Praying for Obama's death: evil, immoral, Biblically sanctioned

Nope. I'm not gonna pray for his good. I'm going to pray that he dies and goes to hell."

Later, rather than apologize for making abhorrent statements about the leader that the citizens of the United States elected, Anderson went even further: "I'd like to see him die, like Ted Kennedy, of brain cancer."

To the pastor's credit, at least he's not demanding Obama's head over the issue of health care reform.

And so yet another honorable "pro-life" person strides onto the national stage, sending letters to God begging for the Almighty to leave Michelle Obama a widow and Sasha and Malia fatherless because Obama dared to respect the law of the United States. This honorable "pro-life" person bragged about his parishioners carrying guns to church, and was nothing but proud when one of his own, a man named Christopher Broughton, attended a Phoenix event featuring President Obama while carrying a loaded rifle. The event was one day after Anderson's "death to Obama" sermon.

There's nothing factually wrong with this vile fundamentalist rhetoric. Anderson's prayers for the death of our democratically elected President stem from a Biblical command to kill all "murderers," which many sects of Christianity interpret as including people who have, provide or enable abortions. All this sick man is doing is following the word of the Bible as clearly stated. It's logical, if one accepts the laws of the Bible as true and does not cherry-pick, that Barack Obama, along with all abortion providers, women who have had abortions, administrators of hospitals that employ doctors who provide abortions, and so on should get a bullet between the eyes.

More moderate Christians are certainly quick to disown this man, as they did Scott Roeder, Michael Griffin, Paul Jennings Hill, John Salvi, Eric Rudolph, and James Kopp - and those are just the murderers. The list goes on; abortion providers have been shot, sent death threats and bomb threats and anthrax threats, assaulted, bombed, vandalized... They're just fundamentalists, just extremists, the moderate wing will say. How many people have to commit these appalling acts of violence before they become mainstream?

In the end, though, Anderson's just being a good Christian. He is following the literal word of the Bible because he believes that is the inerrant word of God. In addition to praying for the death of America's President, he's also given a sermon on the merits of killing homosexuals (who, he asserts, "recruit through rape"). It makes sense that his followers, being convinced that Barack Obama is, if not the Antichrist, an extremely evil man, and being in possession of firearms, should move to do justice upon him. Perhaps one of them will become convinced that he is God's tool for removing Barack Obama from office and from this world; in a community of religious fundamentalists, it's just as likely as a fundamentalist Muslim believing his holy duty is to become a suicide bomber.

Speaking of Muslims, how do you think the Christian right would feel if it were a Muslim man praying for the death of America's head of state?