Shuck and Jive


Friday, September 19, 2008

Clergy For Obama

We are Clergy for Obama.

We believe in Barack Obama’s ability to change this country we love so dearly; more importantly, we believe in our ability to be the change.

We believe in our ability to create a country where:
  • all children have nourishing food
  • the sick can find affordable healthcare
  • our young adults have real opportunities and a future they can trust
  • the elderly live securely and in community
  • women and men have choices about their private lives
  • armed conflict is a last resort, not a substitute for diplomacy
Together we believe in our ability to move this country
  • to a politics of hope
  • to a deep regard for the life of the planet and care for all creation
  • to an investment in programs that work to end poverty
  • to equal pay for equal work
We are children of God.
We are citizens of the United States of America.
We believe now is the time for change.

We are Clergy for Obama

Sign here.

This is NOT an endorsement from the pulpit. You are speaking for yourself, out of your faith and other commitments.

View the signatures here.

6 comments:

  1. Pretty good.
    It's hopeful.
    I would like to see it grow.

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  2. I don't know...I still see Obama as a lesser evil. I can't say I'm "for" Obama as much as I am "for" anything on God's green Earth that is a break from the disastrous and humiliating Bush administration. - including McCain's support of most of its most eggregious policies and actions.

    But it isn't as if Obama is a peace candidate, as some put him up to be. And I think his position on the born-alive issue is frankly disturbing. I just have this choice between someone with whom I have huge disagreements,and another person with whom I have even more huge disagreements who is also in favor of World War III...and whose VP is the ex-mayor of a city of 9000 people and a supporter of the Bridge to Nowhere, as well as an ardent creationist who wants it taught in biology classrooms.

    Its a poo sandwhich...or just the poo. At least one way, I get bread and garnish.

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  3. Thanks, Doug. I appreciate your view. I don't see it that way, though. I think the differences are huge.

    Brian McLaren wrote a good post that resonated with me:

    But my concern is not only John McCain. I’m also terribly concerned about the party that nominated him. I don’t believe that a party that rushes to war based on a false pretenses deserves to be re-elected, no matter how loudly it claims to be for “family values” or “small-town values.” Do you? Is there an integrity lapse more serious than this?

    Some of us believe that the Bush-Cheney administration was sincerely mistaken about weapons of mass destruction in their build-up to war. In this view, we went to war because of a failure of intelligence. It was an honest mistake, some say – being careful to remember that the honesty of the mistake does not minimize its seriousness. Others of us believe that Bush-Rove-Cheney cynically manipulated the data – and us, the American people - to legitimize a war they wanted to prosecute for other reasons. In this view, it was a dishonest abuse of power. Either way, whether because of a deficit of good intelligence or a deficit of integrity, I believe that a party that puts so many American and Iraqi lives in harm’s way without sufficient cause does not deserve to be re-elected. They should be sent into the penalty box for at least one period or given a red card for at least one game. How can they be rewarded with another presidency?

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  4. Thanks for helping us get the word out!

    And Doug, thanks for the thoughtful, engaged dialogue on complicated issues!

    Brandon Gilvin
    clergy4obama.org

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  5. Brian McLaren's post reflects my views exactly with one exception.

    Months before the war, the LA Times was reporting (back before it became the victim of a hostile neo-con takeover) that the leadership of the CIA was reporting NO evidence and was frustrated that the White House was making up its own intelligence to bolster its ideology. They were also concerned that they could become the fall guys when after the war the lack of evidence became known. Very prophetic.

    If the LA times had sources saying so, then the White House did too. McLaren is being too kind in giving Bush-Rove-Cheney the benefit of the doubt.

    But either way, to reward the Republicans with another four years would be the hight of folly.

    That said, I think McCain is an honest man with good values. If he were to break with the Republican party, become and independent, and find an honest running mate, I think I could be convinced to vote for him.

    As it is, no way, no how.

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