Daily Links 02 November 2004

Billboard: GOP would rather you did not rock the vote, thank you very much. Bush/Cheney evidently prefer punk: Ohio GOP poll challengers slam the vote.

Liberals getting giddy — and delusional. Village Voice, two hours ago, “What If Kerry Wins”: “The Christian right would be done, at least for the time being. Look for the Christian Right to hightail it out of Washington, its anti-gay, anti-choice agenda well out of play.” Yes, we ‘spect Pat and Jim and Jerry and Gary and Mel and Ted and Ralph will hang their heads and say, “Gosh, I guess nobody likes us,” and start writing cookbooks, just like old Black Panthers. Or maybe not: Nothing fiercer than a culture warrior who’s cornered. Revealer prediction: Even the more mainstream press will forget that high voter turnout means the Christian Right is getting busy, too.

Hey — did you switch your vote because of Osama? Well, quick, switch it back. Turns out Osama wasn’t trying to meddle with the election. He was messing with his brother Yeslam’s launch of his new perfume in Paris. Remember the song? “…another child grows up to be somebody who just loves to burn…” But wait — there’s more. Also successfully overshadowed by attention-hog OBL was the fact that “Osama bin Laden’s discarding of Islamic justification in his speech coincided with an effort by Muslim intellectuals from 23 countries who signed a petition to the United Nations calling for an international treaty to ban the use of religion for incitement to violence.”

Eminem inspires Presbyterian preacher (see main story comments); cats and dogs are living together… Yea, apocalypse may be nigh. More reports of evangelicals giving up Bush’s ghost, and now this: Jews pissed at hipster Jewsweek‘s endorsement of Kerry.

We’re not fond of the way that the secular press has made Jim Wallis of Sojourners nearly the only public voice of leftist religious folk, but Wallis is worth paying attention to, especially today when he offers a reframing of religious America that may explain some election day surprises.

Conservative site Free Republic is posting as news the two-days-stale info that Mel Gibson’s campaigning against stem-cell research with the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, head of a conservative black Christian group that’s also trumpeting it’s “Black List” intended to “expose” “anti-American” black celebrities. “Anti-American” seems to mean “anti-Bush.”

Think you got the “God gap” handicapped this election? Think again. We’ve been bringing you news of conservative Christians and Christian conservatives abandoning the Bush base, but now we can point you in the direction of something really substantive — even, we dare say, revealing.The New Pantagruel is an intellectual, orthodox Protestant journal with a pop culture edge; The NYT suggested that it, not The Weekly Standard, may have inherited The National Review‘s legacy of sharp right-wing thinking. But that’s too simple. To wit: To help their readers cast their votes, they bring together four very unorthodox, orthodox Christian scholars. All four are socially conservative, staunchly opposed to abortion, skeptical of “dual income” families. And all four seem economically radical, committed to replacing “corporate capitalism” with something better — Christianity, I’m guessing. So, yadda, yadda, yadda — who are they voting for? Well, all four were Nader voters in 2000. Nader’s not getting their votes this time. Who is? If you’re Christian or if you’re not, do yourself a favor and tune out the TV for awhile to find out…

We take a break from the election to call your attention to a succinct, perversely funny, brilliantly-narrated, near-perfect piece of religion journalism in The Detroit Free-Press: Eagle Scout slays atheist.

Evangelical conservatives abandoning Bush? A popular email daily devotional with an claimed readership of 3 million just arrived in our email: “The choice for President has ultimately boiled down to a matter of restraining God’s wrath… Instead of seizing the opportunity God presented him to be a Joshua or a Moses, President Bush chose to simply be another politician who happened to be a Christian.” Or maybe a Jonah — these folks sure seem ready and willing tothrow poor W. overboard.

Spanish El Mundo breaks tradition of not endorsing foreign candidates to back Kerry. When it comes to Bush, they seem to have a God problem: “Bush has become a messianic governor, surrounded by some advisers who think the same way he does [and] who push away whomever contradicts him, and [Bush] is ever more convinced that God guides his political decisions.”English translation.

Evangelical Outpost doesn’t admire Eminem’s “Mosh” as much as we do. In fact, he thinks Em is as bad as Osama, or worse — Michael Moore. A Christian perspective on an unholy media trinity.

13 reasons Pagans are voting — overwhelmingly for Kerry. Pagan blogger Jason Pitzl-Waters decrees, “So Vote it Be.” (That’s a Pagan pun.)

Focus on the Family is pulling out tin hat vote scare tactics, warning readers that there’s a national ID plan in the works — if certain “one world government” types get into office, presumably.. Given Dr. James Dobson’s decision to play partisan and hard, we’re guessing this is a bid for the nutty conspiracist right.

Christian intellectual leader Alisdair MacIntyre is taking it easy today: “The way to vote against the system is not to vote.”

This helpful t-shirt will help God zap the idolators at the polls today.