A Chance to “throw up”

Rick Santorum was a guest on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” this past Sunday. If he was trying to make headlines he certainly was a success. Following are the transcripts of the two parts of the interview that are truly nauseating.

It’s the things that make me want to throw up.

ON EDUCATION

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me get back to education. We were talking about that at the top of this interview. You had — you talked about President Obama and education yesterday. I want to show what you said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANTORUM: President Obama once said he wants everybody in Americato go to college. What a snob.

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: You’re good, decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to tests that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now getting to college has been part of the American dream for generations, Senator. Why does articulating an aspiration make the president a snob?

SANTORUM: I think because there are lot of people in this country that have no desire or no aspiration to go to college, because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don’t include college.

And there are other — there’s technical schools, there’s additional training, vocational training. There’s skills and apprenticeships. There’s all sorts of things that people can do to upgrade their skills to be very productive and —

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: — and build their community.

STEPHANOPOULOS: All he said was he wants, quote, “every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training.” In your interview with Glenn Beck this week, you seemed to go further. You said I understand why Barack Obama wants to send every kid to college, because they are indoctrination mills. What did that mean?

SANTORUM: Well, of course. I mean, you look at the colleges and universities, George. This is not – this is not something that’s new for most Americans, is how liberal our colleges and universities are and how many children in fact are – look, I’ve gone through it. I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed, you are – I can tell you personally, I know that, you know, we – I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views. This is sort of a regular routine (ph). You know the statistic that at least I was familiar with from a few years ago — I don’t know if it still holds true but I suspect it may even be worse – that 62 percent of kids who enter college with some sort of faith commitment leave without it.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But Senator, when you put all this together—

SANTORUM: This is not a neutral setting.

STEPHANOPOULOS: — it makes it sound like you think there is something wrong with encouraging college education.

ON RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

STEPHANOPOULOS: You have also spoken out about the issue of religion in politics, and early in the campaign, you talked about John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to the Baptist ministers in Houston back in 1960. Here is what you had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SANTORUM: Earlier (ph) in my political career, I had the opportunity to read the speech, and I almost threw up. You should read the speech.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: That speech has been read, as you know, by millions of Americans. Its themes were echoed in part by Mitt Romney in the last campaign. Why did it make you throw up?

SANTORUM: Because the first line, first substantive line in the speech says, “I believe in America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” I don’t believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

This is the First Amendment. The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion. That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square. Kennedy for the first time articulated the vision saying, no, faith is not allowed in the public square. I will keep it separate. Go on and read the speech. I will have nothing to do with faith. I won’t consult with people of faith. It was an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent (ph) at the time of 1960. And I went down to Houston,Texas 50 years almost to the day, and gave a speech and talked about how important it is for everybody to feel welcome in the public square. People of faith, people of no faith, and be able to bring their ideas, to bring their passions into the public square and have it out. James Madison—

STEPHANOPOULOS: You think you wanted to throw up?

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: — the perfect remedy. Well, yes, absolutely, to say that people of faith have no role in the public square? You bet that makes you throw up. What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case? That makes me throw up and it should make every American who is seen from the president, someone who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can’t come to the public square and argue against it, but now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square.

–

My grand parents (both sets) were proud of the fact that they had one child from their families that graduated from college. They were my mom and dad.

As to religion there is nothing in the First Amendment that says government should bring “everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square.”

Fear of Retribution Results in Bigotry

I admit to being somewhat frightened by the growing number of Muslims in the United States. Their desire to enforce Sharia law could become a serious problem. At the same time I want to support our desire to recognize everyone’s right to practice their religion no matter what that religion may be.

Lowe’s, the nationwide big-box home improvement chain, is facing criticism for its decision to withdraw advertising from a reality cable show about American Muslims. Their decision was based upon pressure from the Florida Family Association. That group described the television program as “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”

“I’m saddened that any place of business would succumb to bigots and people trying to perpetuate their negative views on an entire community,” said Suehaila Amen, one of the cast members of the show, in an interview with the Detroit News.

Thus I am faced with a dilemma. It happened that the program appeared on my television on the TLC channel just minutes before I saw the news item about Lowe’s pulling their advertising support. The program really is a harmless and somewhat silly show focused on five Muslim families in Dearborn, Michigan. Honestly the program was not very engaging. The program definitely did not promote Islam to the rest of American society.

The same channel could provide programming focusing on Hassidic Jews or the Amish. Perhaps they could offer a program about Sikh’s in America. Here, where I live, there seems to be a large Indian and Sikh population.

Lowe’s is just a half mile from my home and Home Depot is 1¼ mile from my home. Lowe’s has the right to do as they wish. The Los Angeles Times editorial in their December 14 edition points out that Lowe’s has the right to cancel their advertising. The Times is correct. I just cannot stand for bigotry!

The Hocus Pocus of Religion

Let’s be honest. No one wants to die. Even if our body dies we want to live on forever in some mystical way that transcends our earthly being. That is the crux of religion. Some how, some way if you follow our teachings you will live forever in heaven is the message of priests, ministers, rabbis, and imams.

Harold Camping and his followers are just one more example of a group of people who want more from life than what there is on earth. They really believe the words written in the bible are “the words of God.” They read and try to understand every chapter and verse. Clearly most of the world’s wealthy are focused on making their lives more enjoyable without concern for their life after death. The poor are told by the clergy they will be rewarded in the after-life.

Phil Cooke of the Huffington Post says that radio preacher Harold Camping at least did something that very few have done. He promoted his religion and had everyone talking to him and about him.

My question is: where is God?

Disposition of a Body

A colleague penned the following comment about the disposal of bin Laden’s “holy body.” Worth a read.

On February 21, 2002, a videotape was released titled “The Slaughter of the Spy-Journalist, the Jew Daniel Pearl.” The video shows Pearl’s decapitated and mutilated body. On March 10, 2007, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, reputed to be third in command of Al Qaeda under Osama bin Laden, confessed (boasted?) to his captors. ” I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.” He repeated that statement during before the military tribunal. Pearl’s body was cut in ten pieces and left to rot in a shallow grave. There was no cry of
indignation among Pakistani religious authorities about whether Pearl was given a proper burial, although a Muslim philanthropist hated by the extremists, Abdul Sattar Edhi, collected the body parts and arranged to send them to California for burial. In the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden and his burial at sea, there have been complaints by some Muslim religious authorities that, by burying OBL at sea, American authorities did not give him the respectful burial to which every Muslim is entitled. I also thought of the hundreds of workers at the World Trade Center who were incinerated by OBL and his crew whose bodies could never be buried in individual graves that their families could recognize. There is something viciously asymmetrical in that moral calculus. Those teachers and religious leaders are quick to complain about slights they believe that been done to their own, yet have not a word on behalf of those they consider infidels. In a way, it’s the same thing with their vicious calls for the killing of all Jews (e.g. Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi) and their demands for laws against “Islamophobia” and hate speech against Islam.

Rabbi Arnold Stiebel, Ph.D.
Mediation Matters of California
Woodland Hills, CA
arnoldst@aol.com

Judgment Day-May 21, 2011

Even The Daily Beast has featured this forecast!

These billboards have been appearing around the country. The church group putting up the money says you must accept Christ before this date.

The wecanknow.com website includes this message:

This web site serves as an introduction and portal to four faithful ministries which are teaching that WE CAN KNOW from the Bible alone that the date of the rapture of believers will take place on May 21, 2011 and that God will destroy this world on October 21, 2011.

–

May 8. 2010

laurensheil left a comment elsewhere on the blog. Reposted here

Check out my take on this at; www.laurensheil.com

Muslim Girl, 14, Lashed to Death for Adultery

Despite her mother proclaiming her innocence, Bangladeshi 14-year-old Hena Akhter was convicted of adultery, and, according to Sharia Law, sentenced to 101 lashes. She dropped after 70, and was taken to a hospital, where she died one week later. Initially, an autopsy report deemed her death a suicide, but a further investigation has uncovered some chilling details. Growing up in a shared hut in rural Shariatpur, Hena was repeatedly harassed by her 42-year-old cousin, Mahbub Khan. One night, according to Hena’s sister, Khan beat and raped her, and when his wife intervened, she dragged the teenage girl back to their hut and trampled her on the floor. The next day, the imam ordered a fatwa, sentencing the couple to an illicit relationship. Khan only ended up receiving a few lashes, unlike Hena. After Hena’s severely beaten body was exhumed and doctors confirmed she died of internal bleeding, authorities launched an investigation, charging the doctors on Monday for Hena’s “false post-mortem report,” and then arresting several people, including Khan, in connection with Hena’s death.

Read it at CNN

Is Religion to blame? Abuse of our Children

My opinion: Sexual abuse by Catholic priests appears to be a world-wide practice. Church leaders have gone to extremes to cover up these atrocities. Governments should take all available means to prosecute the perpetrators and those who protected them.

MAUREEN DOWD

An avenging altar boy takes on the Church

PHILADELPHIA – The district attorney is burning a eucalyptus-spearmint candle on his desk.

“I think the press looks down upon the DA drinking Jack Daniels during the day,” R. Seth Williams says with a broad smile, “so I light my little stress-relief candle.”

It’s understandable if the former altar boy at S10 Carthage in West Philly needs to light a votive. The 44-year-old Catholic, who still attends Mass with his family at the same church, now called S10 Cyprian, is the first U.S. prosecutor to charge a church official for a sickeningly common7 place sin: endangering children whom the Roman Catholic Church was supposed to protect by shuffling pedophile priests to different parishes where they could find fresh prey.

“I grew up treating the hierarchy of the church kind of like rock stars,” he said in his 18th floor aerie, where he keeps a small iron crucifix and a cross fashioned from Palm Sunday fronds.

“There’s no get-out-of-jail-free card for raping, sodomizing, groping, doing anything wrong to kids.”

Monsignor William 1. Lynn, who served from 1992 to 2004 as the secretary of clergy reviewing sexual abuse cases for then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, appeared in court Monday. He is charged with felonies for allegedly helping the cardinal cover up molesters and transferring them to other parishes.

“It was a conspiracy of silence to ensure the church’s reputation and to avoid scandal,” said Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos.

Lynn, a round, ruddy man in black priest’s garb, sat silently in court behind his two lawyers paid by the archdiocese – as a cheering squad of priests and parishioners watched.

Lynn’s co-defendants sat beside him: a rabbity-looking Rev. James Brennan, 47, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy in 1996 in his apartment; and the unholy alliance of a priest, the sepulchral Charles Engelhardt, 64, a defrocked priest, Edward Avery, 68, and a former Catholic schoolteacher, Bernard Shero, 48 – all charged with raping or sodomizing the same lO-year-old altar boy 12 years ago.

Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, told reporters that the charges against his client were “a stretch” and that he was pleading not guilty.

And Richard DeSipio, one of Brennan’s lawyers, went on the attack against his client’s accuser, now 29. “Their witness is in prison in Bucks County for stealing his sister’s credit card and using it,” DeSipio told Mensah Dean of The Philadelphia Daily News. “He’s a convicted liar.”

It tells the story of a fifth-grade altar boy at S10 Jerome School given the pseudonym Billy. Engelhardt plied him with sacramental wine and pulled pornographic magazines out of a bag in the sacristy and told the child it was time “to become a man,” the report says.

A week later, after Billy served an early Mass, the report states that Engelhardt instructed him to take off his clothes and perform oral sex on him. Then the priest told the boy he was “dismissed.”

“After that, Billy was in effect passed around to Engelhardt’s colleagues,” the report says. “Father Edward Avery undressed with the boy, told him that God loved him,” and then had him perform sex. “Next was the turn of Bernard Shero, a teacher in the school. Shero offered Billy a ride home but instead stopped at a park, told Billy they were ‘going to have some fun,’ took off the boy’s clothes, orally and anally raped him and then made him walk the rest of the way home.”

Billy fell apart and turned to heroin.

The report says Brennan knew Mark from the time he was 9. When he was 14, the priest arranged with Mark’s mother for a sleepover. “Bl:ennan showed him pornographic pictures on his computer, bragged about his penis size and insisted that Mark sleep together with him in his bed.” Then the priest raped him as he cried, according to the report.

Mark also fell apart and attempted suicide.

It’s tragically past time to send the message that priests can’t do anything they want and hide their sins behind special privilege.

In Seth Williams’ city, the law sees no collars, except the ones put on criminals.

Maureen Dowd is a columnist for The New York Times.

Raise Your Glass – The Maccabeats Purim Song

From the RabbiJason.com web site

This year is a leap year on the Jewish calendar so there is a second month of Adar. The fun and silly holiday of Purim occurs this month and that means the levity has begun. Two funny videos for Purim are already attracting quite a bit of attention on YouTube.

The Yeshiva University a capella group The Maccabeats have followed their smash hit for Hanukkah with a Purim version of Pink’s “Raise Your Glass.” It might not go viral like “Candlelight” did (4.725 million views and counting), but it’s fun nevertheless.