Over the weekend, President Obama did something that all American presidents are called upon to do. Defend the Constitution of the United States.
One of those tenets is Freedom of Religion. Not amend section A: popular religion [this week] only.
It’s how and why I feel free to tell folks I’m an atheist – or introduce someone in my family as a student of Buddhism – or note in the course of a conversation about San Antonito Chapel down the road that most of my neighbors are Catholics.
But, right-wing nutballs and the proto-fascists who infest the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party go crap out of their mind if Christian godliness and morality ain’t the only way endorsed to fly straight to heaven. Much less catch a tax break from the IRS.
So, combine all the hypocrisy into one big ball of cigar-snot and mealymouthed punditry – and you get this weekend’s tempest in a teabag.
Here’s a copy of the dangerous sedition uttered by Obama.
I’m not getting into cutting and pasting and commenting line-by-line because, frankly, it’s just the usual straight-up rhetoric required of any official who’s trying to explain our Constitution to people who don’t think it’s worth defending. The whole point of having a standard by which to govern a nation is that it is a standard to be upheld – not amended every time someone asks a hard question or a tough challenge comes along.
Our Founding Fathers realized that and fought and died for it. Now, because some terrorist gangsters come along and say our standards are worthless – a certain portion of our population is willing to prove them correct.
@Eidard,
Well Said.
May I use the words as my own, such that the words may be spread?
Are we supposed to keep Catholics from building churches in Oklahoma City – since our best known native terrorist came from a Catholic family?
The correct Constitutional position would be for the Federal Government to have no opinion (Barack can express an opinion but the President should not).
Why should we be surprised at this kind of thing any more? W already fed several amendments through the shredder while he was in office. Since President Obama isn’t willing to shred any more on his own, conservi-tards like this are going to try to do it for him.
Tell ya what… here’s a compromise… Let’s just ban all religion from the United States. Churches, Temples, Mosques, you name it. We’ll deport or shoot all the clergy and bulldoze their buildings. How do ya think you’d feel then Tea Partiers?
Nobody that is against the mosque, err “cultural center”, being built is against it on Constitutional grounds. They are against it on the issue of sensitivity and that maybe 2 blocks from the World Trade Center is not the best spot for it. Obama could have come out and said “Look, there is nothing unconstitutional about building it here, and while I understand there are varying opinions on the subject, it is not something that we are going to back one way or the other. It is a local issue.”
Instead he comes out in full support of it. I am guessing that if the KKK wanted to put of a KKK museum in Harlem that the same people that are wondering why there is outrage would be the first to point out how insensitive it would be, albeit Constitutionally legal.
No work crew in NYC will EVER work on building it, so there really shouldn’t be any worry from those who oppose it that it will ever be built.
“But, right-wing nutballs and the proto-fascists who infest the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party go crap out of their mind if Christian godliness and morality ain’t the only way endorsed to fly straight to heaven.”
What are you really talking about? With the statement above it’s looks like a deep animus to Republicans and Christians. It appears you are going “crap out of your mind” in response.
Don’t worry, you are preaching to the choir on this blog.
I thought this same Constitution allowed us to dissent. You certainly did.
Where is the oft mentioned Democrat tolerance?
Some people just think it might be INSENSITIVE to build that structure there.
And for all those that seem to bundle all religions together, Islam is the only major religion in the world that has canonized in their religious texts the requirement for followers to do harm to non-believers. The claim of the Oklahoma City bombing being done by one what believed in a religion as an example of Christians doing the same is a proof surrogate logical fallacy. There is zero evidence of the church ever instructing McVeigh to bomb anyone. There IS evidence of Imam’s instructing followers to kill non-believers. A current example can be found here – “Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Arifi: The Desire to Shed Blood, Smash Skulls, and Sever Limbs for the Sake of Allah Is an Honor for the Believer”
Good post.
The current belly-aching by the Christian Taliban and their living host, the GOP, is evidence they are losing popularity with the American Sheeple.
Credit to the CT for continuing to fight their losing battle in getting themselves extricated from our government and preserving separation of church and state.
Jeezus, talk about rhetoric….
I guess this isn’t No Agenda.
Well written…This is worth the repost…
Eidard, the constitutionality was NEVER up for debate and that was the ONLY thing that Obama should have said. He chose to get specific about where it should be allowed to be built and that is where he overstepped.
Is it trivial? Perhaps. Would it have been strategic for him to limit his comments? Freaking right!!!
Obama is about to fall into Bush level popularity in only TWO YEARS of time in the WH. The man needs to STFU if he wants to even hold onto the house and the senate this fall. And if his massive foot-in-mouth problems do not stop, he can kiss his 2nd term goodbye.
Politics are vicious and obviously, Obama continues to show that he is not truly cut out for the job.
I know what we can build there… another f’ing bank.
Or how about some other piece of shit shrine that glorifies the soulless fucks that control our country.
Isn’t it weird after ignoring so much of the Constitution, he finally finds in it support for an Islamic matter?
It’s simple, really. If those who want a Mosque will stand up in public and say in both English and Arabic that Hamas is a terrorist organization, that Israel has the same right to exist as does any Islamic nation, that Sharia law is secondary to American law, and that all other religions will be respected equally with Islam, then Americans, as tolerant people, will welcome that Mosque- and that Muslim community – into the broader community of faith.
A friendly reminder to all. The site of the community center will be only a tad closer to ground zero than it will be to the site on which George Washington gave his inaugural address. Let’s respect the founders of this once great nation as much as we respect the victims on 9/11.
Let’s uphold the constitution.
Oh, and for any nutjobs who come along saying it’s a mosque and that these are the same people who attacked us, let’s also remember that this community center has a swimming pool. Muslim fundamentalist jihadists are highly unlikely to approve of the near total nudity, by their standards, that accompanies a swimming pool.
Another hate filled rant by our favorite mentally ill Eideard!
Of course, as usual, he misses the point completely.
Fortunately Mextli, ethanol, Jason, and NotACleric did.
Watching this administration is like watching the Hindenburg burn – in slow motion.
They can build their church, just build it somewhere else. There is no reason to have it right there near ground zero. That would be like us wanted to erect a statue of our president in the middle of Hiroshima.
This issue hasn’t a damn thing to do with the Constitution. Long ago it was established that communities can control where buildings or businesses are located; most don’t allow schools in the middle of industrial parks or strip clubs next to schools — the first for practical reasons, the second because the people find it offensive.
And why do you hypocrites on this blog think “freedom of religion” only applies to Islam? You have no problem bashing Christians or Jews, but rally-round Islamists.
is it just me, or does that link say “was destroyed during the September 11, 1981 terror attacks.”
1981?
Spot on!
@Smith:
To whom are you referring with “you hypocrites on this blog”?
Nice one Publius!!!!
In full account, we are all hypocrites but it just seems that the majority of the regular bloggers and commentators here at DU are extra specially capable of hypocrisy at the drop of a hat.
I hope they DO build this muslim church right there in mid town Manhattan. And then some terrorists drive a plane into it.
Fair is fair.
Federal government should stay out of local issues and stick to the national issues.
I just “hope” that BHO remembers this when the next issue about the Catholic and the Jewish religion occurs. I doubt it though.
If only the President WOULD support the Constitution! What a bullshit post. Give me a break, Eideard. If I remember correctly, you aren’t even a citizen of the United States. Or am I wrong? And I agree with #9. This is beginning to look like the New York Times with Eideard being given the keys to the lithograph machine.
Why are they giving a mosque the green light when the Greek church that was destroyed during 9/11 has not yet been allowed to rebuild.
With all the gnashing of knuckles by the left and the lib newspapers trying to prove that Obama really, really, really does believe in the Constitution…
Well, where there is smoke…
from Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 222–230
The [media] doth protest too much, methinks.
But please keep it going. It’s great PR for Obama’s re-election attempt.
Of course they have the freedom to build a mosque there. I just hope others exercise their freedom to build a Synagogue on one side and a pig farm and slaughterhouse on the other.
Ain’t freedom a bitch.
The terrorists of 2001 said they were defending Islam. I have a feeling, though, that it was more like:
“In spite of what you think, we (Arabs) are not just a bunch of jibbering nomads herding goats any more”.
On September 12th of that year I heard a Saudi diplomat say: “Oh we’re just jealous of you Americans because you’ve been more successful on the ‘world stage’ than we”. In other words, it was as much about perceived cultural inadequacy as it was a religious issue.
Perhaps maybe they just want their caliphate back or something. Who can blame them, really. Wouldn’t we Americans feel the same way if in the future some other culture ran over us with a superior technology like that?
I’d say let them build mosques anywhere they want (personally I find some of them quite nice looking architecturally), and recommend they dump the jihad training or whatever and get used to the tradition of having benign events in them i.e. all-American church suppers, weddings, choir practice or whatever.