Obama Quits Trinity United

Sen. Barack Obama said Saturday that he has resigned from the church that he has proudly been a member of for 20 years. His resignation now is purely politically motivated, hoping people will no longer make his spiritual mentors and place of worship an issue in the campaign. The fact remains that 20 years as a member of the church is more indicative of Obama's true feelings than his quiting this political thorn in the midst of a campaign for the presidency. Anyone who is not a liberal hack would recoginze this obvious fact. Reverend Wright, and even Reverend Pfleger, should remain a legitimate issue in this campaign. We should not allow Obama to define the terms of this debate. That is all he is trying to do by leaving the church whose pastor married him, baptized his children, and was the inspiration for the title of his book.

It is interesting to note the exact reason Obama has given for departing from the church. It has nothing to do with a fundamental disagreement with radical anti-American racist pastors being the leaders. Obama said that "we don't want to have to answer for everything that's stated in the church. We also don't want the church subjected to the scrutiny that a presidential campaign legitimately undergoes." He admits in simple terms that he does not want to answer for his past and his associations and that is the only reason why he is leaving the church. That is because there is no politically acceptable answer for everything that's stated in the church. He even said he was resigning with Obama said he was resigning "with some sadness" and that this "is not a decision I come to lightly." There is no reason to feel an ounce of sadness when leaving a church whose leaders are so extremely fond of the racist Jew-hater Louis Farakhan. His departing from the church, by his own admission, has nothing to do with the radicals that preach there.

Allow me also to give you a flashback from only ten weeks ago. This is what Obama had to say then about the church: "Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way. ...
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America."

This departure from Trinity United is not a profile in courage. It is political expediency and political cowardice.

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