Last month marked the anniversary of President Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s forty-fourth president. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to daily pray for the safety of our country’s leader while speaking out against the wicked actions of other so-called Christians and conservatives who have created an atmosphere where our President can be harmed.  

       Each week we get news of virulent Barack Obama opposition. If it’s not Republicans claiming that he is a socialist, it’s nutcases like Rush Limbaugh publicly pronouncing their desire for Obama to fail. The Obama haters have now attempted to enlist the help of the Almighty as their partner. That’s right, you can now purchase merchandise asking people to pray for Obama, and then referring to the biblical passage, Psalm 109:8, which is code to call for Obama’s death.

       The actual verse reads:  Let his days be few, And let another take his office. The following verse says: Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.

       I’m aware that presidential criticism through witty slogans is nothing new; however, the use of the 109th Psalm is much more ominous than previous ones. The Pray for Obama Movement comes at a time of heightened concern about antigovernment anger. Earlier last year, the president’s senior adviser, David Axelrod, predicted that the so-called Tea Parties amongst conservatives would lead to something unhealthy. Last September, authorities shut down a poll on Facebook asking if President Obama should be killed.

       The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says that the Psalms citation doesn’t push into the realm of hate speech as it is ambiguous as to what its users are calling for. The Anti-Defamation League agrees that the bumper sticker falls within acceptable political discourse. Their interpretation states that for it to be considered hate speech, it “would advocate actual violence or cite scripture that was more clear in its message.” I wholeheartedly disagree. This message is not referring to President Obama being out of office; it’s referring to him being dead. It’s completely offensive to me that it can be considered protected speech. Someone has to correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t remember a time when there was a Christian movement that encouraged people to actually pray for the president’s death until a Black man took the office.

       I believe it’s time for the religious community to publicly condemn talk like this. The organizers of the so-called movement have the right to free speech, but so do critics within the religious community if they had the testicular fortitude to do so. Where are the voices of rational Christians against such abominable actions? We don’t hear a peep from the John Hagee’s, Rod Parsley’s or James Dobson’s of the world, men who would have come to the defense of such actions against former President Bush in a heartbeat.  It’s hard to believe that people go to church to be associated with some idiot who sends out veiled threats to the president. I thought people went to church because they wanted to enrich their spirits. Well, in the words of the older generation, “God don’t like ugly.”

       Those of you who read my column know I’m not one to sugarcoat, so let’s call it what it is: the simply, plain hate of racists who don’t like the fact that the President of the United States is a Black man. Yes, he is Black. His father was Black, his wife is Black, his children are Black. He identifies himself as Black — not biracial — just like so many other African Americans with a non-Black parent. No other president has experienced this kind of vitriol. The reason we know that this is racism is because the main people who deny being racist are racists. The main people denying that race has anything to do with their opposition to Obama are in denial about their bigotry.

       So, when you say that they are only defending the honor of this country, but had nothing to say about the backward direction we were being pulled in under Bush and Reagan, while at the same time enlisting God to the point of wishing ill on Obama and his family, something about that doesn’t hold holy water.  n