The "radical Islamic terrorism" spell

Here's what Franklin Graham said on his Facebook page today:

I appreciate President Barack Obama speaking to the nation yesterday in the wake of the Orlando massacre. He was right in saying that this tragic shooting was an act of terror and hate. But why didn’t he say it was an act of radical Islamic terrorism? Mr. President, with all due respect, don't forget Fort Hood; don't forget the Boston Marathon; don't forget San Bernardino; and don’t forget 9/11. What do they all have in common? They were all Islamic terrorists carrying out their treachery in the name of their religion. Mr. President, your administration has cut our military to the bone and some experts say we're the weakest we have been in modern times. It’s time we were rebuilding our military force worldwide to take on this enemy. It’s time we tighten America’s borders until we can clearly vet those we’re letting into the country. Mr. President, how many more American lives have to be lost before you understand the threat radical Islam is to every freedom-loving person?

This is contemptible stuff. But that's not to say it won't be politically effective for the Republicans.

This piece by Jonathan Chait (Donald Trump Is the Fearmonger Republicans Have Been Waiting For New York 06/13/2016) is right about how illogical the Republicans' approach is.

But hatred, fear and politics don't work strictly by formal logic. And Chait also holds up Shrub Bush and his ritual of calling Islam a "religion of peace" to suggest the Republicans could be more reasonable. But the xenophobia and Islamophobia that Trump is exploiting today was fomented relentlessly by the Cheney-Bush Administration. Even while Bush occasionally said vaguely nice things about Islam so as not to tick off his BFFs in Saudi Arabia.

I'm intrigued by how even supposedly Godly Christians like Franklin Graham treat the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" as something very like a magic spell. If Obama and Hillary would say the words, the Republicans tell us, then ... well, what? ISIS will disappear? All Muslims will convert to Christianity? On the face of it, it looks like magical thinking. And maybe it really is that, at least in part.

It's also a manifestation of Republican Patriotic Correctness. This is a phrase that Republicans are expected to use as a self-identifier. And it's held against the Democrats not just that they say something different, but that that don't use that exact phrase.

But the "political correctness" of not being hateful to nonwhites or LGBT people is something they regard at completely despicable?

As silly as it is, though, on a logical basis, I share Ed Kilgore's concern that Hillary Clinton's response may not be adequate. (The Problem With Hillary Clinton’s Proposal for an Anti-Terror ‘Intelligence Surge’ New York 06/13/2016)

Franklin Graham says cops are God's enforcers and must be obeyed

Why do I think that this "advice" from Franklin Graham on his Facebook page from March 12 sounds like standard segregationist justification for white cops shooting unarmed black people for no good reason?

Well, probably because he's offering the kind of advice in dealing with the police that I guess white people in America have been offering to blacks since forever, i.e., do whatever a white cop says no matter what:

Listen up--Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and everybody else. Most police shootings can be avoided. It comes down to respect for authority and obedience. If a police officer tells you to stop, you stop. If a police officer tells you to put your hands in the air, you put your hands in the air. If a police officer tells you to lay down face first with your hands behind your back, you lay down face first with your hands behind your back. It’s as simple as that. Even if you think the police officer is wrong—YOU OBEY. Parents, teach your children to respect and obey those in authority. Mr. President, this is a message our nation needs to hear, and they need to hear it from you. Some of the unnecessary shootings we have seen recently might have been avoided. The Bible says to submit to your leaders and those in authority “because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account.”

For anyone of any race who wants to both (1) survive potentially hostile encounters with police and (2) not do things that may get you railroaded on some false charge (or for that matter, undermine your legal position if you're doing something not legal), the ACLU has a real-world guide online, Know Your Rights: What To Do If You're Stopped By Police, Immigration Agents or the FBI n/d; accessed 03/26/2015).

I'm pretty sure there are cops who aren't acting on Divine authority every moment they're dressed in their uniform: Iris Carrabers, CBS News 11/25/2013; Mark Wilson, $10M lawsuit filed for alleged SAPD traffic stop rape MySA 03/26/2014.

The ACLU's advice on the kind of situation in which Franklin Graham pretty much explicitly advises that you should treat the police officer as God's personal representative (bolding in original):

IF YOU ARE STOPPED FOR QUESTIONING
Stay calm. Don't run. Don't argue, resist or obstruct the police, even if you are innocent or police are violating your rights. Keep your hands where police can see them.
Ask if you are free to leave. If the officer says yes, calmly and silently walk away. If you are under arrest, you have a right to know why.
You have the right to remain silent and cannot be punished for refusing to answer questions. If you wish to remain silent, tell the officer out loud. In some states, you must give your name if asked to identify yourself.
You do not have to consent to a search of yourself or your belongings, but police may "pat down" your clothing if they suspect a weapon. You should not physically resist, but you have the right to refuse consent for any further search. If you do consent, it can affect you later in court."

The liberal-evangelical Protestant journal Sojourners has prrinted the text of An Open Letter to Franklin Graham (03/19/2015 with commentary) prepared by several pastors:

As your brothers and sisters in Christ, who are also called to lead the body, we are disappointed and grieved by your abuse of the Holy Scriptures. You lifted Hebrews 13:17 out of its biblical context and misappropriated it in a way that encourages believers to acquiesce to an injustice that God hates. That text refers to church leadership, not the secular leadership of Caesar.

Are you also aware that your commentary resonates with the types of misinterpretations and rhetoric echoed by many in the antebellum church? Are you aware that the southern slavocracy validated the systematic subjugation of human beings made in the image of God by instructing these enslaved human beings to “obey their masters because the Bible instructed them to do so?”

Your blanket insistence on obedience in every situation exposes an ignorance of church history. God called Moses to resist and disobey unjust authority. Joseph and Mary were led by the Spirit to seek asylum in Egypt, disobeying the unjust decrees passed down by authority figures in order to ensure the safety of Jesus. And Paul himself resisted authority and ultimately wrote Romans 13 from jail.

And they remind Graham that being an apologist for arbitrary authority isn't unquestionably Christian, either:

As one who understands human depravity, your statement demonstrates a profound disregard for the impact of sinful individuals when given power to craft systems and structures that govern millions. The outcome is oppression and impoverishment — in a word, injustice.

Finally, if you insist on blind obedience, then you must also insist that officers of the justice system obey the U.S. Constitution, which protects the right of all to equal protection under the law. Yet, reports confirm unconscious racial biases in policing, booking, sentencing, and in return produce racially disparate outcomes within our broken justice system.

Likewise, you must also call on officers to honor their sworn duty to protect and serve without partiality. The Federal Bureau of Investigations director, James B. Comey, acknowledges that law enforcement has fallen short of this mandate: “First, all of us in law enforcement must be honest enough to acknowledge that much of our history is not pretty. At many points in American history, law enforcement enforced the status quo, a status quo that was often brutally unfair to disfavored groups.”

Although, I have to say that quoting James Comey to make a point about Christian obligations to promote justice isn't necessarily the ideal choice, either!

But that's not the only way that Franklin Graham is making himself into an ugly piece of work (Stoyan Zaimov, Franklin Graham Says Obama's 'Sympathy to Islam' Will Lead to Christian and Jewish Persecution in America Christian Post 03/03/2015):

The Rev. Franklin Graham has warned in an interview that President Barack Obama is "very sympathetic to Islam" and that America's foreign policy is influenced by Muslims. He added that this influence could lead to Christians and Jewish people being persecuted in the United States.

"There are Muslims that have access to him in the White House. Our foreign policy has a lot of influence now, from Muslims. We see the prime minister of Israel being snubbed by the president and by the White House and by the Democrats and it's because of the influence of Islam. They hate Israel and they hate Christians, and so the storm is coming, I believe," Graham told Gordon Robertson, host of CBN's "The 700 Club" interactive program.

Graham further pointed out that Obama had a Muslim father, and that as a child the president went to school in Indonesia, which has the largest Islamic population in the world.

"So, growing up his frame of reference and his influence as a young man was Islam. It wasn't Christianity, it was Islam," the evangelist said.

Aside from treating "Islam" as inherently evil and threatening to the freedom of Christian and Jews, his premise is just stock rightwing fantasy.

And this by Sami Martin, Franklin Graham Warns Christians in America 'Persecution Is Coming' Christian Post 03/09/2015:

"I believe we're going to see persecution in this country," Graham said during an interview on "Fox and Friends Weekend" on Sunday. "We've already seen many laws that have been passed that restrict our freedom as Christians. I believe it's going to get worse, and we see no question gaining influence in Washington by those that represent the Islamic faith. We do have a problem in this country and we are losing our religious freedom and we're losing it a little bit day by day."

It's not the first time that Graham, the son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, has issued a warning for Christian Americans. He previously warned that America's morality was crumbling because President Obama "defends Islam and chastises Christians, rebukes our allies and befriends our enemies, and fully supports gay marriage and abortion but denies the religious freedoms of those who don't agree," in a post on Facebook.

This is a typical white Christian fundamentalist persecution fantasy. And it's based on a reversal of intelligible meanings of words and concepts. To Graham and the Christian Right, laws that allow gays and lesbians to live and marry freely are restricting the freedom of Christians because Christians are then no longer "free" to persecute gays and lesbians.

And he says that police, even those who are rapists and murderers, are people we have to obey without question because "they keep watch over" us on behalf of God.

This is ugly fanaticism, not any kind of sensible or honorable version of Christianity.

Fred Phelps, antigay hatemonger (1929-2014)

Antigay Christian fundamentalist jihadist Fred Phelps has died.

This WJTV report, Mississippi Born Pastor Fred Phelps Dies at 84 03/30/2014, says straightforwardly what Phelps' professed reason was for protesting at soldiers' funerals: "Phelps believed any misfortune, most infamously the deaths of American soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, was God's punishment for society's tolerance of homosexuality."

Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian reports on Phelps' career in Fred Phelps Nears Death - Shocking Surprises In His Hate-Filled Life The Young Turks 03/17/2014:

It's been revealing but not especially surprising that conservatives have tiptoed around that motivation, since most of them agree with the sentiment if not the protesting. This piece at the conservative Christianity Today website on How Should We Respond to the Tragic Death of Fred Phelps? talks about him as a promoter of hate - without mentioning against whom that hatred was most notoriously directed.

The conservative Christian Post has a more intriguing set of article on Phelps' death. Michael Gryboski report in Fred Phelps' Estranged Son Comments on Death, 'I Will Mourn His Passing' 03/21/2014 that his son Nate Phelps is critical of his late father's antigay theology. But he also points out that Nate is an atheist, something not likely to endear him to the Christian Post's main readership:

Since leaving the Westboro Baptist cult several years ago, Nate Phelps has been a strong proponent of atheism and an LGBT advocate.

In the statement, posted on the website Recovering From Religion, Nate Phelps said that he "will mourn his (father's) passing." ...

Via the RFR post, Nate Phelps also equated the controversial rhetoric of his father with pastors who are opposed same-sex marriage and do not condone homosexuality.

"The lessons of my father were not unique to him, nor will this be the last we hear of his words, which are echoed from pulpits as close as other churches in Topeka, Kansas, where WBC headquarters remain, and as far away as Uganda," said Phelps.

It's an interesting reportorial move: stating who Fred Phelps brand of hate was directed against, including the fact that other churches besides Westboro express very similar sentiments - but putting it into the mouth of someone identified as "a strong proponent of atheism and an LGBT advocate," both sinister things to Christian fundamentalists, and someone who rebelled against his father, also a particularly suspect quality to Christian fundamentalist advocates of their version of "family values."

And check out this CP headline: Westboro Baptist Church Founder and Civil Rights Attorney Fred Phelps Dies 03/20/2014, an article by Morgan Lee.

The Christian Post is a conservative web publication that publishes articles by Christian Right honchos like Richard Land, Al Mohler and Eric Metaxas and is also Pentecostal-friendly, i.e., they publish writers who take demon-possession literally. They provide a convoluted we-don't-like-him-but-don't-think-we're-siding-with-them-thar-gays approach to Phelps' death.

For the Christian Right, "civil rights attorney" has a double-reverse meaning: "civil rights" are Good for guns and for American Christian fundamentalists being relentless persecuted (but they don't mean by Jews because they love Israel!) but Evil when being claimed by LGBT sorts or by, you know, "inner city" people (which has nothing to do with race, not at all!). So see, we're criticizing Phelps for being bad, too, so don't say we didn't criticize him!! I think of this as double-reverse thinking, because when I try to follow out rightwing logic like this, it feels like my brain is bending back on itself.

Maybe worst of all, Phelps was a Democrat who supported Al Gore: "Phelps was closely tied with Kansas' Democratic Party, helping Al Gore's 1988 presidential campaign." Being a nominal Democrat does not mean someone is taking a liberal position; hardline rightwingers even now sometimes run for office as Democrats or claim to be Democrats. Cenk and Ana discuss this briefly in the video report above.

And there's this from Cenk and Ana from 2012, Fox News: Westboro Baptist Church is Left-Wing Cult 12/30/2012:

I was struck by this line: "The [Westboro Baptist] church also sees the 9/11 terrorist attacks as proof of God's judgment on the United States for allowing homosexuality and abortion."

This kind of judgment is not at all unusual among conservative Christian fundamentalists. Remember the classic comments of the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson just after the 9/11 attacks (Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson say immorality and anti-Christian groups should share in the blame for the Terrorist Attacks on America TruthorFiction.com, n/d, accessed 03/23/2014; Austin Carty, Jerry Falwell 9/11 Remarks: A Former Liberty University Student Reflects Huffington Post 09/13/2011):

Falwell said, "The ACLU has got to take a lot of blame for this. And I know I'll hear from them for this, but throwing God...successfully with the help of the federal court system ... throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools, the abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked and when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad ... I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who try to secularize America ... I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen."

Robertson said, "I totally concur, and the problem is we've adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government, and so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do, and the top people, of course, is the court system."

Falwell added, "Pat, did you notice yesterday that the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, the People for the American Way, NOW, etc., were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress, as they went out on the steps and and called out to God in prayer and sang 'God bless America' and said, let the ACLU be hanged. In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time, calling on God."

Another CP article goes into some detail to recall Phelps' reported civil rights background: Napp Nazworth, Before Fred Phelps Preached Hate, He Was a Civil Rights Hero 03/20/2014. Nazworth's reporting seems to be more straightforward journalism; but then, I haven't noticed the Christian Post holding to terribly high classical journalism standards. Still, it would seem that if Phelps had a serious personal commitment to defending African-American civil rights, his conversion to a far uglier perspective calls for some explanation. But neither of the two Christian Post articles I've cited here offers any kind of explanation.

And Nazworth's piece seems to be particularly intent on demonstrating what a dedicated advocate Phelps was for Those People. He quotes Phelps' son Nathan - who we know is "a strong proponent of atheism and an LGBT advocate" - saying that Old Man Phelps was a racist. He links to this article by Alex Hannaford, My father, the hate preacher: Nate Phelps on escaping Westboro Baptist Church The Telegraph 03/13/2013. Hannaford's report says:

"... [Fred Phelps] graduated with a law degree from a university in Kansas and fought various civil rights suits in the Sixties. According to local reports, he gained a reputation as a sharp, competent attorney "whose eloquent and fiery orations mesmerised juries". Two decades later, he received awards from the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Blacks in Government and a local branch of the human rights group the NAACP.

But Nate Phelps says the perception in some circles that his father was once this champion of civil rights, railing against discrimination, is laughable. "We would all call black people 'DNs' at home. It stood for Dumb N------ and was our private language," he says. “We thought it was clever to call them that in front of them. He was deeply prejudiced, and he believed the Bible said they were cursed.”

Nate says Fred Phelps saw an opportunity with the passing of the Civil Rights Act to cash in. "There was a lot of money, and a lot of opportunity," he says. "And suddenly my father was the man to go to." At the same time, Nate says, he and his siblings were being fed a distorted version of the Bible. "We were told we were the only people left on Earth; the only ones who were going to be saved." Nate says his father became an itinerant preacher, attempting to save Mormons in Utah and Native Americans in the south west, and believing that he was never going to die.

Nazworth cites the Telegraph report for Nathan's view. But he apparently got a statement directly from Shirley Phelps-Roper, who he identifies in the piece only as Fred Phelps daughter. By an earlier Christian Post article by Morgan Lee in The Christian Post, Live from Hell, Westboro Baptist Spokesperson Sings Church's Hate Messages in NYC Musical 10/08/2013, identifies Phelps-Roper more fully as "WBC [Westboro Baptist Church] spokesperson and daughter of WBC Pastor Fred Phelps."

His estranged son's word isn't necessarily definitive. But Nathan's version does explain the seeming conversion: there was money to be made in pursuing those lawsuits. And if you've got a white attorney that has, uh, old-fashioned attitudes about race but makes effective arguments in court, it wouldn't be surprising that his civil-rights clients were more concerned about his results than his private attitudes.

Nazworth also relies heavily on this article by Joe Taschler and Steve Fry, As a lawyer, Phelps was good in court The Capital-Journal 08/03/1994. And he approvingly cites the argument by Matthew Rozsa in The Creator Of Westboro Baptist Used to Be a Die-Hard Civil Rights Fighter — What Happened? 03/16/2014. Rozsa's argument, though, is a dubious pop-psychology speculation based on Eric Hoffer's general theory of fanaticism. None of the reporting I've seen on Fred Phelps' civil-rights work on behalf of African-American clients indicates that he was a fanatical believer in the cause of civil rights.

The antigay sentiment is a crucial organizing point and fundraising tool for the Christian Right. American Christian fundamentalists, with a few individual exceptions as always, agree both with Phelps' attitude that homosexuality is sinful as such and with his view that God collectively punishes the United States for legal sins like tolerating homosexuality.

It was his tactic of staging protests at soldiers' funerals that brought him the level of attention it did. I'm not sure how influential he was on the politics of antigay hatred; there's no shortage of Christian Right fundamentalists promoting that cause. But he attracted plenty of attention to his group (which probably functions as a cult) by the protests. And conservatives were able to instrumentalize those protests by ignoring the religious-ideological reason Phelps and Westboro gave (antigay hatred) and expressing outrage only at the seeming antiwar aspect (although it's not clear to me that Westboro was antiwar, as such). Rightwingers are wedded to notion that war critics are "hostile to soldiers" and Phelps gave them a way to promote that image. Although in the end it will only fool people who want to be fooled on that score.

The Patriot Guard Riders is the motorcycle group (club? gang?) that formed to block Westboro protesters. The front page of their website doesn't mention anything at all about Westboro, much less their Christian-fundamentalist antigay position they placed at the center of those protests. Their website says their purpose it to go to funerals of soldiers at the family's invitation to: "Shield the mourning family and their friends from interruptions created by any protestor [sic] or group of protestors [sic]."

God forbid that anyone might think the Patriot Guard Riders were on the same side as LGBT advocates or antiwar activists in objecting to protests at funerals of individual soldiers! Their "Our History" page does refer to "misguided religious zealots" doing the protesting. Quakers? Buddhists? Gosh, who could those "religious zealots" be and why might they be protesting?

Christian Right activists and writers find it awkward if not completely insupportable to straightforwardly take a stance against Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist's antigay position. Because, for one thing, many Christian fundamentalist share the basic Westboro theology that homosexuality is evil and that God collectively punishes the United States for not repressing it more actively.

For another, they don't want to divide the political cause supporting antigay legislation. And the claim that Christian Rightists make that they only oppose "special rights" being granted to LGBT people is silly. Their attitudes toward anti-bullying programs and toward gays in the military illustrated that they don't just oppose "special rights," they support active antigay discrimination, even including encouraging violence against gays and lesbians.

Here's the endorsement that evangelical prince Franklin Graham gave to that manly-man Vladimir Putin, whose manly manliness American conservatives have been drooling over (see You'll Never Guess Who Loves Putin The Young Turks 03/19/2014) from an article in the March 2014 Decision Magazine, a publication of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Putin's Olympic Controversy 02/28/2014:

I have never heard Putin quote the Bible, but during his 2012 election campaign, he met with church leaders in Moscow and vowed to protect persecuted Christians around the world. That is one justification for his support of the Assad regime in Syria.

Syria, for all its problems, at least has a constitution that guarantees equal protection of citizens. Around the world, we have seen that this is essential where Christians are a minority and are not protected. The radicals in Syria want an Islamic constitution based on sharia law.

Christians have lived in Syria since the time of Christ. The Apostle Paul was on the road to Damascus when he met Christ. Christians in Syria know that if the radicals overthrow Assad, there will be widespread persecution and wholesale slaughter of Christians.

To be clear, I am not endorsing President Putin. To survive in the KGB and rise to power in Russia, you have to be tough. His enemies say he is ruthless. To some, he is a modern version of a czar. His personal life has its own controversies.

Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue—protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda — Russia’s standard is higher than our own?

In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues. Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.

Our president and his attorney general have turned their backs on God and His standards, and many in the Congress are following the administration’s lead. This is shameful. [my emphasis]

Tags: franklin graham, fred phelps, gay rights, lgbt rights, westboro baptist

Confederate "Heritage" Month 2012 April 8: The "New South" and segregation

Patrick Anderson, the editor of Christian Ethics Today, did a column earlier this year on Presidential Politics in the New South Huffington Post 02/21/2012. He recalls some of his own experiences growing up in the South while describing the persistence of race as a live political issue among whites:

But memories can be long. Fear is fear. In the states of the old Confederacy, race is at the heart of virtually every political issue. Whereas my childhood memories are mostly of isolation from persons of different races, black folk have deep memories of violence and injustice and, for many, those memories are recent.

Not only am I a southerner, I am a Christian -- a Baptist one at that. I was born and raised in the Southern Baptist Church. My idea of "other faiths" was Methodists and Presbyterians, those of questionable faith who sprinkled instead of dunked and wore robes when they preached. I met my first Catholic in the fifth grade when a boy entered my class after having moved with his family from a northern state. He was ostracized, looked at as though he had just stepped off of a space ship in my all-white protestant school. Poor kid. We know the same Klan foolishness that demonized African Americans was directed at Catholics and the many "others." [my emphasis]

He mentions some of the most obvious coded - sometimes very thinly coated if at all - racial demagoguery of the current Republican Presidential candidates:

We hear about mythical "voter fraud" and the imperative need for "voter IDs," devotion to the 10th Amendment and "states' rights," a great concern for "pay checks, not food stamps," calls for success based on "merit, not government handouts" and the claim that the 99 percent of us who question the demise of American egalitarianism are jealous, envious of the 1 percent whose merit clearly surpasses anyone not born to wealth and advantage.

Perhaps it takes one with ears sensitized in the post-World War II South to hear the dog whistle of racism in those priorities. As a white southerner I hear it, and I recognize its false tune. It summons the racial anxieties of the past, and it is inappropriate for the New South.

I'm not sure there's much point in calling such talk "inappropriate", though. Today's Republicans don't care. They use white racist demagoguery because they make it work for them. Until the public in the South and elsewhere get to the point that it hurts candidates more than helps them to use such rhetoric, and until the Democrats get aggressive enough to consistently produce that result, the Republicans will keep right on using it.

Anderson also finds that the openly partisan Republican Franklin Graham indulges in similar appeals, referring to a recent appearance on the Morning Joe TV program:

Graham said that President Obama cared more for Muslims in the world than the Christians who are being killed by Muslims. He said that President Obama had joined a church, but that Graham could not say that a real conversion had taken place in Obama's life. He said that the Muslim world recognizes President Obama as a fellow Muslim because of the President's father and grandfather who were Muslim. Graham neglected to mention that President Obama's father had denounced Islam and that Islamic law considers anyone who renounces Islam as worthy of death. He let Mitt Romney off the hook when asked about his Christian bona fides. Sure, Gingrich has had several marriages, and sure Romney shares a set of beliefs with his Mormon brethren that would befuddle most church-goers, but it is President Obama's faith which is in question according to Graham.

Again, my southern ears hear Franklin Graham's words clearly. If President Obama were white, or Republican, given the President's lifestyle and statements of belief, his Christianity would not be questioned. I hear the dog whistle, Franklin. Put it away.

Tags: confederate heritage month 2012, franklin graham, lost cause, neo-confederate, white racism