Do you see a pattern here? More and more of the lunatic fringe are losing it. Here's the latest one.
 

A Fairfield woman whose car was adorned with celebratory signs for President-elect Barack Obama is furious that a priest singled her out during Sunday morning Mass and ordered her to leave.
Elizabeth Caster admits her Toyota Sequoia was parked in a loading zone outside of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Fairfield, but said it was common practice by parishioners during services and that two other vehicles parked on either side of her vehicle were not addressed.

Caster said the Rev. Sebastian Meyer humiliated her in front of the congregation, saying from the pulpit, "We cannot have a car with Obama signs written on it on these premises. And I don't care who Obama is."
He continued, "I want this car off the premises in 10 minutes or it will be towed. Whoever's vehicle this is, I want it removed. I don't want to see that car anywhere around here," she said.

The Rev. Meyer did not return calls. An attempt to speak to him face to face ended abruptly Wednesday morning when he announced, "No, we're not writing that," and attempted to snatch a reporter's notebook away.

Caster said the priest followed her and her 10-year-old son out of the church and refused to let her park anywhere in the parking lot. She had to come back after the service to pick up her parents, who were visiting from Kenya.

She has since forgiven the pastor, she said, but noted a definite tone in his voice. "It was something to the effect of, I don't care who Obama is, he won, get over it," she said. "It seems there was some anger and animosity in his tone. You could feel the Holy Spirit sucked out of the church."

I'm going to keep a list.

Gov. Sarah Palin thinks the Founding Fathers wrote the Pledge of Allegiance---including the phrase 'under God'.  No, really. The Christian Right has made this a huge talking point for their cause, but they never tell you that it was never part of the original pledge. I've had this clip of the pledge from the 1945 movie The Bells of St Mary's sitting on my servers for a long time and finally found a good use for it. Notice---there is no "under God" in it.

Download | play   Download | play

 From an Eagle Forum Candidate Questionnaire:

Q: Are you offended by the phrase "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance? Why or why not?

PALIN: Not on your life. If it was good enough for the Founding Fathers, its good enough for me and I'll fight in defense of our Pledge of Allegiance.

The phrase was added in 1954.

Is she ready to fight Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman too? Here's the full questionnaire. Have some fun.

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  The UK's conservative Daily Telegraph reports that Buffy The Vampire Slayer presents a clear and present danger to the Church of England (h/t Kat).

[A] report claims more than 50,000 women a year have deserted their congregations over the past two decades because they feel the church is not relevant to their lives.

It says that instead young women are becoming attracted to the pagan religion Wicca, where females play a central role, which has grown in popularity after being featured positively in films, TV shows and books.

... The report's author, Dr Kristin Aune, a sociologist at the University of Derby, said: "In short, women are abandoning the church.

"Because of its focus on female empowerment, young women are attracted by Wicca, popularised by the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"Young women tend to express egalitarian values and dislike the traditionalism and hierarchies they imagine are integral to the church."

Hmmm. Opposition to single mothers, to woman clergy, to sex outside marraige, to abortion, to equal rights for women in so many ways. What could possibly make young women "imagine" traditionalsim and hierachies in church? 

But I'm actually quite surprised that the McCain campaign hasn't had a go at Wiccans yet, maybe by suggesting that "Muslim" Obama's wife Michelle is a secret coven-goer. After all, McCain campaign spokesman Michael Goldfarb recently tried to tie Obama to Dungeons and Dragons players, hitting the twin themes of geeky basement-dwellers (i.e your average Fighting Keyboarder) and Christian evangelical horror fables about rpgs being closely tied to Satanism. And we're told that while no-one in America will vote for an atheist, they're more likely to vote for an atheist than a pagan. Give it time, I suppose. Goldfarb can only manage so much hackery at once.

While John McCain and Barack Obama met with Rev. Warren at the Saddleback Church this weekend, the progressive Christian PAC Matthew 25 unveiled a new ad featuring religious leaders supporting Obama. In the ad, Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell - the Methodist minister who married Jenna Bush - takes a not-too-subtle dig at McCain over what McCain acknowledged to be his "greatest moral failing" at the forum - the failure of his first marriage.

h/t Dan Manatt at techPresident.

More background at Strategy '08.

Two days after the fact, questions continue to surround John McCain's surprisingly strong performance Saturday at Pastor Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. The mainstream media and blogosphere alike are abuzz with rumors that McCain pierced Warren's so-called "cone of silence" and, more serious still, may have purloined his legendary POW "cross in the dirt" story from the late Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

But on one point, there is no dispute. Despite CNN's assurances to the contrary, Rick Warren simply asked Barack Obama and John McCain different questions.

From the very first question, Warren treated McCain with biblical kid gloves, editing out scriptural references that might have proven uncomfortable for the religiously reticent Republican:

QUESTION TO OBAMA: These first set of questions deal with your personal life as a leader and I'm not going to do this with any other segment, but as pastor I've got some verses that have to do with leadership. The first issue is the area of listening. There is a verse in Proverbs that says fools think they need no advice but the wise listen to other people. Who are the wisest three people you know in your life and who are you going to rely on heavily in your administration?

QUESTION TO MCCAIN: This first question deals with leadership and the personal life of leadership. First question, who were the three wisest people that you know that you would rely on heavily in an administration?

Chuck Todd of MSNBC was quick to note the strikingly different answers Obama and McCain offered, but not the clearly different questions they were asked:

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On Saturday, August 16th, megachurch preacher and Purpose-Driven Life author Rick Warren will host the first joint appearance of campaign '08 by Barack Obama and John McCain. In what CNN is billing as the "Compassionate Leader Forum," Warren will lead separate conversations with Obama and McCain, who will meet on stage at the beginning and/or end of the event at Warren's Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California.

While the anti-gay Warren and his co-sponsor the multi-denominational group Faith in Public Life will apparently be the arbiters of presidential compassion, Reverend Warren insists Saturday's event is not about "gotcha" questions for the candidates:

"This is a critical time for our nation and the American people deserve to hear both candidates speak from the heart -- without interruption -- in a civil and thoughtful format absent the partisan 'gotcha' questions that typically produce heat instead of light."

But for the good people at the Red State blog, that's simply not good enough. Declaring that "abortion on demand is non-negotiable," Red State's open letter to Reverend Warren insists he promise to confront Obama on the issue. Failing to do so at the event, "it would be better to cancel it." No doubt, Rick Warren will ask Barack Obama about his views on abortion and women's reproductive rights.

But among the questions on AIDS, poverty, climate change and the candidates' personal faith, the notoriously reserved on religion John McCain can rest assured he won't face tough questions about his own.

Here, then, are 10 questions Rick Warren won't ask John McCain.

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For quite a while, there was considerable public confusion over Barack Obama’s Christian faith. Thanks to an email chain and right-wing whispers, a few too many people were led to believe Obama is, or was, some kind of secret Muslim.

In the ensuing months, there’s been an aggressive push to help people hear the truth. The Jeremiah Wright flap, which received blanket media coverage for weeks, proved that Obama attends a Christian church. Obama frequently emphasizes his Christian faith, and there are even ads on Christian radio stations about Obama’s Christian witness.

So, given these efforts, public confusion is bound to dissipate, right? Wrong. It’s actually getting worse.

From the latest national survey (.pdf) from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press:

“Now, thinking about Barack Obama’s religious beliefs… Do you happen to know what Barack Obama’s religion is? Is he Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, agnostic, or something else?”

Christian 57%
Muslim 12%
Jewish 1%
Something else 2%
Don’t know - Heard different things 10%
Don’t know - Haven’t heard enough 15%
Refused 3%

The number who mistakenly identified Obama as a Muslim was 12%. The number who made the same mistake in March was 10%. That’s obviously a very small increase, but isn’t it about time that number started going down?

There's a new religious political action committee, the Matthew 25 Network, that may very well have an impact on the political scene this year, far more than any religious progressives have had in quite a while.

To briefly review, the Matthew 25 Network is spearheaded by Mara Vanderslice, who served as director of religious outreach for Kerry-Edwards in 2004, and who has been active in encouraging Democratic candidates to discuss matters of spirituality more openly on the campaign trail.

The PAC's efforts have been kept under wraps for a while, but we learned this week about the group's first initiative -- a minute-long ad that will begin airing on Christian radio stations.

The ad anticipates trouble, and addresses it head-on. It implicitly acknowledges that the audience may have seen those ridiculous smear e-mails, and it's "hard to know what to believe." That's why, the Matthew 25 Network argues, Christians have a duty to consider a person's testimony.

Now, I can appreciate the fact that non-Christians may not find any of this compelling, and may not even like the fact that these ads are running. But keep in mind, the ads aren't coming from Barack Obama or anyone associated with his campaign or the party -- this is an independent Christian PAC, targeting Christian voters, on Christian radio, with a Christian message.

And it sounds like the group is offering a message not usually associated with Democratic politics.

I'm not sure how exactly to process this news... According to the AP, this is not so much courting possible Republicans switch voters but re-affirming his long standing position after being painted as being far left over the primaries:

Speaking with reporters, Obama disputed that he is altering views.

"I get tagged as being on the left and, when I simply describe what has been my position consistently, then suddenly people act surprised," he said. "But there hasn't been substantial shifts there."

While Obama would expand Bush's efforts to give religious charities more equal footing when getting federal funding, he also would tweak what he would call the President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in ways that divert from Bush's approach.

As you recall, Bush's head of the Faith Based office, David Kuo, derided the office for being over-politicized.  So what kinds of tweaking would Obama do?  BeliefNet thinks that it's ultimately positive for Barack, after the media scandals of Rev. Wright, to show his commitment to his faith.  Obama's campaign has sent out a fact sheet that does make the following promises: 

Obama's initiative will be governed by a set of core principles for federal grant recipients. In order to receive federal funds to provide social services, faith-based organizations:

* Cannot use federal funds to proselytize or provide religious sectarian instruction.
* Cannot discriminate against nonmembers in providing services. They must remain open to all and cannot practice religious discrimination against the populations they serve.
* Must comply with federal anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Religious organizations that receive federal dollars cannot discriminate with respect to hiring for government-funded social service programs.
* Can only use taxpayer dollars on secular programs and initiatives.
* Must prove their efficacy and be judged based on program effectiveness. They will be expected to demonstrate proven program outcomes to continue to receive funding. Obama will fund programs that work and end funding for programs that do not - whether they are large or small, well-established or new, faith-based or otherwise.

In addition, Obama has been reaching out to evangelicals in other ways as well. Pastor Dan has more...

Just this week, a group of Republican senators re-introduced the Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution, which, as we know, would ban gay marriage.

This isn’t especially surprising. Republicans are looking at the political landscape, and they’re feeling awfully discouraged. The polls look bad, the base looks depressed, and fundraising looks iffy. Rallying the far-right troops with an anti-gay amendment to the Constitution — even though it has no chance at even getting so much as a hearing — might be helpful to the conservative movement.

But the funny part is looking over the list of the 10 original sponsors. Most of the names are predictable — Brownback and Inhofe, for example — but there are two others whose names stand out: Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho).

Yes, two of the principal sponsors of a constitutional amendment to “protect” marriage include one far-right Republican who hired prostitutes and another far-right Republican who was arrested for soliciting gay sex in an airport men’s room.

As my friend Kyle put it, these two are “not exactly the poster boys of the family values crowd or particularly upstanding examples of the supposed sanctity of the ‘union of a man and a woman.”‘

Associated Press:

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The school board of a small central Ohio community voted unanimously Friday to fire a teacher accused of preaching his Christian beliefs despite staff complaints and using a device to burn the image of a cross on students' arms.

School board members voted 5-0 to fire Mount Vernon Middle School science teacher John Freshwater. Board attorney David Millstone said Freshwater is entitled to a hearing to challenge the dismissal.

The report came a week after a family filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Columbus against Freshwater and the school district, saying Freshwater burned a cross on a child's arm that remained for three or four weeks.

Freshwater's friend Dave Daubenmire defended him. "With the exception of the cross-burning episode. ... I believe John Freshwater is teaching the values of the parents in the Mount Vernon school district," he told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published Friday. Read on...

Get this man to Jesus Camp, STAT! Freshwater says it was an "X" not a cross, but that sure looks like a cross to me. Kudos to the district for handing this guy his walking papers. It's one less extremist preaching faux science to children.

  Newsweek has an item in its current issue about John McCain’s search for a running mate, and how the Republican senator will likely put personal interaction at the top of his list of priorities. Washington lobbyist Ken Duberstein told Newsweek, “He is not going to pick a clone or a crazy.”

It depends, I suppose, on the meaning of the word “crazy.”

It’s hardly a secret that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), at the ripe young age of 36, is drawing serious interest for the GOP ticket. McCain had Jindal over to one of his houses for a barbecue recently, and prominent conservative voices have been talking up a McCain-Jindal ticket for quite a while now.

There are plenty of drawbacks surrounding Jindal. He’s barely constitutionally eligible (Jindal is literally half McCain’s age); he’s ridiculously conservative; and he’s held statewide office for a grand total of six months.

And then, of course, there’s the exorcism thing, which Eric Kleefeld and Kate Klonick reported on yesterday, noting that it’s part of Jindal’s background that “hasn’t gotten much attention.”

We’ve discovered that in an essay Jindal wrote in 1994 for the New Oxford Review, a serious right-wing Catholic journal, Jindal narrated a bizarre story of a personal encounter with a demon, in which he participated in an exorcism with a group of college friends. And not only did they cast out the supernatural spirit that had possessed his friend, Jindal wrote that he believes that their ritual may well have cured her cancer.

Reading the article leaves no doubt that Jindal — who graduated from Brown University in 1991, was a Rhodes Scholar, and had been accepted at Yale Law School and Harvard Medical School when he wrote the essay — was completely serious about the encounter. He even said the experience “reaffirmed” his faith.

It occurs to me that this might seem like satire. An Oxford-trained governor and VP possibility really wrote about participating in an exorcism?

Yes, he really did.

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On “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart was chatting with Ralph Reed about a variety of election-related news regarding people of faith (Reed was the former head of the Christian Coalition, before destroying his reputation by hooking up with disgraced GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.)

Stewart noted, “There’s talk that 40% of evangelicals will go with the Democrat [on Election Day]. When did the evangelicals lose their values?” Reed responded, “I don’t think that’s supported by the polling data. I think if you look at most of the general-election polls, McCain’s getting about 60 to 65 percent of the evangelical vote.”

This, of course, struck me as rather amusing. If McCain is getting about 60% of the evangelical vote, unless Reed thinks evangelicals are going to flock to Nader and Barr is large numbers, Obama’s on track to get about 40% of the vote. One doesn’t need polling data to reach this conclusion, just arithmetic.

Nevertheless, on the broader point of Stewart’s question, Obama is moving forward with various aggressive outreach. It was Mark DeMoss who brought up the 40% figure last week, but it’s the Obama campaign that’s committed to making it happen.

A spokesperson said the meeting of some 30 people will include leaders from several denominations including Evangelical, Catholic and Protestant members of the faith community. Among those taking part are Bishop Phillip Cousin, the Rev. Stephen Thurston and Dr. T. Dewitt Smith.

“Reaching out to the faith community is a priority for Barack Obama and will be a priority under an Obama Administration. This is one of several meetings he will have over the coming months with religious leaders,” Jen Psaki told reporters on the campaign plane.

There are some serious heavy hitters in this meeting, whose names may not be familiar to a secular audience, but who are pretty major players in the religious community, including T.D. Jakes, law professor Doug Kmiec, Phillip Cousin, and the National Association of Evangelicals’ Rich Cizik.

And then, of course, there’s the new “Matthew 25 Network.”

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Pepperdine’s Doug Kmiec, a conservative Catholic, raised quite a few eyebrows earlier this year when he endorsed Barack Obama for president. There have been several relatively high-profile Republicans to throw their support to Obama (some have taken to calling them “Obamacans“), but Kmiec was especially surprising.

Kmiec, after all, is also a staunch Republican who played a role with Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He also headed the Office of Legal Counsel for Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush. Theologically, we’re talking about a man who can “cite papal pronouncements with the facility of a theological scholar,” and who opposes abortion rights and gay rights. He backed Obama despite his positions on these issues, not because of them.

And how did Kmiec’s Catholic Church respond after learning of his favored candidate? As E. J. Dionne Jr. explained today, by denying him Communion.

Kmiec was denied Communion in April at a Mass for a group of Catholic business people he later addressed at dinner. The episode has not received wide attention outside the Catholic world, but it is the opening shot in an argument that could have a large impact on this year’s presidential campaign: Is it legitimate for bishops and priests to deny Communion to those supporting candidates who favor abortion rights?

A version of this argument roiled the 2004 campaign when some, though not most, Catholic bishops suggested that John Kerry and other pro-choice Catholic politicians should be denied Communion because of their views on abortion.

The Kmiec incident poses the question in an extreme form: He is not a public official but a voter expressing a preference. Moreover, Kmiec — a law professor at Pepperdine University and once dean of Catholic University’s law school — is a long-standing critic of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision.

Obviously, the Catholic Church is free to come up with its own rules. I’m not Catholic, and this doesn’t apply to me anyway. Who does or does not get Communion is the business of the church and its hierarchy.

That said, looking at this as an outsider, the church’s position — and punishment of loyal adherents like Kmiec — strikes me as wildly foolish.

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I genuinely believed, foolishly, that one of the unintended side benefits of the media’s fascination with Jeremiah Wright is that no one, anywhere, could still possibly believe that Barack Obama is a Muslim. After all, everyone in the country got to see a whole lot of Obama’s Christian pastor and his Christian church. Sure, there are some uninformed people out there, and some willfully ignorant people who simply choose not to accept reality, but generally speaking, it’s hard to imagine more than a handful of voters buying this foolishness.

And yet, the polls have been discouraging. The most recent Newsweek poll found that 11% of the public still thinks Obama is a Muslim. An NYT/CBS poll put the number at 7%. The Pew Forum found 10%.

As disappointing as this is, however, Ben Smith provided some interesting context to public confusion.

One relevant piece of context: Large minorities of Americans consistently say they hold wildly out-of-the-mainstream views, often specifically discredited beliefs. In some cases, those views should make them pretty profoundly alienated from one party or the other.

For instance:

22 percent believe President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance.
30 percent believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
23 percent believe they’ve been in the presence of a ghost.
18 percent believe the sun revolves around the Earth.

In other words, if about one-in-10 voters buy into the nonsense about Obama, it’s still a reasonably low number, compared to some other widely-held misconceptions.

I’m just not sure, from a political perspective, whether this is reassuring or not.

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