I've been fairly quiet when it comes to the whole Obama-Wright controversy, and while I'm very proud of what was said by Barack Obama, there were things said, and done by the media that left me with a vague feeling of being... oh disturbed.
Then it hit me all once, before the speech actually, that what I was seeing was essentially the first amendment being used to CENSOR the first amendment.
More below the fold...
Let us consider now that all men (women) of good (or bad, given an individual's opinion) faith are now under notice.
By what the networks and cable news did, and the blogs as well, we are not by any means innocent in this my friends, we have now entered a period of what I call "Blowback Censorship".
By acting this out, those on the pulpit have now been told that any words they utter will now and in the future be used to harm any member of their congregation should any one of them wish to run for public office.
Don't get me wrong here please.
Like it or not, religion has influenced politics for as long as religion and politics have existed.
One of the most famous of these actions against the preisthood was with Thomas Beckett and King Henry II. Now that was one hell of a way to censor a priest!
But this is a much more subtle approach to the idea, and while it will most likely not shut any one who's been before the crowds for many years, (having the backing of the church in their experiences), it could be something that may affect the less experienced.
It is censorship. It is saying that peoples words will be watched, it is saying that they will be used to attack people who the speaker only knows as a part of their congregation.
And, it is wrong.
We have the right as citizens of the United States to say to a man or woman of God and Goddess, "What you said was wrong, let me show you why."
We do not have the right to say, "I'm going to use your words to hurt people you care about. I'm going to use your words to control your congregation."
The implied point of the latter statement is that they should perhaps "Watch what they say..."
I am not a Godly man. I do not feel anything for the church of any denomination.
It is not our right to shut the churches down, nor is it the right to tell those who lead any congregation to 'shut up', or to as I just put it, 'watch what they say'. We do have the right to say that their words were wrong. That is our freedom of speech. We have the right to point out such mad thoughts as John Hagee are divise to say the very least.
But it becomes a subtle insinuation that I pray will not continue if the media decides that this was a cool campaign tactic without at least seeing what the cost is.
Censorship is that cost. It is subtle, it is unsaid, but it is very much there. It is one thing for the politicians to go after the priests for their words.
But it is perhaps the saddest thing to see the very foundation of freedom of speech, the media, to start attacking the preachers by attacking their congregational members.
I mean, what's next. Will a presidential candidate start being attacked for being oh... a Catholic... or a Mormon.
Oh... wait...
But that is a general feeling of a religion, it does not say that the given speakers of said religion should be careful what they say, at least directly.
It does say that the populace not of a given religion has the right to feel uneasy for the moral directions a candidate will take the country.
At this point, that is much of how this is being seen, can a country follow a man who's church thinks that God should Damn America.
But it's more than that. For it does not attack a general denomination, but rather, a specific person making specific statements.
And in that subtle difference lies all the damnation.