The story:
SAN ANTONIO — Senator John McCain got support on Wednesday from an important corner of evangelical Texas when the pastor of a San Antonio mega-church, Rev. John C. Hagee, endorsed Mr. McCain for president. Mr. Hagee, who argues that the United States must join Israel in a preemptive, biblically prophesized military strike against Iran that will lead to the second coming of Christ, praised Mr. McCain for his pro-Israel views.
The response:
Yesterday, Senator John McCain said he was “very honored by Pastor John Hagee’s endorsement.” The Republican presidential hopeful also called Hagee “the staunchest leader of our Christian evangelical movement,” citing the minister’s pro-Israel stance.
Catholic League president Bill Donohue addressed this today:
“There are plenty of staunch evangelical leaders who are pro-Israel, but are not anti-Catholic. John Hagee is not one of them. Indeed, for the past few decades, he has waged an unrelenting war against the Catholic Church. For example, he likes calling it ‘The Great Whore,’ an ‘apostate church,’ the ‘anti-Christ,’ and a ‘false cult system.’
Hagee, to put it mildly, is an unpleasant fellow – I went over to McCain’s website to see if there was more on this, and so far I haven’t even found it mentioned. I hope that Senator McCain will address this issue – but I am also quite confident, due to McCain’s past actions vis a vis Catholicism, that he doesn’t in any way, shape or form agree with Hagee’s views of the Catholic Church. My bet is that McCain was aware of Hagee’s staunchly pro-Israel stance, and that is what McCain was thinking of in obtaining this endorsement.
In general terms, I never engage in a fight with my brothers and sisters in Christ – and even though I view Hagee as terribly wrong, I won’t even fight him on this. I’ll pray he’ll allow God to enlighten him on the truth of these matters, but I see no profit in fighting a fellow Christian – however erring – when the whole of religion is under attack in our nation. I understand, and respect, Mr. Donohue’s position and agree that such things need to be brought up, and condemned, but in my view there is a need, also, for a careful understanding of the real stakes in 2008; Hagee’s influence is relatively small, and no matter how destructive he might be, he won’t do nearly the damage that a President Obama or a President Hillary will do.
UPDATE: Given that our lefties are trying very hard to pick a fight between McCain and Catholics over this, I think it worthwhile to bring up Catholics for McCain; there are quite a lot of my fellow Catholics who are enthusiastic backers of John McCain and this is a much stronger indicator of McCain’s views about Catholicism than the fact that the anti-Catholic Hagee endorsed him.
UPDATE: John McCain responds to the firestorm:
Yesterday, Pastor John Hagee endorsed my candidacy for president in San Antonio, Texas. However, in no way did I intend for his endorsement to suggest that I in turn agree with all of Pastor Hagee’s views, which I obviously do not.
I am hopeful that Catholics, Protestants and all people of faith who share my vision for the future of America will respond to our message of defending innocent life, traditional marriage, and compassion for the most vulnerable in our society.
Of course, it would have been better if the endorsement had never happened – but it did happen, and one can’t undo the past; meanwhile, we don’t want to alienate those followers of Hagee who are sincere, if misguided, Christians who do want what is best for America and the world. This is the best way around it all – making lemonade out of the lemons, as it were.
Blogs For Victory 
Not only he is he mentioned on McCain’s site, there’s a video feed of him ranting about his God-Inspired-Foreign-Policy’ hosted in the multimedia section.
I have a certain amount of respect for McCain (especially for his behavior in Vietnam) and am also Catholic. I support Obama and frankly would like to see McCain lose this election as I think McCain is just TERRIBLE on forgeign policy. But even I am surprised he is happy to tag along with this wacko. Check out the video below, quite unbelievable:
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Multimedia/Player.aspx?guid=5ca47a36-c7d8-4cf4-8451-0390c4581916
Mark,
Can you outline specifically what “damage” you think would be caused by Obama or Clinton in four years? I’m not baiting, but I am genuinely curious what sort of state you see the U.S. in at the end of 2012 if one of them were elected to office.
Glenn Greenwald at Salon has written a couple of good columns about this, one of them is here:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index.html
The gist of it is that he’s contrasting the treatment Obama got with Farrakhan versus what’s going on with Hagee. I think it’s a fair point, especially given that Obama quickly repudiated Farrakhan’s endorsement.
In contrast, according to quotes from McCain in Greenwald’s column –
A quote from Hagee below:
JH: “All hurricanes are acts of God, because God controls the heavens. I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that.”
It gets even better:
” The newspaper carried the story in our local area, that was not carried nationally, that there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it would was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other gay pride parades.
So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know there are people who demur from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the Day of Judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.”
From what I’ve read of Hagee the main reason he is so anti-Catholic is because of his pro-Israel stance. This is a man who basically says Hitler and the Catholic church were both in it together to kill the Jews.
Let’s be honest, this guy is a religious wacko on the same plane as the Taleban were religious wackos. The garbage that comes out of his mouth has nothing to do with Christianity or the message of The Gospels. He’s just a sick, bitter, twisted jerk who is high on the idolatory he receives from preaching at his ‘megachurch’ in Texas.
The reason Hagee is pro-Israel is because he is a Biblical literality who thinks that Israel must be re-united and then destroyed in order to fulfill Biblical prohecies which will usher in the ‘end times’. Uhm… is this really the sort of thing John McCain bases his foreign policy on?
Genuinely scary.
a pastor endorsing anyone 4 prez?
over the line 4 a tax-exempt.
the IRS should investigate.
oh yea, I’m a baptised, churched Christain.
First Jesus Camp now this?
What has happened to republicans?
Mark I’m glad to see that you can see through this snake oil salesman even though the only reason is because he attacks Catholicism.
Think long and hard before you write off supporting a Democrat this year.
There really should not be any problem when a Pastor endorses someone for President.
The Constitution states that “NO LAW” can prohibit the free excercise of religion.
Its not up to the IRS to determine what Christian Pastors do under the excercise of religion, to promote Christians, and Christian values, in the characture of a national leader. Certainly, if our representatives paid more attention to Christian values this nation would be far better off today than it is.
A law that punishes a Christian Church because its congregation ( of citizens) endorses an upright person for office is a violation of the Constitution.
Js-
He wants to play than he must pay. No more free rides for Mr. Hagee.
JS – we have something called the seperation of Church and State in America. Churches are given very favourable status in that they are not taxed, this favoured status is intended to allow Churches to perform ‘good works’, not to get involved in the messy business of politics. This is a democracy, not a theocracy. It sounds to me like you’d be more at home living in Taleban-era Afghanistan, not the good ‘ol US of A.
The man in question has not executed people for religious violations, like the Taliban.
And instead of McCain, do you think that Catholics should vote for either of the two advocated for child murder? Which by the way, how the church views abortion. Actually, it’s how I view it also.
You know liberals, I know you disagree. But think of it for just a second from my point of view. I think you advocate child murder. How could I possibly support you? Now, I know you disagree – but that doesn’t change my view.
None of you can pin a day and an hour to the time the fetus stops being part of the mothers body and becomes an individual. In fact, I’m sure most of you disagree. So – I say you MUST assume the fetus is an individual. Since you don’t, you’re willing to kill a PERSON for personal and socio-economic reasons. Ya see, in my view – thats bad.
13. southerner | February 29th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
JS – we have something called the seperation of Church and State in America.
oooooo
Oh get real. The constitution doesnt use that phrase one time. The whole concept is nothing more than a convenient way to shut out the influence of the Church before the general public for corrupt politicians.
Besides that, the Government has “NO” business taxing religion. Taxation is law, and that is prohibited.
The entire issue is no better than a criminal conspiracy to extort the behavior of religious institutions through the tax system to silence them from opposing the corrupt acts that go on in our Government.
“The man in question has not executed people for religious violations, like the Taliban.”
No but, he is in favor of a civilisational conflict between the Muslim world and America. He favors attacking Iran and feels we ought to back Israel in any and every attack the Israelis make against their neigbors. If his nutcase ideas became foreign policy hundreds of thousands of people in the middle east would die. It’s unlikely the conflict could be contained to the middle east though, such a path could well lead us to World War III. At that point this lunatic would get the Biblical apocalypse he explicitly lusts for.
But hey, he endorses John McCain so that makes him okay in your world-view right Kahn?
js – if you think there is nothing in the constitution about the speration of Chuch and state I suggest you review the document. Your posts read like they are written by a barely literate 14 year old with absolutely zero sense of the history of this nation.
Show me.
Amendment 1 – Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
I see where it says “NO LAW”, but please, feel free to take your time. Where exactly does it say separation of church and state?
17. southerner
Isnt it fun to run from the truth? You can call me all the names you want, but you wont be able to call me wrong.
Mark,
My hat is genuinely off to you for taking this issue on. Of course, it might have been difficult not to considering the circumstances. The whole thing is pretty embarrassing for Senator McCain and his “straight talk” theme.
I note your very genteel tolerance of Senator McCain’s grotesque hypocrisy and flip-flopping on this issue. Isn’t it funny how that works when the person engaging in the hypocrisy and flip-flopping is your own presumptive candidate, however reluctantly embraced? Yes, Senator McCain is not just proud, but “very proud” to have the support of John Hagee who says that your church is “the Great Whore”, an “apostate church”, “the anti-Christ” and a “false cult system”.
Yes, Senator McCain is “very proud” of the endorsement of an anti-Roman Catholic because apparently he didn’t mean it in 2000 when he said that such people were “agents of intolerance” and added, “The political tactics of division and slander are not our values, they are…(applause) they are corrupting influences on religion and politics, and those who practice them in the name of religion or in the name of the Republican Party or in the name of America shame our faith, our party and our country.” (emphasis added)
But, it’s perfectly okay, not shameful, for a presidential candidate to be “very proud” of a religious bigot’s endorsement of his candidacy so long as you can be personally sure the candidate doesn’t in any way, shape or form agree with” the bigot’s very public hatred for the Roman Catholic Church. So what’s wrong with Bill Donohue? Can’t he see the issues as clearly as you?
Here’s another, California just signed SB 777 into law.
Bad news all over the place.
–Jeremiah–
So Hagee the bigot supports McCain. Again, hope all you sheep who bought tickets very early on the McCain Express to Election Defeat are proud of yourselves.
The first ammendment of the constitution of the United States isn’t a very long document js. Learn it, love it, live it:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
By the way, if you’re intersted in knowing where the phrase about the separation of Church and state first came from, it has a pretty good provenance. The phrase “building a wall of separation between church and state” was written by Thomas Jefferson in a January 1, 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.
Jefferson was kind of involved in writing the constitution just in case you weren’t aware of that js.
23. southerner
So you give up? Some book you claim that contains the phrase is not the Constitution. And Thomas Jefferson was only 1 signer to that document.
So, you said:
17. southerner | February 29th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
js – if you think there is nothing in the constitution about the speration of Chuch and state I suggest you review the document
And then you accused me of being illiterate.
You claimed that separation of Church and State was contained in the Constitution. I copied the 1st Amendment, and put it right in front of your eyes. The phase, obvously, does not appear one time. All of your double talke and BS will not change that fact.
So in essence, you come back grasping at that same possition. I suggest the only 14 year old illiterate here is you Southerner.
I am actually convinced of it right now.