Since the November shootings at Fort Hood and the botched attack by the Underpants Bomber, the Right is foaming at the mouth about "political correctness" accorded to Muslims. The Associated Press reported yesterday that U.S. security experts are considering a "lifting of the U.S. prohibitions against profiling."
Yet political correctness (or is it expediency?) seems to have blinded the Right to the national security threat breeding in their own ranks.
European Muslims aren't the only ones stalking political cartoonists they don't like; a cartoonist who mocked the Tea Baggers is now getting death threats.
And what about the homegrown fatwa against the President of the United States? Where were the self-appointed watchdogs of homeland security last fall when extremist Christians, pumped by the Right's rabid anti-Obama rhetoric, began circulating a plethora of T-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and teddy bears inciting religious folk to pray for (the death of) Obama?
These operatives were shrewd enough to limit their rhetoric to Psalm 109:8:
Let his days be few and let another take his office.
But only the Politically Correct would assume they don't know the rest of the Old Testament curse:
Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
On November 16, the Christian Science Monitorspeculated whether the viral "Pray for Obama" campaign should be considered "funny or sinister."
For many, the slogan is just a humorous way to express disapproval for President Obama. It's been tweeted and retweeted by Obama critics with messages like "too funny" and "an excellent prayer for America."
You want funny? Try a gauze-wrapped underpants-explosive-device.
As at Fort Hood, a little research would have revealed that for some fundamentalist Christians and anti-abortion activists, the slogan is deadly serious. Prayer for Obama's death surfaced in June, following the murder of an abortion doctor in Kansas. Wiley Drake, a Baptist reverend in Buena Park, California, boasted to the media that he had prayed for Tiller's death. He then announced that he is also praying for Obama's death, a practice he calls imprecatory prayer. In his words:
Imprecatory prayer is agreeing with God, and if people don't like that, they need to talk to God. Watch video
Officials from the Southern Baptist Church immediately distanced from Drake, stating that he is outside the mainstream. But where was the righteous condemnation from celebrity Christians like Mike Huckabee, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin and all the pious Republican Congressmen who pray for the demise of healthcare reform on national TV?
Has political correctness blinded them to signs of radical extremism? Are they too timid to call for profiling?
Two months after Drake's inflammatory remarks, Psalms 109 surfaced as a death-curse against the President in a Baptist church near Phoenix, the spiritual haunt of Christopher Broughton. As you may recall, Broughton is the young libertarian who turned up at Obama's Veterans of Foreign Wars event in Phoenix armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.
The night before the event, Broughton attended his pastor's now infamous "I hate Obama" sermon. Watch it on Video (starting at minute 13)
Barak Obama's coming to town tomorrow morning, and I'm gonna tell you something...I HATE Barak Obama...And I'm gonna prove this from the Bible tonight: why I should hate Barak Obama, why God wants me to hate Barak Obama, why God hates Barak Obama...
About 15 minutes into the 60-minute rant, Pastor Steven Anderson cited the Old Testament curse:
Now here's what's interesting, turn to Psalm 109...I don't even have to do much preaching tonight, because this sermon kind of preaches itself...This is David speaking against the evil doer, cursing him in prayer..."Let his days be few and let another take his office, let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow..."
The next morning, a dozen men armed with assault rifles and other weapons mingled in the crowd outside the Obama event. The alarming incident landed Anderson's church (or is it a terror cell?) on the media map. In fact, according to a local reporter, Anderson himself told CNN that Broughton was in his parish. CNN later reported that a controversial on-site interview with Broughton by a libertarian talk show host was "staged" for publicity. Christopher Broughton told a Phoenix television station:
I actually moved to the area because this church was preaching the message I believe in. Watch video
Kind of like the would-be terrorists from Virginia who flew to Pakistan to find a guru?
The Politically Correct may take comfort in a single line in Anderson's sermon stating that he will not "physically take up arms" because "we wrestle not against flesh and blood." Yet incitements to violence were the thrust of the hour-long invective. And there is little doubt that, in the murkiest backwaters of the Christian Right, that's the gist of Pray for Obama.
So this is my prayer tonight for Barak Obama...this is what I'm going to pray, because this is the only prayer that applies to him...Break his teeth, oh God, in his mouth, you know? As a snail which melteth, let him pass away...
The pastor drew a parallel between salt that melts a snail and saline solutions used in abortions, calling Obama a murderer who deserves to reap what he sows. He then lashed out at mainstream preachers:
...you're gonna tell me that I'm supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide, who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial birth and all these other things?...
No, I'm not gonna pray for his good, I'm gonna pray that he dies and goes to hell...When I go to bed tonight, Steven L. Anderson is going to pray for Barak Obama to die and go to hell...
Anderson takes aim at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United Nations, greedy bankers, even George Bush and Sean Hannity. But his target is clear.
...There's no peace when the whoredoms and wickedness of Obama continue, and I'm gonna tell you something, you'll be called a traitor...you'll be called treacherous, you'll be called both enemy combatant and terrorist...but we are not revolutionaries...Obama is overturning the Constitution, overturning the Declaration of Independence, overturning everything we believe as a country...he is the revolutionary, and it's a socialist, communist revolution...we are the counter-revolutionaries saying no, we don't want change...
How fast does hate travel in the politically-charged Right Wing?
Within two months, Anderson's curse traversed the Internet and (with what resources?) wound up on commercially produced teddy bears and T-shirts. Frank Schaeffer, author of Patience with God, believes Right Wing fringe elements are "trawling for assassins." Watch video
If so, signs are evident to all but the Politically Correct.
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ADDITIONAL EXCERPTS:
Now some people may not like this sermon...It's not about what people like...It's about what the Bible says...You say, well you're not loving...then why did I go out today in Phoenix, Arizona in the heat and go preach the Gospel and get somebody saved?...And if I don't love you, then why am I preaching you the truth?
...if you think God is in control of this country, you're insane. A madman is in control of this country...there are rulers of darkness in high places...And let me name one for you: Barak Obama is one of the rulers of the darkness of this world...
...Barak Obama has brought lewdness in America...America has become lewd. What does lewd mean. L-E-W-D. Obscene, right? Dirty. Filthy. Homosexuality. Promiscuity. Everything that's on the billboards, the TV. Sensuality. Lewdness...we don't even know what lewdness means anymore, because we're just surrounded by it, we're inundated by it...
And so I hope you understand tonight why I hate Barak Obama...God does not love the pedophile and the rapist and the bloody and deceitful worker of inequity...he said he hates 'em, and I believe the Bible tonight. That he hates 'em. I think God looks down and says, man, I hate that guy...
Now I'm preaching against Barak Obama, it's not all him. But he is just the tip of the sword, okay, he is the figurehead of spiritual wickedness in high places...and he's comin' to Arizona tomorrow...if I went there, I'd be there to say "Down with Obama." I'd' be down there protesting Obama, that's all. But I'm not really a protest kind of guy. I'm a preacher. And so I'm preaching you what the Bible teaches tonight, take it and let it sink down into your ears...Go home and read the chapter...go home and read the Psalms...
Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer...please protect us dear God, we don't want to be enslaved, we don't want to be persecuted...we want to live a quiet and peaceful life, we want to live a live of peace and blessing, and therefore, dear God, we want Barak Obama [slight pause] to melt like a snail.