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March 12, 2010
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On Obama’s Inaugural Speech – Maybe This Is a Small Point, But …
Guest Column | By Dr. Harvey Kushner | January 23, 2009
Like his predecessor George W. Bush, President Barack H. Obama spoke of our nation’s religions in his inaugural address on Tuesday. Unlike Bush, who referenced the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, and the words of the Koran, Obama stated: “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and non-believers.”
My quibble is not with the first-time reference in a presidential inaugural speech to “non-believers,” although it would not be to my liking to have acknowledged the category. Atheists and agnostics, and all those that identify themselves as having “no religion,” actually make up the second most checked-off category of those asked to specify a religious affiliation.
After Christianity, practiced by the overwhelming majority of the population in the United States, Judaism has the most adherents. Approximately 1.4 % of the population identifies itself as Jewish.
It is with the third category of religious affiliation where there is much disagreement. Some argue that Buddhism makes up about 0.5% to 0.9% of the population of the United States whereas other demographers believe Islam to be 0.6% of the total population.
Here is my point. Obama should have stated: “We are a nation of Christians and Jews, Muslims and Buddhists ….” The order in which he categorized America’s religious groups does matter. It matters to those of us who understand our heritage. We are a nation deeply routine in Judeo/Christian beliefs. Moreover, most every survey taken has Judaism, not Islam, as the second most identified religion in the United States next to Christianity.
In mentioning Muslims before Jews, Obama can only add fuel to the fire for those who believe he is soft on Islam or even a secret adherent. It is unfathomable to think that he or his speech writer weren’t aware of this ever-present issue. Of course they were. Why didn’t he reverse the order?
It is plausible to argue that Mr. Obama might have been countering an earlier statement in his address. After all, he just warned those that would “seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents … we will defeat you.” This was clearly a remark addressed at Islamic terrorists of all stripes poised at killing Americans.
Was Mr. Obama’s placement of Islam meant to say to the Islamic world that we see the importance of your religion? And, in effect, an effort to reach out to Muslims who he might have offended with his discussion of how he would deal with terrorists? After all, his words caused George W. Bush to leap to his feet and applaud.
Let’s hope and pray that Mr. Obama doesn’t have some other intention. Only time will tell.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Harvey Kushner, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized authority on terrorism and related security matters, and has advised and trained numerous governmental agencies such as the FBI and U.S. Customs. He also has just launched a new conservative news site, harveykushner.com
Guest columns do not necessarily reflect the views of Accuracy in Media or its staff.
9 Comments | Post a Comment
I too wondered about Barack Hussein Obama’s listing of the faiths in the USA. He carefully and
rightfully listed Christianity first, like the
author, I wondered what influenced him to place
Islam before Judaism. While not a mind-reader, I
know from his own writings that his youthful background was Muslim via his father and step-father. But, he also had a strong atheistic mother
who had forsaken her Methodist upbringing in Kansas. So, those pieces seem to fit the puzzle.
Another thing which may have influenced him might
have been that the Council on American-Islamic
Relations in concert with 30 other groups sponsored a protest in CHICAGO on Jan.9th called
the “Mass Protest Against Israel’s Attacks on
Gaza.” Anti-Semitic and genocidal themes were
everywhere on banners, flags, posters, and personal items worn by the protestors. Hatred for
Israel in the “unrestrained language, imagery,
pro-terrorism, and Islamic supremacism.” CAIR’s
claim to be nothing more than a moderate civil
rights group who wanted to release “peace doves”
at Obama’s inauguration may have reinculcated
a “psychic dilemma.” Only time will tell if his
failure to recognize the priority of the “Judaic-Christian” order of USA society was an “honest
mistake” or “a Freudian slip.”
Dear Mr. Frady,
President Obama’s youthful background was NOT Moslem. His father was an atheist who left before his son even could talk. His Indonesian step-father could hardly have been a Moslem since he married an ex-Christian atheist. Obama did spend a good portion of his boyhood in a Moslem majority country. But he never practised the religion, although he did learn about it. He converted to Christianity as a young man, the first time he had followed any religion at all.
Secondly, the Constitution makes explicitly clear that the USA is NOT a Christian or a Judaeo-Christian country. That is to the benefit of Christians and Jews, as well as to members of all other religions and those without religions. Time changes religious attitudes. The make-up of the American religious kaleidoscope was very differenet in 1776, 1876 and 1996. It will be different by 2076. The day may come when Christians are a minority among believers in the US. Then, under our Constitution, their rights to worship as they please will be as protected as they are now. Even today, to describe the US as a majority Christian country is to ignore that fact that Christianity is practised in so many different ways in America as to make the term “Christian” rather vague. Think of Southern Baptists, LDSers, Lutherans, Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Episcopalians, Orthodox, Presbyterians, to name only a few of the larger sects.
“CAIR’s claim to be nothing more than a moderate civil rights group who wanted to release “peace doves” at Obama’s inauguration may have reinculcated a “psychic dilemma.” ” That is a rather ridiculous fantasy on your part about someone you obviously do not know. Obama made no slip. He said precisely what he intended to on the subject.
Brian R. Sullivan
Hmmm…first there was some question as to whether Obama is indeed an American citizen. (he’s a muslim! he’s a socialist! He’s an islamofascist muslim marxist atheist!)Then some of the brain trust asks whether he is acually president, since Roberts flubbed the swear in. Now this bottom of the barrel scraping.
no, your point isn’t small…it’s invisible!
Re: Post 2;
Your comment:
“Only time will tell if his failure to recognize the priority of the ‘Judaic-Christian’ order of USA society was an ‘honest mistake’ or ‘a Freudian slip.’
If we’re going to insist on the “proper order” of religions in this country in terms of the number of their adherents - - shouldn’t your statement have read “‘Christian-Judaic order’ of USA society” ???
Second, don’t you think Obama’s statement might have been nothing more than a simple, non-threatenting signal and politically-expedient recognition (following Zawahiri’s recent threatenting audio tape) of the masses of worldwide Muslims who are not terroristic fundamentalists ???
Third, the fastest-growing segment of our population is Hispanic; Hispanics are projected to be the largest ethnic group in American by 2050; and, those Hispanics who are religious are almost uniformly Catholic (currently Catholic’s are approximately 30% of the U.S. population and, by far, the largest single denomination of Christians in this country) - - so it would seem to me that ‘Christianity’ (currently representing approximately 80% of the U.S. population) will remain as the significant majority religion in the U.S. for the foreseeable future - - irrespective of your fears of Obama’s supposed real or imagined preferences - - or your fear of CAIR’s (or any other Muslim group’s) supposed design to impose “Islamic supremicism” over all of us!
I note that Mr Sullivan stated stated that Obama has lttle if any muslim upbringing, HHMMMM
Have you ever lived in a muslim country?
As Obama lived as a small boy in Indonesia, he must have attended Masjid. Please don`t fool the public into the belief that as a minor in a muslim country he would have had the choice of refusing to go to Masjid. That is hiding your head in the sand. It may be okay for the media to fool us but as a civilian living in such a country I know otherwise.
Why are we trying like Obama to hide his real past.For sure time will tell the truth, I only hope that posterity will live to witness it.
Re: Post 6;
So what’s the big deal IF Obama went to a Muslim school?
I happened to have attended a Catholic High School - and had plenty of Jewish and Congregational and other Protestant classmates.
So, are all those Jewish and Protestant classmates “suspect” for some reason? Should all the Germans and Italians living in American during WWII have been “suspect”? How about all the Muslims living in American today?
And, talk about “hiding” things: Kennedy hid his Addison’s Disease. Roosevelt, his polio-caused disability. Nixon, his paranoia. Bush II was able to hide his alcoholism for a long time. Clinton apparently hid his extra-marital affairs for quite some time. Kerry’s family was, at one time, apparently Jewish - and he switched to Catholic. Reagan may well have hid his dementia while he was in office.
And your comment: “For sure time will tell the truth, I only hope that posterity will live to witness it.”
What’s your point? What’s the difference? What are we supposed “to witness”? Afraid Obama’ll turn all of us into biracial Muslims?
Geez.
Dear Mr. Bheir,
You stated: “I note that Mr Sullivan stated stated that Obama has lttle if any muslim upbringing, HHMMMM
Have you ever lived in a muslim country?”
Yes, I have, four in fact: Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan and Tunisia. In addition, I have spent at least several weeks in Morocco, Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, Eritrea, Lebanon, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Malaysia and Afghanistan.
“As Obama lived as a small boy in Indonesia, he must have attended Masjid. Please don`t fool the public into the belief that as a minor in a muslim country he would have had the choice of refusing to go to Masjid. That is hiding your head in the sand. It may be okay for the media to fool us but as a civilian living in such a country I know otherwise.”
Obama did not attend a Masjid. (Do you mean, quite literally, a mosque or a school attached to a mosque?) In any case, his mother was an atheist and his father was Moslem only by heritage. Obama did not make the choice over attendance, his mother and step-father did. (This, by the way, has been the subject of a number of news reports. You seem not to have read them.)You also seem to assume that what is the law regarding childhood education in some Moslem countries (mostly Arab ones)is true in all Moslem countries. But that is not the case.
Brian R. Sullivan
Actually,the Muslim population in the US is unknown and said to vary between 2.5 million to nearly 15 million. The most widely accepted value is between 6-7 million, which puts Muslims at over 2% of the US population, not 0.6%.
Obama’s inaugural speech was for the world to hear, regardless of what you want to believe. The current world population includes 1.5 billion Muslims and 13-15 million Jews. His speeches (including the one in Berlin) reflect this and that is likely why he puts Muslims before Jews.
January 23 at 4:30 pm | #1 | Link
Personally, if I was doing the writing or speaking, and if I felt I had to mention religion at all, I would say “We are a majority (or “predominantly”) (80%?) Christian nation”. End of case.
And, honestly, after the non-religious, the agnostics and the atheists - - the respective percentages of Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims in the population are so small as to be “negligible”.
But if one insists on mentioning these latter three - how about Shinto? Santeria? Voodoo? And untold other versions and variants of “religion”?
Personally, I think Obama’s speechwriter is a nitwit for even bringing up the matter and I would have hoped Obama would have known enough to skip making any such distinctions.
But - if he ABSOLUTELY HAD TO mention “religion” - why not just say “While we are a predominantly Christian nation - - we constitutionally protect the right of every citizen to practice his or her religion of choice, whether Judaism, Islam, Buddhism or any other religion - - as well as protecting the equal rights all of our non-believers”.
???
In the end, I think it was foolish of Obama to make the distinctions he made - and I think it’s even more foolish for the author of the above article to be bitching about his favorite religion’s placement in Obama’s listing!