Baptist Official Apologizes For Nazi Comparison

Methinks Mr. Land had it right the first time.

Pity when the Obamites can cow the Southern Baptists.

“Pity when the Obamites can cow the Southern Baptists.”

It’s far better to simply ignore the press and the other morons when they start this mess.

What is he apologizing for??? Truth?
No wonder we are losing this...

They don’t apologize for nothing. Tell the critics to prove they are right 40 ways from Sunday like they do us and tell them to eff off,.,,or the Baptist equivalent.

Nice guys finish last when reason and facts mean nothing.

Where was the stinking ADL for the past 8 years when Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, you, and me were called Nazis and Hitler every time a liberal got in front of a microphone??

Government-controlled health care IS fascism. The Obama administration and leftist-controlled Congress ARE fascists!

When the Baptists surrender, there’s no more hope.

OK, they’re not acting like Nazis, they’re acting like Maoists. Does that make you feel better, ADL?/s

A key Southern Baptist official has apologized for comparing proposals to overhaul the nation's health care system with Nazism.

Why is he apologizing?

Once 0bama's Death Panels get going, it will have the same effect.

“We’re going to have to, if you’re very old, we’re not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It’s too expensive…so we’re going to let you die.” - Robert B. Reich

President Obama, what is an actuary table and how does it relate to your health care bill?

Lock him up the same cell with the LDS apostle who just compared opposition to the Church’s Proposition 8 campaign to slavery in the South. Just for a weekend. For some interfaith dialogue.

Some of these guys really need to learn to think before they talk.

The holocaust began with terminal and mentally incompetent patients being snuffed out because they thought it was wrong for hospitalized persons with these conditions to be living better than Germans who contributed to society.

Its a mistake to apologize to the permanently outraged.

If you’ve actually hurt someone, and you didn’t mean to, by all means apologize and quickly.

But phony apologies to the phony outraged give me the hives. If you said something a little outrageous, fine, you said it, you wish you didn’t, big deal. You’ll be more careful next time. But apologies should be reserved for when you really hurt someone, and you really mean the apology.

In this case, where we’re talking about people who really are planning a death panel of sorts, which when talking among friends O and several of his inner circle have already said so quite frankly, the comparison to the nazis isn’t so far-fetched. I don’t like trotting out the nazi comparisons at every opportunity, so quit it. But don’t apologize. In fact, if they demand an apology, turn up the volume and come on even stronger. They’ll back off. Don’t make the mistake of backing off yourself when you’re in the right.

Lock him up the same cell with the LDS apostle who just compared opposition to the Church’s Proposition 8 campaign to slavery in the South.

If you are referring to Dallin H. Oakes, I think perhaps you have been misinformed about what he said. Here is the relevant passage from his October 13 address:

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such. These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public contest. As such, these incidents of “violence and intimidation” are not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights legislation. (Emphasis added.)
(The entire talk is available online: Religious Freedom.)

Clearly, he was talking about intimidation of black voters, not slavery.

One certainly can question Elder Oakes's comparison of the anti-Proposition-8 partisans to the voter intimidation in the South. Personally, I think the comparison is inapt: In their harassment of black voters, Southern Democrats committed crimes that were far worse and far more widespread than anything the anti-Prop-8 zealots have done. But both were anti-democratic, which I believe was Elder Oakes's point.

It’s basically the same thing. The extremely violent and terrorizing tactics used to keep slaves in line were actually escalated after slavery was legally ended, and the white power structure in the South was desperate to keep blacks 100% subjugated. Literally thousands of people were murdered in lynchings, and a few bombings of occupied buildings, as illegal violence (often with police officers, judges, and elected officials participating) took the place of legal violent “discipline” of slaves. So far, the most aggressive opposition to the LDS Church’s Proposition activities has been vandalism to buildings. Hardly comparable, and it’s offensive to suggest that it is. We are not finding the bodies of local LDS anti-gay marriage activists dangling from trees covered with injuries from pre-hanging torture.

And speaking of lynchings, it’s obscene when the media and bloggers/posters refer to things like the successful pressure to remove from Limbaugh from the LA Rams purchasing group as “lynchings”. We all know what the term is a reference to, and it isn’t to nonviolent political or business pressure being brought to bear an on individual who walks away still an unscathed zillionaire and vents his frustrations over a $500 restaurant dinner.

I don’t really think that either Oaks (and it’s “Oaks”, not “Oakes”), or this Southern Baptist guy had evil intent when they spoke, but both of them would do well to practice thinking about how their words will be perceived, before uttering them. They aren’t random nobodies; they’re high ranking representatives of large religious bodies and their public statements will be closely scrutinized.

He said in a letter dated Wednesday that he did not intend to "actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele."

He should have said that he did not intend to "actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele ... yet."

I don’t really think that either Oaks (and it’s “Oaks”, not “Oakes”), or this Southern Baptist guy had evil intent when they spoke, but both of them would do well to practice thinking about how their words will be perceived, before uttering them. They aren’t random nobodies; they’re high ranking representatives of large religious bodies and their public statements will be closely scrutinized.

Oops. I did misspell the name Oaks.

As I said, I do not believe the intimidation of Proposition 8 supporters approaches the oppression of blacks in the South.

One enormous difference, as you suggest, is that state and local governments looked the other way or were actively involved in oppressing black citizens. Moreover, anti-black measures were widely supported by whites in the South.

In contrast, those who are trying to intimidate supporters of Proposition 8 are relatively few in number. I doubt they enjoy much support among the people or government of California.

So I think Oaks could have chosen a better example.

To be fair, Oaks did not liken the opponents of Proposition 8 to slave owners or Nazis. (Land's "Josef Mengele Award" was beyond the pale, in my opinion.) And Oaks was careful to say their opposition was "not anti-religious as such." I think the latter as an important point to make to a Mormon audience.

Moreover, Oaks may have been on sound legal ground when he mentioned "federal civil-rights legislation," if by that reference he meant the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I am not a lawyer, but I have read the Voting Rights Act. The text of the Act does not outlaw lynchings, torture or other forms of violence (which were supposed to be illegal already); it refers to efforts by state and local governments to erect legal barriers to prevent blacks from voting. Specifically, the Act states,

No voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure shall be imposed or applied by any State or political subdivision to deny or abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote on account of race or color.

So why would Oaks (who is a lawyer and a former justice of the Utah Supreme Court) mention the Voting Rights Act? I do not wish to put words in his mouth; however, I wonder whether he is hinting that some kind federal legislation protecting religious groups may be needed in the future. That would make sense in light of other things he said in the same speech:

We must also insist on this companion condition of democratic government: when churches and their members or any other group act or speak out on public issues, win or lose, they have a right to expect freedom from retaliation.

I hope Oaks clarifies his intent. In the meantime, I think the rest of his speech is worth reading.