Way to feed into the bigotry, Mr. Obama.
The right wing has been sending out silly emails claiming that Barack Obama is a Muslim, and therefore should not be President. That’s false, and it’s bigotry, and Barack Obama should confront it.
The way to confront this sort of bigotry, however, is to denounce the bigotry, not just to deny that oneself in particular should not be the target of the bigotry. Barack Obama could have chosen to say, “I’m not Muslim, but so what if I was? It doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be Christian to be President.”
That’s not what Barack Obama did. Barack Obama crafted a memo declaring, “Senator Obama is a committed Christian who found Christ long before entering politics and has been outspoken about his faith ever since.” Then, he had the memo signed by three Christian preachers and a nun.
It’s as if, Barack Obama applied for membership in a country club, was told by the receptionist that he couldn’t apply because he’s black, and then said in return that, “It’s okay. My mother was white, so I can be a member.”
Barack Obama’s memo implicitly accepts the premise of the bigoted rumor-mongering of the right wing: That Muslims should not be allowed to become President, that non-Christians are not worthy of the White House.
Barack Obama has gotten deeper and deeper into this sort of thing the more that he’s campaigned, getting downright cynical about his identity politics. He’s embraced his father’s blackness, but he’s rejected his father’s identity as an atheist.
Of course, it’s Barack Obama’s personal right to choose not to be an atheist. But why must Barack Obama preach at us during his political speeches about why atheism is unacceptable, telling us that we need to accept Christianity: “You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away – because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey.”
Mr. Obama, I don’t need to come to church, and I don’t need to embrace Christ. I wish you’d stop using your political power to keep saying that I do.
I can see that part of Barack Obama still wants to respect the cultural diversity of the United States of America. He tries to mix in conspicuous displays of his Christianity with statements that he’ll respect the separation of Chruch and State.
In the end, Barack Obama fails. He fails, because he’s tempted by the Christ card. He’s found that it’s just too easy to gain the support of Christian voters by sounding more like a preacher than a politician, and dropping the words Jesus, God, Christ, and church into his speeches. He’s come to fear that voters will reject him if he doesn’t prove to them that he is America’s Best Christian, even better than Betty Bowers. So, he brings out his Super Christian Certificate, signed by three preachers and a nun, as his badge of acceptability.
Barack Obama has accepted that fear, and in doing so, he has become a part of it.
Barack Obama has come to be unable to open his mouth without pandering to religion. He argues that secular, non-religious speech is inadequate and inferior to religious speech, saying, “…if we scrub language of all religious content, we forfeit the imagery and terminology through which millions of Americans understand both their personal morality and social justice. Imagine Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address without reference to ‘the judgments of the Lord. ‘Or King’s I Have a Dream speech without references to ‘all of God’s children.’
Well, I can imagine those speeches without the references to religion. My morality doesn’t require gods or messiahs or churches or holy books. I don’t think that the logic in Dr. Martin Luther King’s argument for togetherness depended upon everyone being Christians together. Rather, King’s argument depended upon everyone willing to accept the right of other people to be different from them.
That difference has to include religion. America cannot be politically united under a Christian tent, as Barack Obama seems to want it to be, because there are too many non-Christians, and because our democracy is dependent upon the idea that religion should not be a test for public office.
Barack Obama seems to have forgotten that. When the right wing comes along and offers him a religious test for public office, Barack Obama doesn’t refuse the test. He accepts the test. He tries to pass the test, by showing his certificate, signed by three preachers and a nun, proving that he is a Super Christian.
Once, I was excited about the possibility of an Obama for President campaign. Not any more. Barack Obama doesn’t bring me hope. He brings me religious pandering.
You lost me, Mr. Obama.
