Religious Intolerance at McCain Rally in Davenport, Iowa

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The voice of religious intolerance spoke loudly and clearly Saturday at a John McCain rally in Davenport, Iowa. During his invocation preceding the rally, Rev. Arnold Conrad told the crowd not only that they should pray for a McCain victory but also that alleged enemies of Christianity around the world were praying for Barack Obama to win the US presidential election (see video).

"There are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that [McCain's] opponent wins, for a variety of reasons...," Rev. Conrad said, "...And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens."

Now, if Rev. Conrad has an actual degree in theology or divinity from some reputable institution of higher learning (which I doubt), then his program obviously didn't include any studies in comparative religion as any such program should. If it had, then Rev. Conrad would know that "Hindu" is not the name of a god to whom one prays, but of a religion and the followers of that religion. "Buddha," the founder of Buddhism, was a man, not a god, despite his earned sacred status; and in any case, Buddhists don't "pray to Buddha" for things they want. "Allah," Rev. Conrad should also know, is simply the Arabic name for the same God worshipped by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Arabic-speaking Christians also call God "Allah." Most ridiculous in Conrad's remarks was the idea that Christians and non-Christians ought to be fighting over whose god is "bigger" - an assertion so childish and stupid that it hardly merits discussion at all.

What if, perchance to dream, there had happened to be some Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or even atheist Republicans in the audience when Rev. Conrad gave his invocation? And what if these Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and even atheists considered themselves every bit as American as any Christian, indeed every bit as American as Rev. Conrad himself? This is why we have separation of church and state in this country, a fact of which Rev. Conrad seems wholly and blissfully unaware.

Rev. Conrad is obviously an ignorant bigot. His remarks not only fly in the face of the fact that Obama himself is a Christian, but also posit a world in which people of different faiths must always be at war with one another, and in which anyone who doesn't happen to be a particular type of Christian must be considered an enemy of Christianity. Rev. Conrad also seems dangerously disposed toward something strongly resembling an American evangelical religious state and state religion, in defiance of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Rev. Conrad's is the same mindset that brought us the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem Witch Trials; and it has no place in the 21st Century.

Rev. Conrad's remarks came before McCain arrived at the rally, and the McCain campaign - anxious to salvage what little remains of its reputation following weeks of shameless hate-mongering at rallies such as this - quickly put out a statement distancing itself from the remarks, saying that they "distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama's judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief."

The McCain/Palin campaign's sudden change of heart on hate speech at rallies may be too little, too late, however: The hate-mongering of recent days at these events appears likely to have unalterably set the tone for the McCain/Palin campaign, which in its final weeks has come increasingly to look like a lynch mob, if not some ridiculous would-be holy war.

See also: CNN, AP, LA Times, WSJ, Iowa Independent.