McCain's absolute faith based pandering

Last night during Left Coast megapastor Rick Warren's Q&A session with Senators Barack Obama and John McCain, Warren asked for both presidential candidates' view of the so-called faith based initiatives, whereby federal funds are diverted to religious groups for performing otherwise non-religious social services:

WARREN: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows religious organizations, not just churches, but faith based organizations, to keep and hire the people that they believe [they] share common beliefs with.

McCAIN: Yes.

WARREN: Would you insist that faith based organizations forfeit that right to access federal funds?

McCAIN: Absolutely not. And if you do, it would mean a severe crippling of faith based organizations and their abilities to do the things that they have done so well successfully.

Then, my friends, McCain rambled away into another tedious stump speech, which is pretty much all he did for an entire hour.

McCain doesn't have a clue, although his stream of absolutisms plays well with the evangelical crowd, who are absolutely enamored with the idea of absolutely absolute everything.

But federal funds are not available for programs whose implementation involves discrimination on the basis of religion.

Obama got it right:

I think generally speaking faith based organizations should not be advantaged or disadvantaged when it comes to getting federal funds by virtue of the fact that they are faith based organizations. They just want a level playing field.

But what we want to make sure of is that as a general principle we're not using federal funding to discriminate but that is only when it comes to the narrow program that is being funded by the federal government. That does not affect any of the other ministries that are taking place.

In other words, they're free to discriminate with their own money, and the government isn't going to stop them from discriminating.

McCain's "absolutely not" is as silly as his suggestion that the rights of fully grown, adult women must be abrogated in favor of the "human rights" of an undifferentiated zygote they may be hosting.

Interestingly, McCain also referred to the right to privacy as "one of the fundamental and basic rights we have," which, as everybody except John McCain seems to understand, is one of the core constitutional principles underlying Roe v. Wade.

The constitutional right to privacy was only recently "discovered," as many conservatives will tell you, in a 1965 case called Griswold v. Connecticut. It's nice to know, however, that McCain is apparently a big supporter of Griswold.

Indeed, that it's a "fundamental and basic right" is at the heart of Lawrence v. Texas, another U.S. Supreme Court case hated by conservatives, in which statutes banning sodomy were struck down.

McCain's all mixed up. No wonder conservatives don't trust him.

Incidentally, Senator McCain voted 'Yea' in favor of the nominations of three of the four sitting Supreme Court Justices he now claims he wouldn't have nominated. The fourth, Justice John Paul Stevens, was named to the Court before McCain arrived in the Senate.

And let's not forget Robert Novak's reporting that McCain had referred to Justice Samuel Alito as "too conservative" for McCain's liking. But suddenly Alito is one of McCain's "most recent favorites."

What, now Justice Alito is liberal enough for McCain?