Barack Obama has gone to considerable lengths to distance himself from the inflammatory remarks of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but some remarks are harder to dismiss. When Wright, for example, said the United States government has been complicit in facilitating black genocide, it was hard not to cringe and seek an explanation from the presidential candidate he’s associated with.
Oh, wait, did I say Jeremiah Wright? Actually, this is an argument peddled by the Rev. Rod Parsley, a man John McCain has praised as a “spiritual guide.”
In speeches that have gone largely unnoticed, Parsley (who is white) compares Planned Parenthood, the reproductive care and family planning group, to the Klu Klux Klan and Nazis, and describes the American government as enablers of murder for supporting the organization.
“If I were call for the sterilization or the elimination of an entire segment of society, I’d be labeled a racists or a murderer, or at very best a Nazi,” says Parsley. “That every single year, millions of our tax dollars are funding a national organization built upon that very goal — their target: African Americans. That’s right, the death toll: nearly fifteen hundred African Americans a day. The shocking truth of black genocide.”
He goes on.
“Right now our own government is allowing organizations like Planned Parenthood to legally take the innocent lives of precious baby girls and baby boys and even footing the bill for it all with our tax dollars, turning every single one of us into accessories to murder,” he says.
This comes on the heels of a report from David Corn who noted that the televangelist “called upon Christians to wage a ‘war’ against the ‘false religion’ of Islam with the aim of destroying it.”
Better yet, our old friend John Hagee is back in the news, too.
Greg Mitchell has the story:
In an interview that will appear in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, “It’s true that [John] McCain’s campaign sought my endorsement.”
McCain has attempted to distance himself from some of Hagee’s views, much as Barack Obama is doing in relation to Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But unlike McCain, Obama has not stood on stage with Wright and accepted his accolades this year.
Interviewed by Deborah Solomon, Hagee refused to discuss his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for a gay rights parade in New Orleans, calling it “so far off-base.”
It may seem like a bit of a tangent, but it’s worth noting that the NYT thought to interview Hagee for the Sunday magazine — presumably because of his notoriety as an anti-Catholic, anti-gay, anti-Muslim televangelist — but the New York Times never ran so much as one article about McCain’s controversial association with Hagee. Not one.
Which brings me to the broader point. Obama’s presidential campaign has been undermined, possibly permanently, thanks to the media’s unrelenting fascination with Wright’s controversial sermons. But John McCain has close ties to high-profile evangelical leaders who, among other things, blamed 9/11 on Americans. As a result, McCain has faced no political consequences whatsoever.
I can appreciate the significant differences. Obama has a personal connection to Wright that goes back many years; McCain began sucking up to radical right-wing preachers fairly recently for partisan gain. McCain wasn’t a member of Jerry Falwell’s or Rod Parsley’s congregation, he just sought them out, sang their praises, and refused to denounce any of their scandalous public remarks.
But if major news outlets could at least give McCain’s religious associations some attention — say, one tenth the amount given to Wright — I suspect Americans would be interested to know more about the religious figures McCain chooses to associate with, and the fact that he’s done next to nothing to condemn remarks that most reasonable people would find deeply offensive.
One tenth. That’s all I ask.