Carlson: "many black churches are basically political organizations"
SUMMARY: On the January 14 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's speech at the Pentecostal Temple Church of God and Christ in Las Vegas, host Tucker Carlson asserted that "many black churches are basically political organizations."
On the January 14 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, while discussing Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) January 13 speech delivered at the Pentecostal Temple Church of God and Christ in Las Vegas, host Tucker Carlson asserted that "many black churches are basically political organizations." During the segment, which featured Democratic strategist Peter Fenn, Carlson also asserted that "I just think it's immoral to use a church for politics. Period. And I don't care if [former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee does it, any right-winger does it, I'm against it."
From the January 14 edition of MSNBC's Tucker:
CARLSON: I was impressed, though, very much by, Peter, Huckabee's decision not to get political in church yesterday. All these different candidates go down to South Carolina and Nevada and preach these kind of political sermons -- which, by the way, I believe is illegal -- and Huckabee decides not to. By contrast, I want you to take a look at something that Barack Obama said in church on Sunday. Watch this.
OBAMA [video clip]: We're on the brink, on the cusp of doing something important. We could make history. Not, by the way, just -- you know, I know everybody's focused on racial history. That's not what I'm talking about. We could make history by being the first time in a very long time where a grassroots movement of people of all colors -- black, white, Hispanic, Asian -- rose up, and went up against the princes, the powers, and principalities, and actually won a presidency.
CARLSON: Now, why should you have a tax exemption, Peter, if you're campaigning in a church? Why should that church not pay taxes? I've got to pay taxes.
FENN: Speaking in a church. Oh, I see. So it was fine for Pat Robertson --
CARLSON: No, campaigning in a church. No, it's wrong. And I'm asking not about Pat Robertson, but it was wrong when anybody brings politics into a church.
FENN: Yeah, and, I mean, look. I have a fundamental agreement with you on that, on a basic principle here. But unfortunately what we have is a situation where you have voter guides put under people's windshields, where you have the Pat Robertsons and the Jerry Falwells of the world who turned churches into political machines. So, you know, I don't worry as much about a speech in a --
CARLSON: Really? Are they -- but you know what? You know the truth -- well, hold on. You know the truth, which is that many black churches are basically political organizations, and no one wants to say that, but you know full well it's true. You look into that camera and tell me you know that's not true, because you know it is. And yet nobody says anything about it.
FENN: No, no, no --
CARLSON: I just think it's immoral to use a church for politics. Period. And I don't care if Huckabee does it, any right-winger does it, I'm against it.
FENN: Well, this is the question. I agree -- I agree with that, Tucker. And I -- the thing that I think a lot of times happens is folks use it for social change. You know, and that is very important, because there are, you know -- if you're going to feed the unfed, if you're going to help the poor, if you're going to go out there, then you do it through a church. And so, you know, a lot of that comes very strongly from black churches in this country and white churches. But the point being that churches should not be agents in a political campaign. And that, I think, is -- you know, if that happens, then they should lose their tax-exempt status.
CARLSON: At the Pentecostal Temple Church of God, where Obama was on Sunday in southern Nevada, Pastor Leon Smith of that church said this: "If you can't support your own," he said to the congregation, mostly black, "you're never going to get anywhere." He was saying vote for Barack Obama. Man, I hope he loses his tax exemption.
Please explain to us your experiences in black churches. How many have you been to? What are you basing your opinion on?
Please explain to us your experiences in black churches. How many have you been to? What are you basing your opinion on?
Copius' exposure to black churches has probably been the parking lot, where he's lit the Molotov cocktails.....
I stepped in his dog poop, didn't I?
I didn't know there was a black evangelical base for either party, but you live and learn...;)
Well played!
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It's simply NOT true that MOST churches (black or white)
are "basically political organizations". Claiming it it so is misinformation.
SORRY, my mistake. I misquoted Tucker and have the wrong emphasis. When I'm wrong, I do it well.
Tuckers said "many black churches are basically political organizations."
The word BASICALLY is the problem.
But what a dodge by tuck. As soon as the rightful counterpoint was made about Pat Robertson, the snitty hypocrite was duckin' and weavin'. He knows damn well that many of the white megachurches are political organizations too. All churches are poitical.
A fact I saw up close and personal during the nine years I worked in Colorado Springs. There are over 150 non-profits headquartered in that city, most of them right-wing conservative and GOP-supporting, including two of the biggest - FoKKKus On The Family and New Life Church.
Everywhere you turned in that town, someone was mixing God and GOP......
Wasn't it recently revealed that cadets at the Academy (Air Force?) were being bullied into accepting Christianity by their zealot commanders?
That was a couple of years ago. It was common knowledge in and arround The Springs, yet the Air Force investigators could not fine any evidence of it....
BTW - I'm sure you've seen the chapel at the Air Force Academy - it's a beautifyl multi-spire white building. Up until a few years ago, the main floor was for Protestants only - Catholics and Jews had to use the smaller chapels on the lower level.....
"He holds the Evangelical base in utter contempt—providing, in timely fashion, useful insight on why the Republican establishment is so horrified by the ascendency of Preacher Mike Huckabee, the Happy Mullah. "The mouth-breathers who decide GOP primaries might allow people who steal their money and send their children to impossible wars to get away with anything, but they'll cut no such slack for baby-killers,"
http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/how-win-conservative
"Many black churches are basically political organizations" AND "I don't care if [former Arkansas Gov. Mike] Huckabee does it, any right-winger does it, I'm against it."
I have strong reservations about Carlson. Has he been to enough black churches to make this bold blanket proclamation? I doubt it! Then he has the audacious gall to use the WORD "IF"... When considering white churches and Huckabee for the same attack.
I've been to both black and white churches and I can make the same case for the white churches being a stronghold for Republicans. My white churches seem more organized and pointed towards Neocon and Conservative ideals than the black ones.
I often find myself in a debate with people at white churches who support the NeoCon agenda.
The white churches seem to be more organized and to have more power in our country.
Someone must have given MSNBC a cash infusion cause last time I checked, Tucker's ratings were so far in the toilet you needed a plunger to push the slime through to their logical conclusion.
We know that at least ONE person was watching Tucker's television pukefest - A.J.W. from MMFA.
A.J.W. watches the little nimrod so we don't have to.....
:-)
The church should be a place for social change...and historically has been where it would all start. They are scrambling for ways to attach Barack and this is just a pitiful attempt to discredit him. So sad.