1/12/04
First
from the leading Democratic Candidate for President:
"Dean
says 'Christian beliefs' led him to sanction same-sex marriage in
Vermont."
As I said previously, as we turn to the Democratic Party, the Presidential
landscape gets bleaker. Mr Dean says that it's only "Christian"
to accept homosexuals, because God made them that way. He claims as a
medical doctor that this is "genetic proof" of this.
I guess anything will profess Christianity at the time of an election....
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A63152-2004Jan7?language=printer
Dean Says Faith Swayed Decision on Gay Unions
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 8, 2004; Page A01
MUSCATINE, Iowa, Jan. 7 -- Democratic front-runner Howard Dean said Wednesday
that his decision as governor to sign the bill legalizing civil unions for gays
in Vermont was influenced by his Christian views, as he waded deeper into the
growing political, religious and cultural debate over homosexuality and the
Bible's view of it.
"The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial
genetic component to it," Dean said in an interview Wednesday. "From
a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would
not have created gay people."
Dean's comments come as gay marriage is emerging as a defining social issue of
the 2004 elections, and one that is dividing the Episcopal Church in the United
States and many other Christians and non-Christians. Driving the debate is a
theological dispute over the Bible's view on homosexuality and a political one
over the secular and spiritual wisdom of allowing gays to marry.
Dean said he does not often turn to his faith when making policy decisions but
cited the civil union bill as a time he did. "My view of Christianity . .
. is that the hallmark of being a Christian is to reach out to people who have
been left behind," he told reporters Tuesday. "So I think there was a
religious aspect to my decision to support civil unions."
Earlier Tuesday, when he and the other candidates were asked at a debate
whether religion has influenced any of their policy decisions, Dean was the
only one not to respond.
In the interview Wednesday, Dean said, "I don't go through an inventory
like that when making public policy decisions."
Dean has been expanding on his religious views in a series of conversations
with reporters, but his remarks Tuesday and Wednesday were the first time he
has talked about how faith has influenced his policymaking.
Dean said he does not consider homosexuality a sin but nonetheless opposes gay
marriage. The civil unions bill he signed as Vermont governor in 2000 granted
homosexual couples the same rights and protections as if they were married.
Among the nine Democratic presidential contenders, Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich
(Ohio), former senator Carol Moseley Braun (Ill.) and Al Sharpton support gay
marriage.
Republicans are pushing a constitutional amendment against gay marriage, and
President Bush has said he would support it if necessary. Religious groups and
social conservatives in Congress are planning to push the issue aggressively
before the November election, in part, to motivate Christian voters and paint
Democrats as out of touch with most Americans. Polls show that a majority of
Americans oppose gay marriage.
Dean, who leads in many polls, is increasingly trying to broaden his appeal by
talking about faith and centrist policies such as a balanced budget and tax
reform for the middle class. One week ago he said he planned to discuss his
faith more openly in the South, but Tuesday he said he would take this message
everywhere. "I think we have got to stop thinking about the South as some
peculiar region," he said. "I am going to talk about the same things
everywhere."
Some Democrats have said Dean, with roots in liberal Vermont and close
identification with the nation's first civil unions law, might appear too
secular to win over an increasingly religious electorate.
Dean, who is a member of the Congregationalist Church, which preaches a liberal
brand of Christianity, falls on the side of Episcopal leaders in the United
States who recently stirred international controversy by ordaining a gay
bishop, and the millions of Americans who do not consider homosexuality a sin.
This theological debate predates the questions of civil unions and gay marriage
and has divided biblical scholars for a long time.
In broad terms, it pits Christians who look at the Bible less literally and
argue that the Gospels never quote Jesus talking specifically about
homosexuality against more conservative Christians who take a more literal
approach and point to scripture in the New and Old Testaments that they believe
forbids homosexuality. For instance, Leviticus 18:22, according to the King
James version of the Bible, says, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as
with womankind: it is abomination."
Polls show voters want a religious president and one who talks about faith.
Some Republicans, including a few in the Bush administration, worry that the
GOP could overplay its hand by appearing to divide people with hostility toward
gays. But if Dean wins the Democratic presidential nomination, strategists from
both parties predict it will become a major issue in the campaign.
At several campaign stops this week, Dean said that if Republicans push gay
issues, he will talk "issues that unite us," such as health insurance
for every American.
Then
from the leading Republican Candidate for President:
“Bush worships Shinto Idol;
Japanese and Korean Churches Rebuke Him”
The statement below is a
joint statement of the Japanese and Korean Churches against President Bush,
when, at his last visit to Japan, he worshipped a Shinto idol.
Briefly, what happened was
this. Mr Bush, as a “political gesture
of good-will and respect for all religions”, scheduled a visit to a Shinto
temple, with Prime Minister Koizumi and a Shinto priest. When the Japanese and Korean churches heard
of the planned visit, they immediately contacted him, and warned him *not*
to go into that temple.
Prime Minister Koizumi of
Japan, seeing that this was going to become a “hot potato” politically,
cancelled his attendance at this visit.
However, President and Mrs Bush nonetheless, against the warnings of the
Japanese and Koreans, went into the temple with the Shinto priest. They took off their shoes—which is a gesture
of worship toward the idol statue in the center of the temple—and then proceeded
to bow to the idol.
The statement below—which is
on the worldwide web—is a courageous rebuke of the President.
These are stirring
words: “Yet, the President who claims
himself a Christian committed the sin of idol worship defying the strong warning and advice of the Japan Evangelical Association.
The act was also an act of betrayal cruelly breaking down the honorable
Christian tradition cherished by many
Korean, Japanese and Asian Christian believers going through various sufferings
over against the Shinto shrine worship… We question and doubt about the personal faith of the President” (In other words, in the past, professing
Christians in Japan have been martyred and tortured for refusing to worship the
Shinto idols. Those who refused to
suffer persecution were deemed apostates.)
I first learned of this
wickedness of Mr Bush through a Reformed Baptist minister from Virginia,
Reverend Ovid Need, who subscribes himself in full to the London Confession of
Faith of 1689. All the ladies in his congregation
wear dresses and skirts, and have long hair.
All the children in the congregation are homeschooled. He is quite conservative.
Al
P S I commend the Japanese and Korean churches
for appealing to the Ten Commandments.
Very few Christian churches in the US even believe that the Ten
Commandments pertain to the New Testament Church.
http://www.worldevangelical.org/news_japan_22feb02.html
DENOUNCING THE PRESIDENT
BUSH'S SHINTO SHRINE WORSHIP
The Korean Church together
with the Japanese Church is shocked and frightened at the act of the President
Bush's shrine worship at the Meiji Shrine in the morning of Feb. 18, 2002
upholding the flag of the so called a Christian justice and a superpower, for
it is an act of idol worship breaking the first, second, and third commandments
of the Christian faith. We strongly denounce it.
The President and Mrs. Bush
entered into the Meiji Shrine together with the Shinto priest and bowed a big
ceremonial bow and worshipped idol. Even though the Premier Junichiro Koizumi
was originally to accompany the President Bush, he did not accompany and
worship because he was said to have worried about the critical public opinion
of the Japanese. Yet, the President who claims himself a Christian committed
the sin of idol worship defying the strong warning and advice of the Japan
Evangelical Association. The act was also an act of betrayal cruelly breaking
down the honorable Christian tradition cherished by many Korean, Japanese and
Asian Christian believers going through various sufferings over against the
Shinto shrine worship.
The Japan Evangelical
Association announced a statement of denounce on Feb. 19 as the followings. We
regret very much that the President Bush defied the warning and advice of the
Japanese Church. We question and
doubt about the personal faith of the President. We denounce the
self-justified American way of thinking of indifference and insensitivity to
the people of the world. We especially denounce Mr. Bush's words and acts of
defiance about the feeling and sentiments of the Korean people. We worry that
Mr. Bush's act of Shinto shrine worship might justify the act of Shinto shrine
worship and thus weaken the Christian cause in Japan.
The President Bush also did
wrong in that he upheld high the militaristic and capitalistic flag of a so
called a just superpower, took a self-justified and autocratic attitude of
ruling, condemning and punishing the world at random and thus intensified the
conventional cold war spirit. We wish that the Bush administration would
recover the Christian spirit of faith exalting God as well as the Christian
spirit of love embracing the poverty and disaster of the world before taking an
attitude of punishing evils. We pray that the United States of America today
would be born to be the USA of the past which did shine the light of hope and
love to the world.
February 19, 2002
Rev. Kim Ki Soo, president
of Christian Council of Korea (cck@cck.co.kr)
Rev. Kim Myung Hyuk,
chairman of Korea Evangelical Fellowship (mhkim7@unitel.co.kr)
Prof. Son Bong Ho, chairman
of Christian Ethics Movement of Korea (giyunsil@cemk.org)