Obama's winning hand on religion - Religious Right - Salon.com

It is well known through 'conventional wisdom' that God only favors the republicans. He named them "God's Own Party" in the first place, way back in the days when he gave Moses the 11 commandments (10 commandments plus the extra 11th commandment that St. Reagan brought back into the conservative consciousness several decades ago). So it's as clear and factual as a typical Fox News story that God is exclusively a right winger. The right wingers have declared this to be the case in their hearts and minds, and their god has no choice but to comply with the way they fashion him to be.

And god is most important on the deity scale anyway, which is why the right mostly ignores Christ's teachings and other biblical minor details like treatment for the poor, the weak, the alien, those in prison, the hungry. You know, treatment of the least among us that Jesus said reflected on us and would be considered the same thing as treatment of him. But that takes hate and selfishness and makes them seem like bad things instead of self-righteous anger, and requires us to love our neighbors as ourselves, so Jesus' statements need to either be downgraded or else flatly ignored.

Instead, there must be a different frame for christianity, where greed is good, wars are always just if there is an American flag in the fight, poor people - including children - deserve their lot because they're all lazy people who want handouts. One's worth in this world should only be based on how much material success they achieve rather than the content of their heart, gluttony is no longer a deadly sin but instead is a sign of affluence (only if you're not poor and on handouts, as mentioned above), bearing false witness is showing a win-at-all-costs attitude that god really prefers even though he didn't say so explicitly, everyone should only be concerned with safety and security for their individual selves by loving god with their words alone - showing love of god through actions is the same as trying to earn your way into heaven, so all that matters is what is said and not how one lives their life. And loving one's neighbor was a misinterpretation of Jesus' words - he actually meant to say that anyone who disagrees with you should be ridiculed, threatened, excluded from society, attacked, imprisoned, tortured, and hopefully killed, because god wants it that way.

And pharisees got a bad rap back in Jesus day. Actually, they were the true keepers of the way to god, and thankfully their spirit has remained to this day where it is kept alive and strengthened by the followers of their way, which is now synonymous with God's way.

Nope, Obama cannot claim to know god or be a man of faith. His views of God do not fit with the view that exists within the hardcore politco-religious true believers in God's Own Party. /s

The only war being waged is being created by the Catholic church. No surprise there when one considers its history of condemnation and subjugation against those who do not and will not practice this particular faith and its outdated edicts.

This is America, land of the free, but the Catholic Church and certain politicians are eroding and removing freedoms and liberties the American people are entitled to under the Constitution. The Constitution is what President Obama must follow in regards to making policies that concern all Americans.

The Catholic church has many issues within that they have consistently refused to acknowledge. Child molestations and corruption has become rampant within this organization. Yet, none in the upper echelon have been brought to justice for these criminal acts. They use the donations and subsidies provided by their members and taxpayers to live in luxury, pay off molested victims and buy politicians to further their "special interests" that do not benefit anyone but this organization.

Mr. President, do not bow down to this special interest group. This is not a war against religion. It is a war against the Constitutional rights of all Americans citizens who wish to live their lives without religious interference!

Obama will roll over on the Catholic contraceptive issue.

olicies based on science and reason are the best way

I think we should change our anti american motto, to this one. IT should also be a federal law, that trumps states. And we should start putting it on our money right away.

and sorry the "in god we trust" which was added because right wingers were pissing in their pants over communists IS unamerican. This country is about freedom, FOR EVERYONE TO BE WHO THEY WANT TO BE. It is not about assimilation, or freedom to be any denomination of christian. WE are supposed to be free to be atheists to say "IN SCIENCE WE TRUST". You can giggle all you want and say "god" is a general god and we arent talking about the christian god, but we all know you are. It has nothing to do with tradition or america. It has to do with the religious hanging a cross on americans front door and saying "THIS PLACE IS ALL OURS" and if you dont believe everything we do, you are not welcome and that is the complete opposite of what america was supposed to be

The solution to this and other problems with our health care finance system is staring us in the face.

Single-payer, universal coverage among other things separates church and state quite nicely.

With the number of Catholics in the world the loss of one 84 year old does not shown representation of the church as a whole.

Catholics have no leg to stand on with this issue. No Catholic is being asked to use contraception.

When a catholic owned institution wants to act like and profit like a secular entity they must be governed like one.

They employ non-catholics at those institutions and to take away their freedoms by applying the dictates of the Vatican would be absolutely medieval.

Is the Church in the Business of Religion or the Religion of Business?

The Religion of Business is to make profit$ and should abide by the labor laws of business, and taxe$.

The Business of Religion is distribute a doctrine of mere MEN who claim to be the messenger of God's Word , to convert hearts and minds to follow as sheep.

Contraception deprives the Catholic Church of Children to molest!

UVA

Absolutely! I forgot about that one!

Listening to progressive radio this morning they are quite worried about this. I personally agree with pill being available. But I am an Atheist. It will be interesting how this works out. Cause even if 60% of Cath women use BC how many will admit it in front of their church and or go against it. 76% of the US is Religious in one aspect.

I've heard the GOP say some very uncharitable, heinous things about our President, liberals and woman's rights....so it is hard for me to grasp their holier than thou attitude on contraception.

President Barack Obama must not bend down to ANY religion.

By standing firm, he has the chance to put religion back into its place.

By caving, he empowers these magical organizations, whose own members in the majority, do not support many of the organizations rules, specifically when it comes to a woman's body.

I don't get it. Twenty-eight states already require health insurance plans to cover contracept­ives; 8 of those states require it with no exemptions­, not even for churches or any other religious institution. In fact many major Catholic universiti­es and hospitals, even if they are not located in one of the 28 states that require them to cover contracept­ives for employees, do so.

So where was the church screaming about this then?

Here's how this helps The Obama Re-Election campaign:

1. It exposes Mitt Romney to fresh flip-flopper charges - Back in 2005, a strongly pro-choice Romney was already "demanding that insurance companies cover contraceptives." This is in video from speeches he made.

2. Republican candidates are infighting over the issue
Instead of focusing on Obama, Republicans are wounding each other over the contraception mandate. Rick Santorum has used the issue to "level one of his harshest attacks on Mitt Romney. According to Santorum, Romney "trounced" on the fundamental right to religious freedom" with similar measures in Massachusetts. Romney's campaign accuses Santorum of twisting the facts.

3. And many Catholics actually agree with Obama
While more than 150 Roman Catholic bishops have criticized Obama's birth control mandate, a recent Public Religion Research Institute study found that American Catholics themselves "overwhelmingly support the new rules," says Lauren Fox at U.S. News & World Report. In fact, six in 10 U.S. Catholics support the requirement, making it even more popular among Catholics than in the general population.

Until very recently, I had never seen an ad that begs for Catholics to come back to the church. Now there are dating sights for Christians. God is telling them to join a dating service. But God is telling them that it is their time to choose a partner.

Give me a break.

It's a shame that anyone running for public office has to beg for support from the fake christians in this country. They make up over 70% of the population, so you can't get elected without their support. Too many plastic puppets running our government due to this. Even if you are sane, you have to pretend to be insane enough to believe there is an invisible man in the sky who is going to judge all of us when we die. Hell, if people are so scared of this invisible man, why don't they live according to the Bible's teachings? Hardly any of them do. There are more atheists than there are real Christians in this country and the world. I would like to see people quit pretending to believe in this childish story about God and Jesus and get on with the real issues or at least start living according to the Bible's teachings. According to the Bible, a rich person can not go to heaven and all we have running our country are rich people. Jesus was all about helping the poor and providing health care for the sick but you would never guess that if you pay attention to the phonies in charge of Christianity in our churches. According to most fake christians, all you have to do to get to heaven is give all the money you can at church on Sunday so the preacher can deliver it to the invisible man but most of all you must hate gay people even though these words are not in the Bible. I know rich people are condemned in the Bible, but this is never mentioned in Sunday sermons. I would love to see real Christians stand up to the people who have hijacked christianity in our country.

Is our Country only Catholic? What if a Church doesn't believe in any medical treatment? Do we have to allow that also?

Oregon doctors have said that Alayna Wyland, an 18-month-old with a massive growth covering her left eye, may go blind because her parents refused to get her medical treatment on religious grounds.

Today jury selection continues in the trial of Timothy and Rebecca Wyland, who have been charged with first-degree criminal mistreatment of their child, only days after the state House passed a bill to be tougher on faith-healing parents.

The Wylands, who are 43 and 22, respectively, and are members of the Followers of Christ Church, told authorities they believed that prayer and anointing oils would heal their daughter's hemangioma, an abnormal growth of blood vessels that was occluding her vision.

In the past two years, Oregon's Clackamas County has prosecuted two other couples from the same church whose children died from untreated ailments. One, Jeff and Marci Beagley, were convicted of criminally negligent homicide last year and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

Their 16-year-old son, Neil, died of complications from an untreated urinary tract blockage.

"With an adult who refuses medical help, it's not a problem -- it's one of the freedoms we have in this country," said Gordon Melton, director of the California-based Institute for the Study of American Religions. "But if it's a child, the state has an interest in the child remaining healthy and becoming an adult. The court can step in and assume parental control."

Followers of Christ is an independent evangelical church that emerged in the 19th century and now has about 5,000 to 10,000 members, according to Melton.

The Catholic church is overloaded with hypocrits. More than half the states have had this program for many years and not a word from the bishops!

Now John Boehner is threatning to pass a bill because the President is violating the constitution - but is absolutely NO constitutional issue here. This is purely cheap politics and the church has been busted on all counts.

The good news is...the only reason we're talking about contraceptives is because the economy is getting better and they don't want to give the president any credit for that!