The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Jindal Bells

3.17.08 @ 12:01AM

KEEPING HOPE ALIVE
Re: The Prowler's Sticky Situations:

Maybe it's just me, but I seriously question the judgment of a man who has attended a church for over twenty years where its pastor shouts "God damn America" from the pulpit.
-- Jim Karr
Blue Springs, Missouri

Thank you for your mention of the Dallas, Texas-based Cathedral of Hope, the world's largest liberal Christian church with a predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender outreach. While we are proud to be a congregation of the United Church of Christ, the church actually was founded by a group of 12 courageous men and women in 1970. We took the name "Cathedral of Hope" in 1990. It was not until February 2007 that we were installed as a member of the UCC.
-- David Plunkett
Asst. to Rev. Piazza/Media Relations
Cathedral of Hope/Hope for Peace & Justice

In your March 14, 2008 "The Prowler," regarding Senator Obama's pastor, Rev. Dr. Wright, you state:

"But Trinity and Wright have created and will create problems for Obama, though the United Church of Christ is a church that certainly fits with the candidate's radical, leftist roots. For example, the UCC helped to found not only the nation's, but the world's largest gay and lesbian house of worship, the Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas."

I take issue that just because a church welcomes gays and lesbians, it is somehow to be regarded as "radical" and "leftist."

I am a gay man, but I'm hardly a "radical leftist," as my more liberal, Democrat friends will attest. In matter of national security, economics, the size of government, I'm very much a conservative. I'm also Eastern Orthodox. And I intend on voting for John McCain. When it comes to social issues, I guess you could call me libertarian. There are many more of us "log cabin republicans" than either liberals or the columnists at the major conservative journals of opinion would care to admit. I do agree that the United Church of Christ is liberal as denominations go, much too liberal for my tastes.

But if being kind to gays and lesbians, and offering them a spiritual home, which most evangelical, fundamentalist, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox Churches are loathe to do (unless we "act" straight), is "radical" and "leftist" then I thank God for their radicalism and leftism. However, the word I would use for such affirming churches is "Christian," as in imitating Christ's love for all mankind, as opposed to the preconceived, bigoted, and narrow minded interpretations of so-called Biblical literalists and the hierarchal churches. There are many, many gays and lesbians who very much believe in the basic precepts of Christianity, and are for the most part social and economic conservatives/libertarians, who eschew big government "solutions" to the problems faced by today's fast paced and complicated society. To lump these all these people in with leftists, presumably of the type found at MoveOn.org and Michael Moore movies is unfair and ignorant on your part.

Over the years I've enjoyed reading opinion journals such as The American Spectator, but I cringe at the continual assertions and insinuations in these magazines that to be conservative/libertarian means you must be straight and anti-gay, with the converse that all gays and lesbians are ultra-liberal Democrats. They are not. And I believe you really know better than that. The bigotry exhibited in anti-gay churches only helps to drive gays and lesbians out of the hands of God into agnosticism, atheism, and secularism, and the prejudice exhibited by conservative journals of opinion such as yours only helps to drive more and more gays and lesbians to vote for liberal Democrats.
-- Richard C. Hornung
Everett, Washington

Barack H. Obama's flimsy explanation he posted March 14 on the Web, at the Huffington Post, is one dog that will not hunt -- and one that arrived very, very late to the hunt. What will hunt, though, is the now-evident deceit of his claim to openness.

That deception's evidenced by his clumsiness, caginess and slowness in attempting to respond to this firestorm. And going online to a leftist Web site rather than first going to the drive-by mainstream print or broadcast news media, through which much more of the electorate might get the news? Please.

Given the status Obama bestowed on his former pastor in the senator's political and personal lives, what also will hunt is the now-apparent emptiness of words Obama spoke the night of his Iowa primary victory.

According to news reports, he said, in part: "This was the moment when we finally beat back the policies of fear and doubts and cynicism, the politics where we tear each other down instead of lifting this country up....Years from now, you'll look back and you'll say that this was the moment, this was the place where America remembered what it means to hope."

Much sooner than he would like or expect, America likely will reflect on how Obama's and his team's arrogance, as well as lack of common sense and integrity, exposed him and derailed his campaign.
-- C.K. Amos
Princeton, West Virginia

Why, I wonder, has no one yet pointed out that, whereas Barack Obama's public statements have not sounded like Rev. Wright, some of Michelle Obama's public statements most decidedly have.

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