I don’t think that’s the worry, that if we hit hard they’ll hit harder. I think the point is that this specific attack has the potential for them to bring Wright up with an air of legitimacy. That coupled with the fact that attacking her church most likely won’t go anywhere, it’s just not productive. At least, that’s what I assume the point to be.

Cons are going to do what’s in their best interest. They’re not going to take into consideration whether Liberals were nice to them. I guaran-damn-tee you that if McCain is behind in the polls by ten points a week out from the election, Republicans are going to put up ads showing Reverend Wright.

No one is saying that Obama has to question her church and her theocratic nonsense. That’s what the netroots and under-the-radar surrogates do. This country was founded on separation of church and state, and questioning Palin’s theocractic nuttiness is perfectly legitimate. Why do you think she wants to make it public policy that women who get raped aren’t entitled to abortions? Its her theology. She like ten million other theocrats in the the republican party – she wants to meld church and state.

Laying off her religion, in the misplaced fear that Cons might be mean to us is not impressive to me. I don’t think its impractical to point out the theocratic extremism in her religious views as they pertain to public policy.

Is war in Iraq God’s will (she said this) because it hurts an enemy of Israel’s territorial ambition? because American foreign policy is necessarily God’s will?

This is incredibly important to the prospects of the USA. We need reality-based foreign policy, not “they will greet us with roses” foreign policy.

*(Methodist, Presby, Lutheran ELCA, UCC of course, Episcopalian, all black-predominant denominations – essentially all the denominations that require formal seminary training – and non-denominational major academic seminaries such as Union, Yale, etc).

I gotta be honest dude: I’m not buying the “we have to be nicer to conservatives, or they might be mean to us” narrative.

I don’t think that’s the worry, that if we hit hard they’ll hit harder. I think the point is that this specific attack has the potential for them to bring Wright up with an air of legitimacy. That coupled with the fact that attacking her church most likely won’t go anywhere, it’s just not productive. At least, that’s what I assume the point to be.

Considering how much the fundamentalist Christian right has attempted to undermine public education by foisting “intelligent design” as science in places like Dover, PA and the recent lawsuit by private Christian schools against the UC system for not accepting classes which teach “intelligent design” and in some cases…also failing to teach evolution theory as well……religious beliefs from politicians such as Palin’s need to be called out far more than they are.

As it is, the US is already the laughing stock of the world in K-12 science education because of nonsense such as this……and if it keeps up….we will be left in the dust as other nations still sometimes sneeringly labeled “Third World” by ignorant right-wing nuts like India and China are educating many scientists and engineers without having to worry about this level of anti-intellectual/anti-science self-sabotage.

I would caution liberals against making too much about Palin’s church’s relatively extremist beliefs, since our own presidential nominee was a member of a church whose former pastor – a black liberation theologian – was well outside of the mainstream of most mainline Protestant churches. Drawing attention to Palin’s church will only resurrect concerns about Obama’s church, and bring us into Jeremiah Wright 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I gotta be honest dude: I’m not buying the “we have to be nicer to conservatives, or they might be mean to us” narrative.

That’s not the way wingnuts play the game. They play dirty and they play for keeps, no matter what liberals do. There’s no way you can rationally deal with these people, other than punch them in the mouth.

I’m not equating Palin’s church and the UCC. I’m simply pointing out that for a majority of American’s, Rev. Wright’s beliefs are outside of the mainstream.

phinky,

First, a majority of Americans are religious. Pew’s recent survey on religious life (one of the largest of it’s kind) found that 83.1% of adults identify with a religious tradition. But my point isn’t about the religiosity of Americans, nor is it about Palin’s church in particular. My point is that making an issue out of Palin’s religious affiliation is bound to remind millions of (white) voters that “Hey, Obama has a radical Christian preacher!” Which doesn’t help. At all.

This is America, blasphemy does not carry the death penalty here. And we need to point out that Sarah Palin is a crazy-ass, right-wing theocrat. (Yes, I did go ad-hominem on her)

And the Rev Wright has been brought up a gazillion times already. There is footage of Sarah Palin saying crazy stuff. None of Barack Obama.

We need to
a. Force Sarah Palin to quit her church like Obama was forced to quit his.
or
b. Get her or McCain to have a total meltdown in public.