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Turning America Into Iran

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Another goofball televangelist just proved how he and his ilk would prefer America to be more like Iran.

Immediately after the Colorado movie theater shootings, I was ready to post my thoughts about the sleazy ways in which the mainstream news media exploit such events.  After considering the darkly sarcastic things I had to say, I decided that such a posting would be inappropriate – because it was too soon after the tragedy.  I chose to heed the advice from that old song by The English Beat:  Save It for Later.  Too many people were hurting from this incident.  A number of guys died because they threw themselves over their girlfriends in the ultimate act of love.

Nevertheless, those who would like to see the Iranization of America did not find it necessary to restrain themselves from expressing opinions which would inflame the open emotional wounds sustained by innocent people.  The Iranizationists saw fit to remind everyone that this happened because God concluded that some Americans deserved this.

Many followers of these deranged televangelists get irate when commentators point out how such religious zealots want to make America into another Iran.  The rebuff is always the same:  “Iranians are Muslim and we are Christian!”  Nevertheless, one need only look at what is being said to see that the Islamist message and the Wackovangelist messages are the same.

Immediately after the tragedy, televangelist Jerry Newcombe phoned into a program produced by the homo-hating, American Family Association.  You can watch this clip of that event.  Pay close attention to how the show’s host blinks incessantly throughout the call.  I would love to get a psychiatrist’s opinion as to what – if anything – that might indicate.  Anyway, Newcombe wanted to remind everyone that any individual killed in that theater who was not Christian would be going to hell.  In other words:  If your murdered friend or loved one was a Jew – that person would be going to hell.

Newcombe’s claim was the same spiteful remark we hear from Islamist terrorists after they kill Jews:  Not only did all those people get killed – but they are also going to hell!

How thoughtful of Newcombe to remind the infidels’ next of kin that their loved ones are headed toward eternal damnation!

In Newcombe’s America, Jews go to hell when they die.  How does that version of America differ from Iran?


 

No Jews Allowed In Rick Warren’s Heaven

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December 22, 2008

There has been quite a bit of attention focused on Barack Obama’s choice of conservative evangelical minister, Rick Warren, to deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony on January 20.  Most of the outrage over that choice stems from the fact that Warren was actively involved in promoting Proposition 8, the controversial California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriages.

A large number of objections to Warren’s participation in this historic ceremony are coming from Hollywood.  As Tina Daunt reported in the December 20 Los Angeles Times, the entertainment community’s reaction to Warren’s role in the inaugural was “swift, angry and bitter”.  Her article quoted Hollywood publicist, Howard Bragman who said the following about Barack Obama:

“What he didn’t realize was how much untapped energy there was in the gay and lesbian community because of the passage of Prop. 8,” said Bragman. “Obama didn’t realize, after all the support he got from the gay and lesbian community, we feel betrayed right now.”

Meanwhile, back at the nation’s capitol, Barney Frank, the openly gay Senator from Massachusetts, had much to say about Warren’s role in the inaugural ceremony.  As Jason Blum reported on December 21 at the Bloomberg website, Senator Frank said this about the inclusion of Warren in the event:

“Giving that kind of mark of approval and honor to someone who has frankly spoken in ways I and many others have found personally very offensive, I thought that was a mistake for the president-elect to do.”

I particularly enjoyed the piece written by Christopher Hitchens for Slate on December 19.  I thought the televangelist lobby would have been run out of Washington in the wake of the 2008 elections.  Chris Hitchens appears to be sharing my disappointment over that group’s enduring presence on Capitol Hill, despite the efforts of many to preserve the separation of church and state.  The most impressive point made in this article concerned Warren’s insistence that there are no Jews allowed in heaven:

It is a fact that Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in Orange County, Calif., was present at a meeting of the Aspen Institute not long ago and was asked by Lynda Resnick — she of the pomegranate-juice dynasty — if a Jew like herself could expect to be admitted to paradise.  Warren publicly told her no.

Similarly, Time magazine’s Joe Klein had this to say in his December 16 posting on his Swampland blog at Time.com, concerning Warren’s insistence that Jews can’t go to heaven:

I am not a big fan of Rick Warren’s.  He thinks I’m going to hell.  He said so in mixed company, at an Aspen Institute forum.  He was asked if Jews were going to hell.  He said yes.  He can go ahead and feed every poor child in Africa and I’m still going to think he’s a fool for believing that.  Reverend Rick is also not too big on gay or women’s rights.  (Indeed, if Jews–and all other non born-again Christians–homosexuals, feminists, and anyone who has either had an abortion, performed an abortion or reluctantly agrees that it’s none of our business who has abortions  …  if all those people are going to hell, then heaven’s got to be about as interesting as linoleum.)

Regardless of the controversies over Proposition 8 and same-sex marriage, is it really appropriate to have a man deliver the invocation at the Presidential inauguration ceremony, when that man professes that Jews are not allowed into heaven?  Does Warren believe that there is a big “No Jews Allowed” sign at the pearly gates?  Has heaven been getting away with something that American country clubs have not been able to do, since the 1970s?

There is obviously plenty wrong with having someone of Warren’s ilk speaking at the Presidential inauguration.  Gay weddings constitute just one of many issues these characters have on their list of things to not tolerate.  Chris Hitchens suggested three questions to be asked of the Obama transition team, before the inauguration proceeds:

— Will Warren be invited to the solemn ceremony of inauguration without being asked to repudiate what he has directly said to deny salvation to Jews?

— Will he be giving a national invocation without disowning what his mentor said about civil rights and what his leading supporter says about Mormons?

— Will the American people be prayed into the next administration, which will be confronted by a possible nuclear Iran and an already nuclear Pakistan, by a half-educated pulpit-pounder raised in the belief that the Armageddon solution is one to be anticipated with positive glee?

Remember John McCain’s old expression, “agents of intolerance”?  Who would have thought that one such agent would deliver the invocation when Barack Obama is sworn in as our next President?