in brief: Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is at a hand-shaking appearance at a pizza place, and his aides are putting his stickers on everyone to enliven the mood and improve the photos. Present is an atheist, who takes Crist to task for asking God to direct hurricanes away from his state. Lacking that vital “h” in his name, Crist responds not by turning his cheek but in this fashion:
“His smile immediately dropped and he replied “Who’s more powerful than God.” That wasn’t really an answer so asked him again to which I got a similar reply. While this was happening one of his people put a “Charlie Crist for US Senate 2010″ sticker on me. Then when I told Charlie that I did not believe in God he turned beat [sic] red and ripped the sticker off of my chest. He did a 180 to start shaking other peoples hands, and turned to scream over his shoulder that he feels sorry for me.”
I don’t thik this is the response of a true believer. This smacks of playing to the upper balcony, where the ignorant and bigoted reside. Perhaps those are a larger, more valuable constituency than the atheists vote, and worth courting. But I had a maiden aunt who went to mass every day of her life, carrying a list of relatives and friends with problems she’d pray for. If she’d been called on the practicality of it, she would have been wounded, and perhaps politley defiant, but she would never have marginalized her critic.
Charlie Crist is a prevaricating satchel of excrement. It’s not a particularly unique quality in a politician, nor is it interesting unless your a Floridian living under his realm, but yeah, old Charlie is a big old poseur for Jesus.
No idea about the truthiness of Crist’s beliefs, but I can easily imagine a true believer getting angry and insulting to an atheist. Similar things have happened to me, in kind of an inverse way. People have told me that I’m not “really” an atheist, apparently because I’m a nice guy and I wouln’t be if I were an atheist. So presumably if they see serious asshole behavior, they mights suspect atheism is behind it.
And from the POV of a believer, challenging their belief makes the challenger a major asshole.
Plus, being a closeted gay Republican, I’m sure Crist is under a lot of stress. He probably loses his temper pretty easily.
Are we assuming that Crist is a closeted gay just because he’s Republican, or do we have any specific indication? Or are you just doing that obnoxious thing where you tell me my favorite rock singer is a giant cocksucker?
There’s an HBO documentary titled Outrage about closeted gay politicians who nevertheless support anti-gay legislation. Crist is one of the subjects.
Among those listed:
Idaho senator Larry Craig
Virginia congressman Ed Schrock
Florida governor Charlie Crist
Florida congressman Mark Foley
Terry Dolan (founder of NCPAC)
New York Mayor Ed Koch
Louisiana congressman Jim McCrery
California congressman David Drier
Fox anchor Shepard Smith
Arizona congressman Kolbe
Attorney Roy Cohn
former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman
former RNC field director Dan Gurley
Some of these people were closeted, and were outed and admitted their orientation.
I’m not saying that Crist isn’t a buttmunch, and I’m not saying that he acted appropriately. However, it is disingenuous for the atheist to say that “Who’s more powerful than God.” isn’t an answer. It was a statement of faith that was offered in response to the question of why he asked God to keep the hurricanes away. It was rude to continue questioning, in the same way that it is rude to continually question a non-politician’s political beliefs when they give an answer that indicates that the matter is settled in their mind. Crist, being a politician, should be prepared to be diplomatic and answer questions that are asked offensively, but that question shouldn’t have been repeated. A follow-up question of whether a seated politician should be making public statements like that would have been more appropriate and less of a personal attack, IMHO.
Just judging by the more vocal ones one this board, a lot of atheists are unnecessarily rude and confrontational. Don’t really think they can complain when somebody gives them similar treatment.
