What Would Jesus Do?

Watch the whole thing.

Long. Worth it. Promise.

This is not a new speech -- this is an old speech, given in 2006. It is a speech about personal faith in a modern America.

What's funny about this speech is that it is summarily ignored by Rush Limbaugh and the Clintonista's who are more interested in dredging up old "funny hat" pictures of Obama humoring his hosts in foreign countries, and old sermons by the Reverand Jeremiah Wright, whom Obama has repeatedly denounced in no uncertain terms.

Yet, these same folks manage to miss the story of Barack's very personal story of religious conversion (a story told in his first book written 13 years ago), and they manage to ignore this easy-to-find video of him talking about his own faith, and why morality matters in politics.

These same folks, of course, simply ignore the crazy stuff from John Hagee, Rod Parsley, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggert, Jerry Falwell, Robert Tilton, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, Benny Hinn, and Joyce Meyer (to name just a few of the lunatic preachers out there).

At least two of these preachers have endorsed the current Republican candidate for President who, to his credit, has moved to distant himself from their more profound idiocies.

Of course, politics is politics, and so there are those on the left who are not giving John McCain a break, just as there are those on the right who are not giving Barack Obama a break.

Never mind the Christian Coalition, and Ralph Reed who went on to take gambling payola from Jack Abramoff. Never mind those ministers who justify slavery, spousal abuse, and even child abuse by quoting the Bible. Never mind those churches, dripping in hate, who shun homosexuals and who verbally abuse teenage mothers faced with difficult decisions.

Never mind the right-wing-religiously-rationalized destruction of 9-11 and Hurricane Katrina which, we are told, was caused by a confluence of queers, kikes, abortionists, feminists and people who believe in the First Amendment.

Instead these folks seem to get their lessons in morality from the drug-addicted Rush Limbaugh and the lecherous and lying Clinton's. Nice.

Which brings us back to the fundamentals of God and Government.

The bottom line, is that the constitutional principle behind separation of church and state has served this country well for more than 200 years.

Yet, we have some on the far right who want to throw it out.

Just this campaign season, we saw a leading candidate for President suggest we needed to change the U.S. Constitution in order to conform to the Southern Baptist convention.

Never mind that the U.S. Constitution is what separates America from becoming Afghanistan or Pakistan .... or the Vatican or Israel for that matter.

Barack Obama, at least, gets it -- ministers are flawed and fallible people too, and as a consequence, some of what is said in Church is wrong, some of it is crazy, and a significant amount of it is controversial, blasphemous or insulting to someone, somewhere, at some time.

And while most Americans want our politicians firmly grounded in the bedrock of common-sense morality, we do not want them marching lock-step to one faith, one denomination, or one preacher (not even Billy Graham).

The good news here is that you do not have to be a member of a church to know right from wrong, good from evil, truth from lie, or compassion from hate.

You just have to use common sense.

That is not always found in church, just like it is not always found on talk radio, or Capitol Hill.

Use your brains, your heart, and your gut. When all three bits of your anatomy are in sync and pointing in the same direction, you are not likely to be wrong.

Watch Barack talk about God and Government, above. What does your heart, head and gut tell you? Act accordingly.


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