Another Glorious Advance for the Superb Republican Jewish Outreach Program

From, Robert Bentley, the Republican governor of Alabama:

"I was elected as a Republican candidate. But once I became governor ... I became the governor of all the people. I intend to live up to that. I am color blind," Bentley said in a short speech given about an hour after he took the oath of office as governor.

Then Bentley, who for years has been a deacon at First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa, gave what sounded like an altar call.

"There may be some people here today who do not have living within them the Holy Spirit," Bentley said. ''But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother and sister."

Bentley added, ''Now I will have to say that, if we don't have the same daddy, we're not brothers and sisters. So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."

He wants to be my brother? Funny, he doesn't look Jewish....

Seriously, this is offensive. It's exclusionary identity politics. Granted, that's a key feature of the modern Republican Party, but it's kind of off-putting when someone asks for your vote and your conversion.

They just don't get it.

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Another Glorious Advance for the Superb Republican Jewish Outreach Program

I think you're confusing things. This is part of the Republican Black/Hispanic Outreach Program - and it might indeed be successful, in a limited way, in that regard. At the very least, stressing common faith (well, common to a degree) over racial differences is the best line of argument Republicans have left there. The Republican Jewish Outreach Program works exclusively through a certain foreign-relations issue, and sadly to a degree of success that convinces Republican leadership that nothing else is required.

This whole setup works quite well for the Republicans - call it cynical and misanthropic, if you will, but it certainly isn't naivé or ill-conceived.

By Phillip IV (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink

If I lived in Alabama, I'd hightail it outta there. I mean, seriously, the governor said that?

Scary.

I will never understand the religious. Honestly.

Especially not the ones who are this insane, who are a pretty significant part of why people terrify me in general.

By Katharine (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink

The Republican Jewish Outreach Program works exclusively through a certain foreign-relations issue, and sadly to a degree of success that convinces Republican leadership that nothing else is required.

Slight disagreement: Yes, that is the entirety of Republican Jewish outreach. Yes, they believe nothing else is required. But it isn't because the approach has been successful to any real degree, not even by Republican standards of evidence. They offer nothing else because they are utterly clueless of and condescending towards the American Jewish community, and either ignore all their actual policy concerns or truly think they have no concerns other than the strength of the Israeli army.

I lived in Alabama for a couple of years a while back -- in Huntsville, which is arguably as close as the State gets to the 20th century (no, that's not a typo.) And even there, the only question was which Baptist church you belonged to.

Then I moved back to my native Arizona. A certain degree of introspection seems to be in order, I think.

By D. C. Sessions (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink

Of course Bentley considers Christians to be the true Jews, all other Jews are false Jews - unconverted heathens doomed to die after he gets raptured.

How anyone Jewish can willingly associate with the religious reich is as beyond my understanding as are the Log Cabin Republicans.

From The Evangelical Dictionary:

Public apology a ritual evangelicals must go through after making exclusionary comments in order to quell the outrage of the damned while at the same time letting the saved know you meant every word of it.

They offer nothing else because they are utterly clueless of and condescending towards the American Jewish community, and either ignore all their actual policy concerns or truly think they have no concerns other than the strength of the Israeli army.

Or maybe they just don't care: what if all their "pro-Israeli" pandering is not targeted at american Jews but at the anti-muslim/anti-arabic/anti-brown-people wing of their electorate who just want the kill count to be as high as possible. The "I am a self-proclaimed friend of Israel ergo anone contradicting is antisemitic" being merely bonus to bully the opposition into silence.

By Laurent Weppe (not verified) on 19 Jan 2011 #permalink