http://culogin.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/507898.html
Double standard II?
POSTED: March 30, 2008
Fulminations in the press and by various letters writers to this newspaper against the Rev. Jeremiah Wright somehow neglect to mention the equally inflammatory and hate-filled remarks from white conservative preachers, the ones who have endorsed John McCain.
McCain sought out the endorsement of televangelist John Hagee, and appears on stage with him. Pastor Hagee has characterized the Catholic Church as “The Great Whore” and has stated that Catholics worship the anti-Christ. And, despite his professed love for Israel, he has repeatedly promoted nuclear war between Iran and America/Israel, with an eye to the destruction of Israel in an Armageddon, paving the way for the Christian Rapture, which would leave Jews behind to be destroyed.
Pastor Hagee wrote in 2006 that Jews brought anti-semitism and the Holocaust upon themselves. He also stated that Hurricane Katrina was God’s way of punishing sinful New Orleans.
The Rev. Rod Parsley, who endorses McCain, preaches that the United States was founded to destroy Islam—not Islamic terrorists, but the entire religion. And both McCain endorsers Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell stated that 9/11 was God’s punishment for a sinful United States just two days after that terrible event.
McCain has distanced himself from the more hateful words these white evangelical preachers have uttered, just as Senator Obama has distanced himself from those of Rev. Wright. Unlike Obama, McCain has kept these people on his campaign as “spiritual advisors.”
There seems to be a double standard here – that it is perfectly fine for conservative white preachers to say hateful things, but not when black preachers utter similar inflammatory statements.
My hope is that sensible people everywhere will judge candidates by their own words, and not those of the various religious people who are associated with them.
Ellen Tinsman
Trout Run
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