News Roundup for 11/4/11

You're free to worship any god, so long as it's Jesus

-Headline of the Day-
"KY GOPer: I’m Not Criticizing Hindus -- I’m Inviting Them To 'Love And Know Jesus.'"

It looks like Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear is going to win reelection in a walk. Not surprisingly, this bothers his Republican opponent somewhat. So State Senate President David Williams looked around for something -- anything -- to drag Beshear down.

He thought he found it when "Beshear attended a groundbreaking ceremony in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, for a new factory run by FlexFilm, a company based in India that makes materials for packaging, printing, insulation and other purposes. The plant represents a $180 million investment, and is expected to create 250 jobs in Kentucky."

The groundbreaking including a Hindu ceremony called a bhoomi poojan and you can tell just from looking at the words that there ain't nothing Christian about it. It's got incense and people without shoes and god knows what-all, so Williams thought, "Gotcha!" and ran to the Lexington Herald-Leader. Beshear was caught in an act of "idolatry," offering "prayers to false gods."

"He’s there participating with Hindu priests, participating in a religious ceremony," Williams said. "They can say what they want to. He’s sitting down there with his legs crossed, participating in Hindu prayers with a dot on his forehead with incense burning around him. I don’t know what the man was thinking."

"If I’m a Christian, I don’t participate in Jewish prayers. I’m glad they do that," he dug deeper. "I don’t participate in Hindu prayers. I don’t participate in Muslim prayers. I don’t do that. To get down and get involved and participate in prayers to these polytheistic situations, where you have these Hindu gods that they are praying to, doesn’t appear to me to be in line with what a governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky ought to be doing... between his not being pro-life and his support for gambling and now getting down and doing Hindu prayers to these Hindu gods, I think his grandfathers wouldn’t be very pleased with Steve Beshear."

Turns out people thought this was a tad insensitive and what Williams thought was his big chance somehow turned into his latest fuckup. So he did the worst possible thing he could do in this situation; instead of just apologizing and letting it go, he decided to explain what he really meant.

Williams said he wasn't criticizing Hindus per se, he was just pointing out the obvious -- they practice the wrong religion. And so he invited them to "love and know Jesus."

With political chops like that, it's hard to understand how Williams is getting swamped. (Talking Points Memo)


-How's Herman doing so far?-


Click to embiggen

Not too well... (McClatchy)


-Bonus HotD-
"Deadbeat Rep. Joe Walsh, Who Owes $100k In Child Support, Receives ‘Pro-Family’ Award From Family Research Council."

Cut FRC some slack here. They didn't specify which family Walsh is supposed to be "pro-." It's probably someone else's family entirely. (ThinkProgress)