Mmm! Wingnuttiest!

This is one fo the most outrageous stories I've seen in a long time. As quoted in the story from People for the American Way:

Missionary to Capitol Hill and Evangelical leader Rev. Rob Schenck (pronounced SHANK) takes on the thorny question of Barack Obama's religious identity in a new video blog posting called Faith and Action Live! which will post today, March 5, at 1:00 PM (EST) at www.faithandaction.org.
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In his video blog, Rev. Schenck discusses Senator Obama's public profession of Christian faith, his Muslim background and the view of the Islamic world on what defines a Muslim.

It just gets worse from there. (If you want some idea of how far out Schenck is, read this transcript of a discussion about Roy Moore and his installation of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Supreme Court. Schenck hews to the Dominionist line that this country is founded on God and the Ten Commandments -- the reasoning is sketchy at best, and he gets called on it repeatedly by Barry Lynn.)

However, back to the issue at hand: Schenck is a right-wing Christianist activist who wants to replace the Constitution with the Ten Commandments and has a very selective and self-serving version of American history to back him up -- invented, as usual, almost entirely out of whole cloth. What makes this example of his activities so outrageous is that he has taken it upon himself to question the faith of a presidential candidate based on the flimsiest of arguments, when, in fact, Barack Obama's faith is none of his business and is, ultimately, not germane to his qualifications for the presidency.

It's no secret to regular visitors here that I think these sorts of questions have no place in our national political discourse. Matters of personal faith are just that -- personal -- and, while they may inform any officeholder's interpretation of his or her duties and responsibilities (hopefully causing them to err on the side of compassion and generosity, which all religions seem to value, at least in theory), the ultimate arbiter is the Constitution, a completely secular document.

I may perhaps be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that Schenck's questions about Obama's faith have less to do with issues of faith than power politics, and that Schenck is, in fact, completely politically motivated.

Thanks to Dave Neiwert, who has a habit of hitting the nail right on the head.