pastors

Now that McCain has rejected the support of two big televangelists, where does it leave him? I have a couple thoughts on it.

First off, it takes Jeremiah Wright off the table. If McCain starts using that, then does he really want the Obama campaign and their vast resources making sure the entire population know exactly what Hagee has said about the Jewish and Catholic people? "God Damn America" sure sounds a lot better than "Hitler was God's hunter".

Second - McCain needs to answer why he waited so long to reject the support of these two pastors he actively courted. Just saying he rejects them now isn't good enough. Why the change of heart? He has been questioned about the two for months and asked about these things they have said. Did McCain reject it now that "the cat's out of the bag"? We saw the whole Obama/Wright thing play out before our eyes. The McCain pastor problem hasn't.

Finally - how is the right wing base going to respond to this? A lot of them share the views of Parsley and Hagee, so will McCain take a big hit from this? I sure hope so, and it's going to be interesting to see how the McCain campaign tries to handle the damage control for this.

One last thing - will the media keep playing this over and over again? Even after Obama rejected Wright, it was still all the talk for the following week. In the interest of fair time, McCain should get the same amount of attention on the issue. I know the McCain camp won't be pushing for fair time on it, but I will dammit!

I openly admit I am not a religious person. I consider myself an Atheist and, as much as people try, will not change my views unless something happens in my life to make me change.

Having said that, I find what the religious right is doing to America today is despicable. We all know that this is not a "Christian" nation, but rather a nation of religious freedoms. These zealots have tried relentlessly to rewrite American history, and what she stands for.

I firmly believe that our forefathers knew the dangers of having politics and religion mixed. They wanted a separation of church and state to not only protect our nation, but more importantly to protect religion. They knew the dangers of politicians getting power hungry and invoking faith as a reason to wage war.

This millennium has shown a big change in those views. We now face more and more churches throwing their political hats in the ring and our leaders crediting their decisions with the “will of God”. This is very dangerous and leaves people like me feeling even more disconnected from our country.