From The Hollywood Reporter
The other day I read a post about Tom Petty’s recent interview in Billboard. In the interview Petty spoke about the church, and sex abuse, which forms the controversial message behind his new song “Playing Dumb”. Petty related that the song addresses the way that the church sat idly by, while child after child was sexually assaulted by members of the clergy, essentially “playing dumb” while children were hurt! Some of Petty’s quotes from the interview include
“Catholics, don’t write me,” he said, acknowledging he was wading into controversial waters. “I’m fine with whatever religion you want to have, but it can’t tell anybody it’s OK to kill people, and it can’t abuse children systematically for God knows how many years.”
“If I was in a club, and I found out that there had been generations of people abusing children, and then that club was covering that up, I would quit the club. And I wouldn’t give them any more money.”
He then concluded it is not Christ’s teachings that are to blame but how people and the church misinterpret the message. “It seems to me that no one’s got Christ more wrong than the Christians,” Read More
I have never been a big Tom Petty fan, but after reading and agreeing with his statements, I have a new-found respect for the man!
Additionally, I have never been a Mike Huckabee fan, either as a political commentator, candidate or a Southern Baptist minister, and after I read this post the other day at Crooks and Liars: Huckabee Refers To Palestinians As Vicious, Mad Dogs, my negative opinion was only reinforced.
Mike “HuckaJesus” spent some time Sunday stoking the fear fires so Americans could have more hatred toward Palestinians than they already do. After assuring the audience that Israel was just the opening course, and warning that the US was the main course for Palestinians’ appetites for death, he went on to say this:
Huckabee said that Palestinians wouldn’t haven’t have died “if Hamas didn’t insist on acting like vicious, mad dogs intent on making mayhem.”
Like it or not, Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinian people. They were elected by the people and we’re supposed to respect democratic elections, right? So when Fox says their government is behaving like “vicious mad dogs,” there’s no separation there between the governed and their government, such as it is. By extension, Huckabee has just extended his indictment to each and every Palestinian living in Gaza. Continue Reading
For the life of me I really don’t understand how you can sit back, call yourself a Christian and not see that killing innocent people particularly children is the right thing to do, Now, I know that supporters of Israel will say that all Palestinians want to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, and those children will only grow up to hate Israel, to become suicide bombers, etc. To that I say, wouldn’t you! If you were forced to live like the Palestinians live, watch friends and family killed, wouldn’t you be ready to take up arms against the government responsible!! Does Israel have the right to exist, absolutely. Were Palestinians promised a homeland way back when? Yes! Is Jerusalem a sacred city to both Jews and Muslims? Hell do both religions worship the same God and share many of the same religious texts and traditions! 10 Surprising Similarities between Islam and Judaism BUT does Israel have the right to kill indiscriminately to protect that right, no. Does Israel have the right to establish settlements in Palestinian territory, again no!! The whole issue is obviously complex and can not be settled quickly, hell the problems have been ongoing for millenniums! But what I do know that neither side should settle their problems on the backs of children and innocent civilians, which both sides seem willing to do!
All this leads me to someone who may just have his religion right Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts.
From the Boston Globe: Patrick delivers forceful speech on migrant children! – Casts shelter for migrants as a moral necessity
Eyes filling with tears as he quoted Scripture on Friday, Governor Deval Patrick strongly defended his plan to provide temporary shelter for up to 1,000 children who have crossed the US-Mexico border illegally and said he had identified two possible locations for them, one in Western Massachusetts and another on Cape Cod.
The facilities are Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee and Camp Edwards in Barnstable County, which housed evacuees from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The bases are being submitted for federal approval, and only one will be selected, said Patrick.
Speaking at a news conference, the governor sought to move the issue beyond the caustic national debate over immigration and used the Bible to frame the problem as a moral one. He seized on the influx of migrant children in a way that other governors have not, showcasing the sort of oratory that helped propel him to office in 2006.
“I believe that we will one day have to answer for our actions — and our inactions,” Patrick said, choking up as he was flanked by religious leaders, including Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston. Continue Reading.
Watch and Listen to the video, this is one politician, who has got it right!! Kudos to Mr Patrick!
And before you say anything, let me say I live in a town that has a fairly sizable immigrant population, some legal some not and other than some excessive celebrating over Brazil’s early wins in this year’s World Cup, I have never had any problems!!