It’s weird, because just the other day I was hearing how Obama was taking Christ out of Christmas and now he gets heat for even mentioning the guy. Must be hard for the guy to keep it straight. Too much god? Not enough god? Maybe we could have some sort of handy god-scale with color coding so conservatives can indicate the exact amount of god they would like to see from him today.
A great speech. A seed was planted for a defining issue of Obama’s second term.
The audience certainly appreciated his remarks.
Whether its some gun control , focus on mental illness,or national school security measures this issue will be kept at the forefront by this administration.
Something has to give and I sense the gun lobby is showing vulnerability this time around and Obama has taken the bit between his teeth.
No its not, that’s what I said. I was trying to illustrate to you how silly your objection is. Of course I didn’t just use your exact words as a response. That would just be quoting you.
I’m not a religious person, and I’m certainly strongly for separation of church and state. But I can’t see how anyone would legitimately be offended by this who isn’t already predisposed to object to whatever he says.
Well, when you hear that from me, you can use that as an argument against me.
You’ll have to ask a conservative about that, but most of them would welcome more “Jesus”, not less.
In short, I have no idea what that response has to do with what I am talking about. It’s easy as pie to keep it generic, as I already noted. I’m sure there will be some atheists who get offended at the mere mention of “God”, but most of us are used to it.
Then it’s a bad analogy. Yes, it would be silly to ask Obama to include every religion imaginable. That’s why it’s best to keep it generic.
I expect the president to be smart enough to avoid that possibility. On a message board where posters go ape shit over Tim Tebow, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine such a thing.
I found this to be an incredibly moving passage of the speech, and I’m not one who generally reacts to religious content in speeches by political leaders. It would be a damn shame if such touching thoughts were left on the clipping room floor because someone dared say the “J” word.
The fact that you refuse to accept an analogy doesn’t make it bad. Easily offended people are easily offended I guess. It seems like for every word the president has uttered in the past 4+ years you can bet there is at least someone who then became outraged and offended by whatever it was that he said.
The man tried to offer some words of comfort to a group of people who have just had their lives shattered in the best and most personal way that he knows how. Yes he could have made it PC vague and generic, but that would have taken the sincerity and personal connection that he said it with away imo.
I seriously doubt anyone there had the reaction you are characterizing. Try putting yourself in the shoes of one of these parents. Are you really going to get pissy about the way he tries to express sympathy and comfort for your terrible loss?
I say again - come on, really?
It’s not about “daring” to say the “J” word. It’s about respecting other people’s faiths, and not projecting your own onto them in their time of grief. As for moving, it’s just a gussied up version of the “he’s in a better place” bromide. At least that one doesn’t specify a Christian place.
Is “the Kingdom of Heaven” a specifically Christian phrase? I had thought it was the common term in all the Abrahamic faiths.
What makes it bad is that it would indeed have sounded silly for the president to invoke every religion imaginable. It would not have sounded silly to keep it generic-- presidents do that all the time. They do that most of the time when invoking religion.
I said it would have “taken me out of the moment”. If you want to consider that being “pissy”, go ahead. And actually, it did take me out of the moment. I was going along with the speech just fine until I heard that. I didn’t get pissy or upset.
Thinking about it afterwards, I was genuinely shocked that Obama, great communicator that he can be, would have put that in there. I certainly wouldn’t have if I were a Christian.
He should be at the local antique store buying some pre-1898 stuff ----- no paperwork of any kind on that sweet Mauser I lost when my houseboat sank. 
I was surprised at the speech. I honestly expected some open tirade against firearms. What I heard was as much a tirade against Atheism as against guns. Maybe the right-wing is correct and push come to shove we really are indeed a Christian nation.
Maybe it’s just me but, it seems that every time someone says “don’t politicize something” what they are really saying is “yeah, that’s a really good argument to change shit but let’s not do anything because you might actually change shit and that’s not fair”.
If I tie it Jesus, it’s a Christian phrase.
Maybe it’s just me, but even when I was a Christian, I would not have said to a Jewish person that Jesus tells us to let our children come to him. Especially if that person had just lost his child in a tragic death.
Holy cow, he wasn’t proselytizing. He wasn’t projecting his faith onto others. You can read the Bible as literature, too, you know – and it is a very apt quote of a romantic, comforting notion of what happens in the afterlife. Or “afterlife,” wink-wink, nod-nod, if you prefer.
As a Jewish person who is usually quick to object to Christian religious speech in the public square I think you are wrong here. I don’t believe Jewish parents would be offended in this context - it’s recognizable as a person of one faith extending comfort to people of all faiths.
Nope. Never said was doing that.
But the point is that there is no Christian Heaven. All the Abrahamic faiths believe they’re talking about the same Kingdom of Heaven, I believe.
So your complaint cannot be that he “specif[ied] a Christian place.” Your complaint has to be that he referenced Jesus. That just makes your argument a bit weaker, IMO. Quoting religious figures is commonplace even in speeches that are more careful about religious references.
According to our local news, sales were already way up in Oregon after the earlier mall shooting, and got a further big spike from the CT shooting.
You are almost certainly correct.
The gun crowd has been howling about how their preciouses are about to be rounded up since Obama won the first election. That this administration’s only actions in the area have been to strengthen gun owner rights is lost on them; they will redouble their howls that “They knew it all along!”
I wonder if we would get the same tolerant response if he had quoted the Quran instead.
Just kidding. I don’t wonder about that at all.