So is faith important or not?
If you are George Allen, the answer seems to be “it depends.”
“Whether one person believes in — whatever their beliefs may be — is not relevant. Why is that relevant — my religion, Jim’s religion or the religious beliefs of anyone out there?” George Allen angrily demanded of WUSA reporter Peggy Fox at yesterday’s debate. Fox had asked about Allen’s alleged denial of having Jewish heritage.
Allen went on to lecture in outraged tones about the importance of “freedom of religion and not making aspersions about people because of their religious beliefs” (Making aspersions? Never mind). He remarked (still angry) to reporters later: “You just don’t judge people by their ethnicity or their religion.”
Good to know. Allen will be appearing as a speaker later this month at a Family Research Council political briefing. He will be joined in this endeavor by such giants of religious tolerance and diversity of thought as Ann Coulter, James Dobson, wee Gary Bauer, Jerry Falwell, Maggie Gallagher, Don Wildmon and Rick Santorum.
Since FRC is not exactly a champion of religious freedom for anyone other than far-right Christian Nationalists, maybe Allen can draw on his newly discovered ecumenicalism to educate them. It will certainly be interesting to compare what he has to say to the FRC audience with what he says above. Not to mention with what he has had to say on the subject in the past.
Posted in , | by David |
September 20th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Interesting that in the 20 September edition of the Washington Post, the junior Senator from Virginia, Senator Allen, now admits that he does have some Jewish blood in him. This after his rant at Nancy Fox about “interjecting religion into politics”. But his campaign manager calls the Fox question “Anti-semitic”. Talk about “chutzpah”, who has been talking about CHRISTIAN Values and playing “Onward CHRISTIAN Soldiers at the Pentagon?
In the 23 Sep edition of the Post, Ruth Marcus states that Allen refuted his Jewish background in response to a story that had been written about him in 2003 but he wants us to now believe that his mother just told him? T-R-U-S-T–can you TRUST this man?
When you have dug yourself a hole Senator, stop digging..or rather keep digging and help Jim Webb replace you!
Well we now see the real Allen, first the “Macaca Moment” and not his “Chutzpah Quote”. “What you say about others says more about YOU then it does about THEM.”