such as me who hold him to our standards. I’ve been saying these things all along, he says; we weren’t listening. Ah, the fault dear reader is not in the man but in ourselves, for we were so desperate for change that we failed to pay attention. Is that what Obama is saying?

Not that John McCain has won my support. He is a Republican. George W. Bush is a Republican. Under Bush, though warned, we were attacked, we’ve fought the wrong enemy, spending trillions of dollars and thousands of lives while the price of fuel has skyrocketed, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, the stock market is in free fall and the Taliban is on the rise. McCain is trying to put as much distance between himself and Bush as he can, but he’s still a Republican and while someday that emblem may not be a stigma, it is today. Just ask former Senator Lincoln Chaffee.

William A. Donohue, and the “CATHOLIC LEAGUE for Religious and Civil Rights”

The Iraq war is over. Well, no, it’s not that Iraqis have stopped killing Americans and each other; that continues unabated, it’s that there is now near unanimity that the war was a disastrous mistake from the beginning and only getting worse. But there is a new struggle to replace it. It was brought home to me by a series of disassociated articles in last week's New York Times all of which had as their theme the conflict between religion and secular society.

The piece that really set me going was an advertisement appearing on the November 28 op ed page written by William A. Donohue, president of an outfit called the “CATHOLIC LEAGUE for Religious and Civil Rights” whose logo contains a phallic sword, rampant, emblazoned on a shield with the point penetrating the crest. Surely this is a man who each morning must decide whether to wear his brown shirt or if the black is still sufficient. He tells us that the United States is 85% Christian (which, he informs, means we are more Christian than India is Hindu and Israel is Jewish) and that 96 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. “So,” he asks indignantly, “why do we have to tippy-toe around the religious meaning of Christmas every December?”

Let’s stop here for a minute and study the math. 85% of America is Christian? Really? Does Il Donohue know that large segments of right wing Protestants don’t consider Catholics to be Christian at all? Even if we do concede that Catholics are Christians, a full 11% of Americans who are not Christian celebrate Christmas? They do? Religiously, as opposed to decorating their stores to increase sales? And 97% of Americans say that are not offended by Christmas celebrations? The Gallup people didn’t poll me. Did they you? So, what is it that Donohue and his group want? He’s not entirely clear, but apparently he’s opposed to “the neutering of Christmas” which extends to banishing Nativity scenes from public squares, the expulsion of the baby Jesus from crèches not otherwise forbidden, something about banning red and green at school functions and the censoring of “Silent Night” at municipal concerts, etc.

Oh, the horror of it all.

So as not to be misunderstood, Herr Donohue reminds that “it is important to recognize that the few who are complaining do not belong to any one religious or ethnic group—there is plenty of diversity to be found among the ranks of the disaffected.” He means Jews. I don't remember Hindus or Muslims protesting public displays of religious Christmas, but Jews aplenty have for years let their feelings be known. Dirty Christ killers that we are.

Fairness, Donohue informs, dictates that their intolerance (he means our intolerance, gentle—not gentile—reader) “should not trump the rights of the rest of [ready for this?] us.” Us. Not you. He then goes on to extol, or at least to justify, excluding people—Mother's Day, Father's Day, Veteran's Day, Black History Month, Gay Pride Parades—they all exclude someone. All of those are religious, William? Who knew?

By celebrating Christmas, he states in his peroration, “we” (he means not Jews) are celebrating diversity! We should not let “the cultural fascists get their way this year.” Psychologists call it “projection,” the ascribing to others the sins of ourselves. It's a kind of projectile vomiting of inner conflict. If Mr. Donohue is looking for fascists, his mirror is his best source. His rhetoric is identical to Mussolini's in the 1920s and '30s. The will of the people as expressed in me, Il Duce, must not tolerate any dissent!

What do we know of Mr. Donohue? A quick Google search turns up some fascinating data. Here's an interesting item, one among many: “Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular.” Well, I can't speak for Hollywood, but I am a secular Jew and I hate neither Christianity nor Catholicism in particular, though I don't have a particular fondness for Mr Donohue or his ilk. I can't speak for Jesus, either, but as he was a co-religionist, perhaps I can guess what he would think of those who would impose religious values on all. The Catholics I know were appalled when the Supremes ruled that a nativity scene, when surrounded by secular objects like Santas and reindeer is just as secular. They are not; they are objects of devotion which should adorn front yards, and churches. Happy Holidays, Bill!