The gospel according to St. Barack? (OneNewsNow.com)

The gospel according to St. Barack?

Brian Fitzpatrick - Guest Columnist - 3/4/2008 12:00:00 PM

Brian Fitzpatrick In Robert Bolt's great play A Man for All Seasons, medieval English statesman Sir Thomas More says, "the American media would have snored through the Sermon on the Mount."

Whoops, Sir Thomas actually said that about the nobility of England, not the U.S. media, but there's little doubt the American press would be snoring right beside them. After all, the media just snored through Barack Obama's abuse of the Sermon of the Mount to justify same-sex civil unions.

"People who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and respect and the state should not discriminate against them," said Obama on Sunday in a campaign speech at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio. "I don't think it [a same-sex union] should be called marriage, but I think that it is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state .... If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more central than an obscure passage in Romans."

Don't miss that last clause. Barack Obama is going beyond twisting Scripture to justify sin. He is also telling America how to interpret the Bible, the founding document of Western civilization and the foundation of America's Constitution -- by cherrypicking. In Obama's formulation, some verses count more than others, and he is willing to invoke the authority of Scripture to support policies based on his personal preferences.

This is explosive stuff, especially for a politician trying to reach across party lines to win support from religion-minded voters. Given the prominence of candidates' faith in this election, you'd think the media would be all over this story. Not quite. Our review shows that the sparse coverage of Obama's speech falls into three categories:

1. Reports on what Obama said about homosexual civil unions being justified by the Sermon on the Mount, but buried deep in the story: (2)
• Washington Post political blog "The Trail"
• Los Angeles Times political blog "Top of the Ticket"

2. Reports on Obama's views on civil unions, but no mention of the Sermon: (1)
• Dayton Daily News

3. Reports on only Obama's preferred message from the speech, that he's a "devout Christian," not a Muslim, or in one case (Dallas Morning News) that he's an inspiration to biracial families: (8)
• Associated Press, in four stories
• The Columbus Dispatch
• The Houston Chronicle
• The New York Post
• The Dallas Morning News

At least eight major media organs had reporters covering Obama's speech, and together they filed 11 stories. Not a single newspaper ran a story reporting that Obama said his support of homosexual civil unions is justified by the Sermon on the Mount, and that he chose to reject the counsel of the Book of Romans. Imagine if Mike Huckabee had cited Romans to justify opposition to civil unions. Wouldn't The New York Times have put the story on the front page, complete with dire warnings of impending theocracy?

The Culture and Media Institute sees two possible explanations for this coverage. Either the media fail to recognize the significance of Obama twisting the meaning of the Sermon on the Mount and rejecting the Book of Romans, or they are covering up for their preferred candidate.

In Bolt's play Sir Thomas More also said, "I think that when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos."

Barack Obama has just given us a good look into his own private conscience. Americans deserve the opportunity to decide whether Obama as president would lead us into the heady kingdom of Change, or send the country to Hell in a handbasket.

Professional responsibility should impel the media to cover this story.