Obama and the National Prayer Breakfast
Yesterday, the National Prayer Breakfast was held in Washington, D.C. As most people who follow politics know, this is an annual event that has been held for decades (more than five of them, to be exact), and that every POTUS since Eisenhower has attended — and more to the point, has to attend if wanting to avoid creating a Major Political Scandal.
The National Prayer Breakfast attracts controversy every year because of its connection to the Christian right, and the dissonance of an overtly religious gathering being, in effect, compulsory for party leaders of both major parties.
However, this year it attracted more unwelcome attention than usual. For anyone who is not already aware, here is why:
The objections are focused on the sponsor of the breakfast, a secretive evangelical Christian network called The Fellowship, also known as The Family, and accusations that it has ties to legislation in Uganda that calls for the imprisonment and execution of homosexuals.
The Family has always stayed intentionally in the background, according to those who have written about it. In the last year, however, it was identified as the sponsor of a residence on Capitol Hill that has served as a dormitory and meeting place for a cluster of politicians who ran into ethics problems, including Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, and Gov. Mark Sanford, Republican of South Carolina, both of whom have admitted to adultery.
More recently, it became public that the Family also has close ties to the Ugandan politician who has sponsored the proposed anti-gay legislation.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government watchdog group, sent a letter this week to the president and Congressional leaders urging them to skip the prayer breakfast. They have also called on C-Span not to televise it this year.
Melanie Sloan, executive director of the ethics group, said: “It is a combination of the intolerance of the organization’s views, and the secrecy surrounding the organization. It doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be allowed to hold their breakfast; of course they should. The question is, Should American officials be lending legitimacy to it, giving their imprimatur by showing up.”
Pres. Obama did attend the breakfast, despite such entreaties. I was initially very unhappy about this, but not so much anymore because he used the opportunity of being there to criticize religious intolerance in general and the Ugandan legislation specifically — as did Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Michael Stickings, who I am so happy to say is a contributor at TMV, has further details at his personal blog, The Reaction.
18 Responses to “Obama and the National Prayer Breakfast”
“The Family”…Christian terrorists.
I agree.
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Just a side note to add to the NPB discussion (because I didn't think the side comment merited it's own thread).
Did you catch the story where the President mispronounced (several times as I understand) the word Corpsman during his story (a good story BTW if you haven't heard it).
The word is supposed to be Core-man but he said Corpse-man.
Given that the job of these guys is to retrieve the wounded on the battlefield it's pretty much the worst possible mispronounce.
Not a big deal to me, we've all had foot in mouth disease before and I've read and mispronounced words plenty of times.
But I do think some on the right have a point in asking what the reaction would have been if this had been pretty much any Republican making the same minor blunder.
Sorry if this is a derail Kathy, I just thought it an interesting side story and so I thought I'd toss it in the general NPB discussion.
It's a worthwhile side story.
“The word is supposed to be Core-man but he said Corpse-man.”
If George W. Bush had said this, …
“If George W. Bush had said this, …”
It would have come out C-A-W-Man.
Kudos to our President and Secretary of State for condemning the Ugandan legislation that would impose the death penalty on those engaged in homosexual activity. I note that no similar legislation has been proposed for men or women caught in acts of adultery, or for rebellious children, etc. When you start down that road, trying to apply the letter of the Mosaic law to today's world, where does it stop?
“[W]here does it stop?”
http://www.examiner.com/x-26492-Tucson-Liberal-…
If George Bush had said it nobody would have noticed. He mangled the language so routinely and with such efficiency it would have just been part of the “scenery”.
These people are crazy as bedbugs.
Very interesting read, DLS. I've heard of Reconstructionism before, and would want to read those quotes in context before rendering a verdict, but those quotes certainly trouble me. Bill Gothard has been out there for a long time, and has been rejected by many more mainstream evangelicals. Both Christianity and Islam have their fundamentalist fringes. I'm happy to speak out against them. The Mike Huckabee claim at the end is new to me. She would need to provide some harder evidence for me to believe that's he's a Dominionist.
You don't believe Huckabee is a Dominionist? Huh.
Dont get what your comment has to do with the article. If it is no big deal to you, why take seven paragraphs to say it. boring man.
Got a link, StockBoy? Just looking for some substantiation here.
Bush would have just used the term “good-doer”.
On the prayer breakfast, as we ask for transparency from Obama and Congress we should also ask for it from whoever is putting together the prayer breakfast. If they want to be a hush-hush organization to help faltering congressman and senators that's fine, but they shouldn't also be allowed to sponsor a public breakfast for politicians.
I reckon this is as good a place as any to quote from the United States Constitution; this is from Article VI:
Redbus,
Huckabee has a Christian religious training, he was a pastor. He believes that the Bible is completely accurate and without error. I think what's most telling is this statement he has written in one of his Christian books, “Politics are totally directed by worldview. That's why when people say, 'We ought to separate politics from religion,' I say to separate the two is absolutely impossible”.
“I've heard of Reconstructionism before, and would want to read those quotes in context before rendering a verdict, but those quotes certainly trouble me.”
Yes, or Dominionists.
The thing to bear in mind is that this is the ultimate extreme, and 99.999% of even true right-wing or far-right Religious Right is not like this. (They view government or the federal government as almost Satanic, if anything.) The critique that I provided a link to includes extreme interpretation of the ultimate end (Rushdoony-ish “Dominionist” theocracy), and of the scope of the threat, an interpretation which unfairly implicates (as in materially, including them as part of the “threat,” not merely stains or tarnishes) the rest of the Religious Right, and by inference and handy extension, the rest of the Right, upon a moment's reasonable thought and reflection.
(Interestingly, these Dominionists are superficially quite similar to the most puritanital and zealous Wahhabis and the Taliban.)
Good discussion StockBoy. It's nothing new for politicians to say that their faith influences their politics. President Barack Obama has mentioned how his Christian faith informs his view on the environment. Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Oregon) spoke frequently against the nuclear arms race. This was an outgrowth of his pacifistic worldview, based on his interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount. So, if Gov. Huckabee lets his faith influence his worldview, at least he's in good company. That doesn't prove he's a Dominionist, just a Baptist preacher, and BTW, he wouldn't be the first President who's was a preacher. James Garfield and Woodrow Wilson come to mind.