President Obama and Faith

From the audacious, mendacious, and offensive sermons of Jeremiah Wright, to the unanswered questions regarding his ties to Muslim communities as a youth in Indonesia and his recent membership in the United Church of Christ, President Barack Obama has waded into religious conflicts of varying dimensions and degrees.

His first splash into the the waters of religiosity occurred at Saddleback Church, where the young candidate for president and his Republican challenger  submitted to candid interviews with Pastor Rick Warren of the Purpose Driven Life.

Candidate Obama's answers to some of the pastor's pointed questions were hardly admirable. When commenting about the life of a human child before birth, Obama remarked that any comments on the subject were "out of his pay grade", in spite of the fact that  biologists have already acknowledged that life begins at conception, and that a President must form some opinion on these issues. At least the nomination of future Supreme Court justices requires vetting these candidates on their views of Roe vs. Wade. That the current president did not repudiate his connection to the fiery falsehoods of "pastor"Jeremiah Wright"also suggest that the neophyte politician from Chicago did not have the consitution to offer diligent answers to complex questions about faith and government.

During his administration, President Obama has referred to freedom of religion as "freedom of worship," a deceptive shift which would render mute the freedom of conscience that religious fervor requires for every individual. Not just in a house of worship, but anywhere a citizen chooses to live and thrive, that person enjoys the protection of leaning his spirit on what he respects, on his impression of the Deity and His role in our lives. The government may not mandate which views we adhere to, yet the federal government has no right to dispute our intention and motivations about spiritual matters in our daily, private lives, either.

Obama's signature legislative achievement, passed with barely a majority against minority opposition and resistance within his own party, would force religious institutions to offer contraceptives as part of the force insurance policies. Religious officials in the Catholic Church displayed a growing alarm at the growth of the federal government in the face of this offensive requirement. Even the "ministerial exemption", which protected sacred institutions in dismissing employees whose misconduct fell outside of the class of actionable offenses described in Civil Rights legislation. Obama's solicitor sued a Lutheran school for dismissing a staff member suffering from narcolepsy, a condition protected under  the Americans with Disabilities Act. Attempting to overturn the ministerial exemption, the Obama administration received a stinging rebuke from all nine justices, who sided with the Lutheran school.

Whether in the suspect company that the President has kept, or with the growing intervention of government into the private affairs of church and local communities, President Obama has depicted himself as at best an unreliable supporter of the First Amendment franchise regarding religion.