Poll: Iraq war seen as moral issue for Bush

[Rose Siding]

Is talk of the religious right's resurgence overstated? A new poll released Tuesday by Zogby International showed that 42 percent of voters saw the war in Iraq as the most pressing moral issue affecting their choice for president -- almost twice as many as those citing abortion and same-sex marriage.

Progressive religious leaders, whose groups sponsored the poll, jumped on the findings as evidence that Americans' concern for "moral values" goes beyond gay marriage and abortion.

"Both Democrats and Republicans voted on values, though not necessarily the same values," said the Rev. C. Welton Gaddy of the Interfaith Alliance, a liberal group. "Not only was there a resurgence of activity among religious conservatives and fundamentalists, but a similar resurgence occurred among progressives and liberals in the Christian community."

But religious conservatives dismissed the sponsors as "sore losers trying to pooh-pooh the influence of Bible-believing evangelicals," in the words of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority.
................
While almost a quarter of all voters said they voted solely on abortion and gay marriage -- a phenomenon tracked in last week's exit polls -- the majority of 10,550 randomly selected voters said they were influenced by a range of moral concerns from issues of war and peace to greed. Asked to identify the single greatest moral crisis facing America, for instance, a third of voters selected materialism and greed, followed by poverty (31 percent) and then abortion and same-sex marriage (totaling 28 percent).

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usvalu1110,0,5578900.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

[whistle]

1. What moral principle could possibily justify the military tactics the....

...U.S. is using in Iraq and Afghanistan? As for gay marriage and abortion, what do those issues have to do with the wars? The electorate seems to be very confused.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. And beyond that....

what do opposition to ( or support of, for that matter) gay marriage and abortion have to do with EACH OTHER. Why are they always coupled?

What, on earth, does "abortion" have to do with "gay marriage"? They are two completely distinct issues... but opposed ( and supported) by essentially the same constituencies.

This I don't get. Support of b oth on the grounds of limiting state power over the individual makes *some* sense but opposition to both ... assuming it's coming from a single underlying premise...makes no sense at all.

[alcuno]

2. I think that there should be a flag down on the report of this poll.

It implies that those who said Iraq was a moral issue voted for *. I need more information, but couldn't the opposite be true? If Iraq is a moral issue, you could vote for Kerry.

[Rose Siding]

5. That's just the stupid headline

Whoever wrote the headline added the misleading "...for Bush"

I think the actual article does show that Kerry voters had moral issues about the war.

[orwell]

3. Kill Them All

In another poll voters praised Hitler for his moral stance against the axis of Poland and France and Napoleon for his conquest of amoral "old Europe." But their favorite moral crusade was...well...the Crusades.

"Nothing beats hacking up brown infidels," cried Rev. Falwell as he stuffed another beef rib into his jowly pie hole.

"Kill 'em all and let God sort them out."

[KarmaHappens]

4. IIRC that

was one of those tricky questions.

[leesa]

6. Yes. It proves a complete lack of morality. We need to hammer this every

day in every way. The Republicans are the immorality party.

[Javaman]

7. When morality is mixed with someones personal crusade, it's time

to get worried.

He's now on a mission from God.

Somehow I don't think what God had in mind was the killing of thousands of his children.

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Depends on whether you're talking about the God of the New Testament

or the God of the Old Testament

[ixion]

8. boy, that's some morality...

:eyes:

[Straight Shooter]

10. Well, poo-poo to you, Falwell

Now f*ck off. You're getting on my nerves, you stupid biped.

[BeatleBoot]

11. Zogby link?

[UpInArms]

13. founder of the now-defunct Moral Majority

that just about says it all - yet I feel so compelled to add:

Of all the rabid Nazis for Jesus (NFJ), Jerry Falwell, long time member of the subversive Council for National Policy, is a unique abomination. "Hypocrite" is this guy's middle name. For example, in the sixties Jerry was preaching from the pulpit that desegregation was evil and the civil rights movement was a communist plot. Today, being a segregationist is "politically incorrect", so Jerry isn't alllowed to be a racist. However, being a homophobic bigot is still politically acceptable among his fellow NFJs and much of the population at large, and so the "real" Jerry Falwell is still around and always will be. Don't forget, Herr Falwell is a "Fundamentalist". That means he accepts the teachings of the Bible as unchanging. Therefore, if the Bible says that black people are inferior, then black people always were and always will be inferior. What is poor Jerry going to do when he has no one else to hate and be politically correct?

That aside, it turns out that Jerry has some very close ties to the Rev. Moon and his Unification Church. This is important because Moon has repeatedly referred to America as the "Kingdom of Satan". In addition, even Jerry's fellow Southern Baptist view Rev. Moon as a heritic. Nevertheless, it didn't stop Jerry from attending Moon's dinner event honoring one of Moon's new groups called Youth Federation for World Peace. There was the Rev. Moon and Jerry Falwell standing side by side, buddy buddy. Why, you ask? Simple: MONEY!, Jerry's one true God.

Jerry Falwell created the "Moral Majority" in the seventies. He was doing quite well for himself until some of his fellow televangelists, such as Jim Baker and Jimmy Swaggart, got themselves in deep do-do. Contributions dried up and public opinion of Herr Falwell himself started to nosedive. Jerry sent his Moral Majority to the scrap heap in 1986. However, Herr Jerry was still buried under a pile of debt and by 1993, Jerry's Liberty University was in hock to the tune of $73 million. The $73 million was owed to the bondholders who he suckered into financing the construction of Liberty University. If you're wondering why Herr Jerry isn't in the poor house today, read on.

On January 28, 1995, Herr Jerry took the opportunity to announce to the world that a miracle had occurred. Falwell announced that two Virginia businessmen, Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas, had saved the University. Reber and Thomas had created a nonprofit organization called the "Christian Heritage Foundation". The Foundation bought up nearly half the $73 million debt that Herr Jerry's University owed. They bought the debt for $2.5 million at a bankruptcy sale. The Foundation then promptly forgave the debt! After years of financial strife, Herr Jerry was saved, and was thanking God for sending Reber and Thomas. The truth is he should have been thanking the Rev. Moon. It was Moon who bailed Herr Jerry out, and I believe Jerry knew it from the very beginning. There was no surprise "miracle".

The truth is Reber and Thomas simply acted as a conduit for Moon. The $2.5 million came from a Moon "cutout" - a Unification Church group called Womens Federation for World Peace. It was the Womens Federation for World Peace that cut a check for $3.5 million, paid to the Christian Heritage Foundation. The Foundation in turn bought Falwell's debt and forgave it. The Foundation itself appears then to have kept the balance, one million dollars, as a fee for its part in the operation.

...more at http://home.att.net/~vlaszlo/jerry_falwell_1.htm ...

[DireStrike]

14. THANK YOU ZOGBY!

He's doing us a huge service.