This is downright strange:
Georgetown University says it covered over the monogram “IHS”–symbolizing the name of Jesus Christ—because it was inscribed on a pediment on the stage where President Obama spoke at the university on Tuesday and the White House had asked Georgetown to cover up all signs and symbols there.
Frankly, I am not sure what to make of this. The White House did not want any “symbols” in the back? Why not. And why especially not Jesus? Did they change the setting in a way that made Obama look good? Was that the idea? Or is the new administration extremely secular?
As Power Line points out, it cannot be the second option for Obama actually invoked Jesus’ famous speech on the mountain. If he were so obsessed with secularism, he would not have reminded people of this speech (build your house on a rock not on sand).
In any case, it is obviously not of major concern to me, but it is still interesting. Especially because I do not know the answer to the why question – you know bloggers, we become obsessed if we do not know why someone does what he does.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
You have to read further into the story to get the truth. It’s clear enough that the White House did not request that “especially not [symbols referring to] Jesus” be visible. They just wanted their own backdrop of flags and banners, and nothing that was not part of that backdrop. There were dozens of copies of the same symbol displayed all over the auditorium – just not directly behind the President – and that symbol just happened to be a tiny part of the many symbols and seals on the back of the stage that were covered up when the flag backdrop was installed.
But even more than this, buried way near the bottom of the story is a quote from a Vice-President of the University who says that they had no objection to the flags-and-banners backdrop, but that it was only tall enough to cover the symbols on the lower part of the back wall of the stage, and that “it seemed most respectful to have [the IHS symbol] covered so as not to be seen out of context”. It’s not clear to me what would have been “disrespectful” about it, but this quote seems to say that it was the University that decided to cover the IHS symbol higher up on the wall – not the White House. At the very least, it makes it clear that it was done (by whoever it was who made the decision) out of “respect” and that the University concurred. And this is explicitly stated in the story itself – in direct contradiction to CNS’s own headline and the many right-wing rants about the issue that are filling up the ‘Net.
In other words – it’s a total non-story. But the winger screamer battalion has launched its usual berserker attack, and, well . . . here we go again.
Obama: There can only be one, ‘One’.
Some people have argued that Obama does not want to use religion to further a political ideology. However, Obama did evoke the Sermon on the Mount, at this Georgetown appearance, to further his economic agenda. Although Obama failed to mention Jesus Christ by name for the Sermon on the Mount.
“There is a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells a story of two men…‘the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house…it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock,’” Obama said.
“We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand,” he added. “We must build our house upon a rock.”
The last statement is particularly ironic since building your house upon a ‘ROCK‘ means to build your house with Christ as the foundation. Obama decided to blot out the real foundation from the timeless parable.
See the hi-res pictures:
http://tinyurl.com/djtzgm