Evangelical Christian Franklin Graham denies that he has a dog in the 2012 presidential race.
Graham also denied that he questioned President Obama’s Christian faith.
After a rout with Willie Geist on MSNBC’s morning show, Graham couldn’t stand up for President Obama’s Christianity the way he stood up for Rick Santorum.
But on CNN this morning with Kyra Phillips, Graham retracted his MSNBC affirmation of Santorum’s Christianity. Graham was quoted as saying that Rick Santorum’s “values are so clear on moral issues that it shows he (Santorum) is a man of moral faith.”
Today on CNN Graham retracted. Graham said he “misspoke” when he said he knew about Santorum’s moral faith and values. Graham went on to say that just as only God knows what is in Barack Obama’s heart, only God knows what’s in Rick Santorum’s heart. Graham said he’d be more in line with Santorum’s political positions on abortion.
Graham reiterated on CNN that doesn’t see that Obama’s support for abortion falls in line with Christian or biblical beliefs. Graham said he couldn’t support a candidate who supports abortion.
Phillips then told Graham that historically, his mother when she was alive, forbid her husband, Billy Graham to cross the line from pulpit into politics.
Graham said he missed his mother and if she were alive, he’d be bleeding in the shins. And even as Graham pushed on with his criticism of Democratic support for a women’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, he also insisted his conversation was religious not political.
Historically, conservative Christians reject the Democratic party as a whole. Evangelical and conservative Christians claim their religious beliefs are in conflict with US abortion laws.
Although abortion critics claim abortion goes against the Bible, there aren’t passages in the bible that refer to abortion. There are, however, passages that intimate life begins in the womb. There is no biblical conversation about the sin or lack thereof, should life inside the womb be destroyed for whatever reason.
There is a Republican and Democratic insistence that abortion is simply about women, when men are very much a part of the decision to abort.
Graham said he was invited to MSNBC to discuss a Newsweek article that examines the persecution of Christians by Muslims around the world, not the President’s faith.
President Obama’s father was a Muslim who then turned atheist. President Obama didn’t grow up with his father. Obama also described his mother as a spiritual woman, but not a religious one. Obama said he became a Christian while in Chicago, working with church members to solve crisis in low income and minority communities.
As long as Graham is involved in political rhetoric on the President’s faith, he joins some of the most vile and ignorant opposition in some of the most poor and uneducated sections of the nation. During the 2008 presidential elections, McCain supporters randomly stepped to the microphone and lashed out then presidential hopeful Obama as a Muslim and a terrorist.
Even though Graham says he thinks the president is a wonderful and gracious man, he thinks the President must answer to God for his abortion stance. But as long as Graham is involved in political rhetoric on cable talk shows like CNN and MSNBC, Graham is becoming a Republican talking head campaigning for and to the evangelical base.
Graham heads the well known Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian evangelical mission organization that donates goods to relieve children and families in the most forgotten parts of the world.
Phillips, in an effort to bridge the misunderstandings of sorts between Graham and Obama, noted that Obama’s work in Chicago wasn’t much different from Graham’s relief and charity efforts.
Graham said sure, but that abortion is a big issue for evangelicals. In 2008, it was a fear that abortion and it opposition would help garner a GOP McCain and Palin win. But soccer moms and independent rallied in Obama’s corner.
In recent days, Rick Santorum has caused a commotion with comments that have been interpreted in mainstream media as his belief that women should raise children and stay at home.
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