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NEW YORK - Do white right-wing preachers have it easier than black left-wing
preachers? Is there a double standard? The political explosion around the
Rev.
Jeremiah Wright was inevitable, given Wright's personal closeness to
Barack Obama and the outrageous rubbish the pastor has offered about
AIDS, Sept. 11 and
Louis Farrakhan.
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Two days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks,
Jerry Falwell, appearing on
Pat Robertson's "700 Club," declared: "I really believe that the pagans,
and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who
are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the
ACLU,
People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize
America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this
happen.' "
Robertson replied: "Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have
adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're
responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And the top
people, of course, is the court system."
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What's telling is that neither preacher lost sway in Republican circles.
Before Falwell's death last year,
John McCain actively courted his support, and
Rudy Giuliani, one of the heroes of Sept. 11, welcomed Robertson's
endorsement of his own candidacy. "His advice is invaluable," Giuliani said.
And, of course, there is the endorsement of McCain by the Rev.
John Hagee, founder of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, who has called
the Catholic Church "the great whore of Babylon" and "the anti-Christ."
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