After Barack and Michelle met, they joined the United Church of Christ a small mainline Protestant sect. If they became Catholics instead, would there still be accusations that Barack Obama is a"secret muslim"? How would that affect African-American voters? Would his Pro-Choice views bring him problems with church higher ups or would the fact that he is a high profile African-American convert give him some slack? And would there be another VP instead of Joe Bieden also a catholic?
WI: Barack Obama becomes a Roman Catholic
- Thread starter ejpsan
- Start date
I think the Crypto-Muslim accusation is partly the result of him not really emphasizing his faith. If Obama has a habit of regularly going to Mass once a week, then you might peel away some of the conspiracy theories (but not all of them).
I don't think the Catholic Church would take a stand against Obama for acting against the Church's moral teachings either. After all, the Kennedys, Nancy Pelosi, and Biden all have openly opposed the Church for quite a while and haven't been excommunicated.
Meerkat92
Banned
there are instead accusations that he's a papist
"We can never have another FUCKING PAPIST in the White House! Remember how the last one turned out?"
Yes. Those people are racist idiots. "Muslim" is code-word for "scary other strange black person." To these dolts, Obama would still be a scary other strange black person, even if he were a Catholic scary other strange black person.
One possible difference: in the universe of far-right-wing lunatic numbskulls, there is a subset of anti-Catholic Protestants (like this guy). So in addition to Orly Taitz claiming that Obama was born in Kenya, you might have some Todd Friel acolyte arguing that the White House is being run by "the Whore of Babylon."
But on the whole: no, being Catholic is not going to help Obama with the moron segment of the U.S. population.
Not at all.
Not any more so than John Kerry or Joe Biden, which is to say: not at all, except when some loudmouthed buffoon pulls a Bill Donohue and decides to insinuate that true Catholics need to vote Republican. Most American Catholics go right on with their lives.
I'm not sure I understand what the argument is here. Are you just pointing out that not a lot of African-Americans are Catholic?
In any event, it will break down exactly as IOTL: right-wing religious leaders, be they Catholic (Bill Donohue) or Protestant (everyone else) will criticize Obama in exactly the same way as IOTL. Racist morons (note strong overlap with first group) will believe stupid horrible racist crap just as IOTL, and may even have fun new stupid horrible racist crap to believe.
I don't think so. Biden was chosen for his age, foreign policy experience, and demographic background (working-class white). There isn't really anyone with that combination of skills available to Obama in 2008 who's also a Protestant -- Evan Bayh is probably the closest, but (a) he's considerably weaker on foreign policy and (b) is significantly to the right of Biden politically.
In a close election, "two Catholics on the ticket" might be a modest disincentive; in a landslide year like 2008, it's going to be a tertiary consideration at best. So Obama picks Biden anyway.