62 Comments

• BrianO | Aug 20, 2012, 10:56 PM EDT

  He had a fine tone, I have to confess only knowing two of his songs but was pleased to see he co-wrote kokomo for the Beach boys, he must have known how to have some fun.

• seanomelb | Aug 20, 2012, 07:20 PM EDT

  Briano RIP Scott McKenzie who died today,I hope they placed a flower in his hair,end of an era a sad day for us old liberal hippies.

• BrianO | Aug 20, 2012, 03:52 PM EDT

  Janis Joplin a classic, being a hell raiser a drinker and a heroin user not a good combination. That era of hard driving rockers had a lot of casualties, But even a drug dependent hell raiser could accumulate wealth which she willed to her parents and siblings, only described online as considerable.

• seanomelb | Aug 19, 2012, 07:26 PM EDT

  Gearoid!! Wise counseling from whom??

• eiriamach | Aug 19, 2012, 04:04 PM EDT

  Thanks, Briano and Seano, for reminding me of that great Janis Joplin classic, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz? / My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends. / Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends, / So Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?" Her caustic satire is even more on target now that the cult of prosperity threatens to take over the federal government itself.

• BrianO | Aug 19, 2012, 02:37 PM EDT

  seano, I'll take a 2012 ford mustang thank you, though the model T was mass produced and marketed to the working man, a real success story as is modern day Ford.

• Gearoid4 | Aug 19, 2012, 12:23 PM EDT

  @Eiriamach, The vast majority of abortions are not done for emergency medical reasons, and this is the crux to the whole point that I'm making. One can argue over the individual reason why women take this drastic decision. But wise counselling and alternative advice to the default pro-abortion position, should be provided upfront in respect of abortion centres and medical clinics.

• seanomelb | Aug 19, 2012, 05:15 AM EDT

  eiriamach ! To quote Augustine in old age "lately have I loved thee Lord" just hedging my bets. As the say in AUS haveagoodweegend

• seanomelb | Aug 19, 2012, 05:11 AM EDT

  What would you like Briano. You need a car to suit your right wing politics how about a model T FORD LOL Brian.

• BrianO | Aug 18, 2012, 07:22 PM EDT

  Eiria and seano, could you ask God to send me a new car, since you have a direct line.

• eiriamach | Aug 18, 2012, 06:40 PM EDT

  seanomelb, God is furious with GOP ideologues like Paul Ryan, but not with you because God knows your heart is in the right place and you don't work to oppress any part of humanity. (Don't ask how I know this; just trust.)

• seanomelb | Aug 18, 2012, 06:09 PM EDT

  I must admit that God is furious with me because I deny his existence. Nice piece below eiriamach.

• eiriamach | Aug 18, 2012, 01:39 PM EDT

  Well, Sean, God has no physical, material body. Personhood in a completely spiritual being is a whole different can of beans and is rightly termed a mystery. I think that we know little more than that God condescends to become a "person" for us so that we persons can relate to God. We nature-bound beings, however, have limits, and one of them, I believe, is that one physical body hosts not more than one soul or spirit. Siamese twins have two bodies, more or less complete, though they are joined, and become separate persons. Only a pregnant women's body, according to Ryan and the other sponsors of the personhood legislation, hosts two persons. I find it interesting that psychiatrists categorize two persons in one body as a serious mental illness, schizophrenia. Anselm, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Duns Scotus are having a hearty laugh together over the "two persons" idea, when they're not weeping over the degeneration of theology into gross, oppressive po;litical silliness at the hands of today's official Catholic "theologians." ~~~~~ Gearoid4, it's true of any pregnancy, by medical definition, that "the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk greater than if the pregnancy were terminated." This tautology tells you precisely NOTHING about the moral considerations that bear on a decision to terminate a pregnancy. I conclude again that you know NOTHING about why some women choose to terminate early pregnancies and therefore you are in NO POSITION to make any moral judgment about them.

• seanomelb | Aug 17, 2012, 11:42 PM EDT

  Eiriamach how about three divine persons in the one body. The whole concept is bordering on the theatre of the absurd.Diderot would have had fun with the concept of two bodies inhabiting one body.

• Gearoid4 | Aug 16, 2012, 07:03 PM EDT

  @Eiriamach, To demonstrate my point, here are some enlightening statistics from 2010 regarding the numbers in the UK, who have chosen to abort for essentially non-medical reasons and really for convenience. In 2010, the vast majority (97.7% or 185,291) of abortions were undertaken under Category C(the pregnancy has not exceeded its twenty-fourth week and that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated). One can interpret this in a very liberal way and it does leave open the scenario of abortion being performed for non-emergency situations, where counselling would be a far more healthy and moral option. I am not judging any individual person but rather commenting on a general trend that cannot really be disputed, as it has replicated itself so many times in western societies. As for your comments on Ryan's bill concerning two persons occupying a pregnant woman's body. It is an indisputable biological fact that two humans lives are intertwined here, i.e the pregnant woman and the baby growing inside her.

• eiriamach | Aug 16, 2012, 05:01 PM EDT

  Gearoid4, how can you possibly know the reasons why women end pregnancies? Why do you think, in particular, that the reasons are "social"? I find your pretense at mind- and soul-reading arrogant. You do not and cannot know the considerations that culminate in such decisions, and they are not for you to judge. The natural condition of fertility imposes upon both men and women a responsibility to act prudently in bringing a new life into the world. We are not at the mercy of "Nature" with regard to such matters; we have the ability and therefore the moral responsibility to control the consequences of sexual activity. I notice that you do not deal with the quirky theology of Ryan's bill, which locates two persons in one body in the case of a pregnant woman. Can anyone, Catholic or whatever, actually believe that God intended two persons to inhabit one body?

• Gearoid4 | Aug 16, 2012, 03:15 PM EDT

  ~Eiriamach, Since when has the naturally occurring conditions of fertility and child-birth, been viewed by the medical profession, as dangerous medical conditions, to be given drastic treatments? This line of argument is so illogical that it defies belief. Pregnancies are ended and the new-born life destroyed for "social" reasons in the vast majority of cases, as distinct from medical necessity. It is a terrible commentary on the values of Western societies and a total anathema to Christian beliefs.

• Gearoid4 | Aug 16, 2012, 03:03 PM EDT

  @Hughaed, St Columbanus was one of the most iconic of Irish saints and traversed across the continent of Europe in the 5th century, founding monasteries and converting many thousands of pagans. His words sums up perfectly the relationship of the early Irish Church to the universal Church- "We Irish, though dwelling at the far ends of the earth, are all disciples of St. Peter and St. Paul... we are bound [devincti] to the Chair of Peter, and although Rome is great and renowned, through that Chair alone is she looked on as great and illustrious among us ... On account of the two Apostles of Christ, you [the pope] are almost celestial, and Rome is the head of the whole world, and of the Churches".

• Wexfordman | Aug 16, 2012, 09:56 AM EDT

  It shouldn't matter what religion they are its there policies and how they act. that should matter. Vote for those who unite people of all religions and not thoese who devide.

• seamus60 | Aug 16, 2012, 08:47 AM EDT

  GET USED TO THAT TOO. In a time when the world is telling us in Ireland to get over the Catholic, Protestant thing that has apparently been holding us back for centuries. Hmmm

• eiriamach | Aug 16, 2012, 07:42 AM EDT

  Catholics must pay attention because Ryan claims that Catholicism taught him how to do the work of God in politics. He has voted against including hate crimes against homosexuals under federal hate crime law and would re-instate DADT for the military. To deprive millions of women of health care, he voted to de-fund Planned Parenthood and Title X family planning. He co-sponsored a bill that would confer personhood on fertilized human eggs, that would criminalize IUD birth control, outlaw in vitro fertilization for childless couples, and open criminal investigations of women who miscarry pregnancies. Maureen Dowd says that Dems nicknamed it the 'Let Women Die Act' because it would allow hospitals to "deny women abortions even in life-threatening circumstances" and when pregnancies result from incest or rape. Wouldn't it also require hospitals to keep pregnant women's bodies alive on life support if some tragic accident or onset of eclampsia leaves them brain dead? According to definitions in this bill, when a woman is pregnant, two human persons coexist in one body! That's a theological paradox I'd like some Catholic to explain. If the fertilized ovum is a person, the state must take ownership, when necessary, to keep the ovum alive. Did God create women to be like incubators on a chicken farm? Is that the work of God that John F. Kennedy said in 1961 "must truly be our own"?

• warlocks | Aug 15, 2012, 10:40 PM EDT

  Its nothing but pure Poppy cock Lets keep Religion & Politics seprate Let the Politicians Run the Countries & Let the Religious Leaders Run their church .Both have trouble keeping their nose's out of the other's Business

• katiemac | Aug 15, 2012, 10:20 PM EDT

  It all depends on how you define Catholic. Some people are baptized Catholic but in no way follow church teaching. Some people practice Catholicism but follow only those doctrine they find comfortable (Cafeteria Catholics). Still others claim to be Catholic, but have excommuincated themselves by their actions, both personal and public. In point of fact, most American Catholics have more in common with Protestants than they do with Catholics following the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

• Seanmor | Aug 15, 2012, 09:40 PM EDT

  Irishphoto: The Irish media everywhere ought to print more informative comments and and and articles such as yours. You remind me of the praise Winston Churchill lasished on the Irish missionaries that converted pagan England to Christianity in the 6th century. See "History of the English-speaking Peopless".

• Seanmor | Aug 15, 2012, 09:29 PM EDT

  I would NEVER vote for a candidate soly because he/she happens to be a Catholic. Many Catholic politicians are very supportive of abortion and same-sex marriages, while their Protestant opponents are sometimes pro-life and favor one man-one-woman marriages. My wife who is a practicing Methodist is also opposed to killing the unborn and to homosexual marriages.

• hughaed | Aug 15, 2012, 08:34 PM EDT

  geroid, your response was a conventional one with some plausible truths. Though the Celtic Church may not have been organized as a Celtic Church per se it had characteristics that identified it as different & unique compared to the continental church. Nature, for instance, was permeated with Divinity (ie Immanence). Semi-Pelagianism, although attacked roundly by the continental church, was an accepted theological stance. So called Paganism, continued with the veneration of many mountains, streams, wells by way of having native deities christianized. The poetic tradition, which required up to 20 years of training in the memorization of old sagas & mythic litererature, continued on strongly until the 17th century English invasion. The 9th century mystic philosopher, Johannes Scotus Eriugena, a staunch advocate of Celtic Christian principles, is seen from our modern vantage point as a "Panentheist" (ie all phenomena-the whole universe is inside God (Dia). I could go on and on. You may think that specialists in the field speak with one voice on this but most of them merely parrot a few self-chosen scholars in the field. Arnold Toynbee, the great historian, once observed that it is unlikely the modern world would have suffered our modern dilemma vis a vis the environment, if the Celtic Church (or/and the principles they represented) had prevailed instead of succumbing to the continental church with its extreme dualism.

• seanomelb | Aug 15, 2012, 06:21 PM EDT

  A great country is ruled by great politicians,religion is irrelevant and should never be an issue.

• GregShox | Aug 15, 2012, 05:57 PM EDT

  Why is King Billy relevant to American electoral politics, unless you think Catholic means Irish, and you also happen to be trapped in a 300-year-old historical time-warp?

• Gearoid4 | Aug 15, 2012, 05:50 PM EDT

  @IrishPhotograph, You seem hooked on this myth about an Irish "celtic" church iN early Christian Ireland, but experts on this period, will quickly disabuse of this mythical notion. In fact, there was no such thing as an organized, self-conscious Irish Church, divorced from Rome, during the early Christian era. Rather it was the local variation of the Western, Latin,Church, albeit with some divergent customs which differed from the universal Church, e.g. hair tonsure worn by monks. But these very moderate problems, were pretty much sorted out by the Synod of Whitby in 664 A.D.

• lokionline | Aug 15, 2012, 05:24 PM EDT

  "there are no anti-contraception laws"
  
  @JoeRoan, do you pay attention to the bills that red-state Republican legislatures have been advancing?
  
  I am referring to the "personhood" bills. These bills seek to make all forms of proximate post-fertilization contraception illegal. This is the same kind of thing that Ryan has supported NATIONALLY!
  
  The fact that Colorado and even Mississippi voters have overwhelmingly rejected such proposals is the reason these laws don't exist. But like Santorum, Ryan wants such a law enacted nationally.
  
  As for what Romney thinks about this. Who knows? He has changed his position so many times, but for now he is sending 'dog whistle' messages to the Republican base to assure them he would support such a law.

• lsfdjgljg | Aug 15, 2012, 05:14 PM EDT

  forget Cuomo, he and his father have been fighting the Church for decades now......... they're both for the little guy, unless the little guy is in his mother's womb.

• MichaelMcGrath | Aug 15, 2012, 04:30 PM EDT

  Mass immigration is changing the face of Ireland more than any religion ever did. Luckily it's not changing the actual faces of the Irish as mass miscegenation didn't take hold to wipe the Irish nation out , not yet. We have our fingers crossed and our prayers said that we will survive depite haveing Irish governments far more tyrannical than the English and much more damnable in what they have set out to do, to mix the Irish race out of existence in their campaign with the EU to wipe the irish people out - but the liberal elite are careful not to mix race themslves - none of the Irish politicians will allow their kids to mix with Blacks:-) But even worse this ccampaign to destroy the irish is costing us 4 billions a year in health, education and welfare because not a single Black immigrant has a cent.

• aloistmartin | Aug 15, 2012, 04:25 PM EDT

  Oh, The Double Devon Cream, Laddy`s; Oh, The Double Devon Cream !

• JoeRoan | Aug 15, 2012, 04:11 PM EDT

  The lessons on Irish history, as twisted as some of them are, are fascinating. But getting back to "laws" which Romney and Ryan are supporting or suppressing... there are no anti-contraception laws, just people who don't want to have to pay for providing contraceptives to others. There are no anti-marriage laws. If a man and a woman want to marry, they can do so in any of the 50 states (or any of Obama's 57 states). These United States were much better off when the government played a smaller role and didn't exist to redistribute hard working people's money to those who could stand to try a little hard work.

• slainte9 | Aug 15, 2012, 03:11 PM EDT

  Where in the world did Irishphotograph come up with this drivel. King Billy invaded England with the aid of Churchill's ancestor to oust a King who was getting too cozy with the Catholics as in backing off on the Penal Laws. This was all about Dutch and English power, however. Nobody cared what the Pope thought or really cared about Ireland. The Pope might have liked the idea that the French got beat in the process, but later thought the outcome wasn't so hot, not that it mattered what the Pope thought. Under good King Billy the anti-Cathoic Penal Laws stayed in place. What Pope would have liked that.

• Irishphotograph | Aug 15, 2012, 02:55 PM EDT

  King Billy was supported by Rome to come to Ireland King Billy's 1690 victory was a minor military triumph, but a landmark in British affairs, says Derek Brown.......The papal alliance, which many Protestants prefer to gloss over, must also be seen in the context of the times, in which dynastic ambition often outweighed religious allegiance or scruple. King William III was the Protestant head of the Dutch royal house of Orange. He was married to Mary, the Protestant-raised daughter of King James II of Britain, a convert to Catholicism. James's naked ambition to lead Britain back into the old church alienated the court and many of his subjects. In 1688, powerful establishment figures invited William and Mary to take the throne. But when they landed in England, the royal army, led by John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, defected and James fled to France. But he had friends among his mostly Catholic subjects in Ireland and a redoubtable ally in Louis XIV of France, then at the height of a ruthless drive to make himself Europe's overlord. William was rabidly anti-French, and was an eager recruit to the alliance of powers which opposed Louis. Other leaders of the League of Augsburg - later the Grand Alliance - included the Austrian emperor, Leopold, and Pope Alexander VIII. Thus, when James landed in Ireland in a doomed attempt to win back his throne and promote the Catholic faith, he was indirectly fighting the Pope. And William, defending the Protestant ascendancy in both of John Bull's islands, was at the same time advancing the cause of the Vatican.

• Irishphotograph | Aug 15, 2012, 02:52 PM EDT

  HOW THE ROMAN POPES GAVE IRELAND TO THE ENGLISH TO RULE OVER US ROME WANTED TO SUPPRESS THE CHURCH SAINT PATRICK HELP ESTABLISH. THE CELTIC CHRISTIAN CHURCH. This was indeed what King Henry did and one of his first acts was to call the Council of Cashel in 1172 at which the ancient Celtic Church of Ireland was brought into submission to the yoke of Roman bondage. As for the Papal insults that the Irish were a rude, ignorant, uncivilized people, had not the missionaries of Patrick's Celtic Church brought the uncorrupted Gospel not only to the rest of the British Isles but to Europe? Was it a savage people who produced such beautifully illuminated Christian manuscripts as the Book of Kells, and who preserved the primitive Christian faith in their communities even under Viking attack, whilst Papal Rome was sunk in, the depths of vice and superstitions? The Roman Catholic writer O'Driscoll admits: "The Christian Church of Ireland was founded by St. Patrick, existed for many centuries free and unshackled ... and differed on many points from Rome. From the days of Patrick to the Council of Cashel was a bright and glorious career for Ireland. From the sitting of that Council to our own times the lot of Ireland has been unmixed evil and all her history a tale of woe." Views of Ireland, Vol. 2, Page 84.

• Lucia826 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:34 PM EDT

  First of all, by definition, Biden is not a Catholic. He may CALL himself a Catholic, and wear his Rosary around his neck if he'd like...but ignoring the doctine of the Roman Catholic Church is NOT an option. He is a "cafeteria-faith" guy. Pick one from here and another from there..but that is not how it works. Thrown into the mix is Pelosi, the late Ted Kennedy, et al. THOSE WHO VOTE IN FAVOR OF ABORTION are self-ex-communicated. There are misguided priests and bishops who will still allow them Holy Communion. God help them, as they are accountable for what they are doing. Do not please put BIDEN in the same Holy Barque as Ryan! But I see Ireland as really having gone down the tubes. You Europeans just love socialism and BIG gov't. In America, we reject that! Yet, many of you across the pond want to be HERE. Why on earth is that?

• Nicomax | Aug 15, 2012, 02:31 PM EDT

  Some guidance needed here- What are Mormons if not 'Protestants'? Maybe they did not specifically protest the Church of Rome, but they seem to be an irritant to other recognized 'Protestants'. So are there two 'Protestants' of the four running for President and VP, or just one, BHO?

• slainte9 | Aug 15, 2012, 02:18 PM EDT

  This is an interesting question. Too bad Niall isn't a theologian. Is the Catholic Church still Catholic. I'd argue no, if it's added the word "elect" to its vocabulary. Joining the "elect" and believing in salvation through faith alone make you a Protestant. You might be a Catholic if you believe that your salvation depends not simply on your personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but also your relationship to the world and the people who live in it. A church that puts up roadblocks to baptism and marriage should not call itself Catholic.

• eiriamach | Aug 15, 2012, 01:39 PM EDT

  BrianO, I believe in a Christianity that helps individuals imitate Christ but also to reach beyond the confines of the self and, together with other Christians ("church"), to work for progress toward God's reign on earth. Or, in JFK's words, to make progress in areas like these: "the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms [their homes]--an America with too many slums, with too few schools." These are also on the agenda of Obama and Biden, and banished from Romney's and Ryan's.

• BrianO | Aug 15, 2012, 01:31 PM EDT

  Eiria, you don't believe in the individual. you don't believe in Christianity, you seem to be against most. What do you believe in.

• eiriamach | Aug 15, 2012, 01:25 PM EDT

  I think Niall is over-confident that "anti-Catholicism seems truly dead and buried." Foolishly, Catholics themselves have been resurrecting it, through the USCCB's anti-HHS lobbying and Santorum's and Ryan's catering to the religious right. Ryan is eroding the trust in Catholics that the electorate had in 1960, when, in the same words Al Smith used in 1928, JFK told the Protestant Ministers, "I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute." Ryan is the opposite breed of Catholic, the kind that Protestants and Jews rightly feared in 1960. He's a Catholic who mixes religion and social issues to win the votes of the Religious Right. Jefferson once called it "the lowest grade of ignorance" to think that writing a church agenda into law can keep us free. Smith and JFK also understood: we keep our freedoms by supporting full freedom of conscience on social issues and a role for gov't on problems that are our shared responsibility. Ryan votes against freedom of conscience and for federal anti-choice and anti-contraception laws, anti-marriage equality, and restoring DADT. And he wants government to abandon the shared responsibility issues that were JFK's 1960 agenda: "the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor bills, the families forced to give up their farms [their homes]--an America with too many slums, with too few schools." Ryan could raise anti-Catholicism to pre-1960 levels. Oh, right, that's his favorite era, isn't it?

• jflanagan | Aug 15, 2012, 01:11 PM EDT

  If Biden keeps opening his mouth and sounding worse than Sarah Palin, he will set us back quite a bit. Thankfully, Ryan is well spoken, knows substantive facts and has a sense of Geography.

• GregShox | Aug 15, 2012, 01:07 PM EDT

  Wake me when Americans tolerate an atheist in the White House. Until then, all you're talking about is different flavours of mumbo jumbo.

• hardshoe83 | Aug 15, 2012, 01:03 PM EDT

  Also I think its good that there is less prejudice against catholics, but as a protestant I hope you catholics don't start discriminating against us now.

• hardshoe83 | Aug 15, 2012, 12:58 PM EDT

  I think Americans are getting less predjudice and that is what allowed politicians like Ryan and Biden to get up there. I'm a protestant and I don't mind having a catholic vice president. After all we are all christians. :)

• mayoman | Aug 15, 2012, 12:34 PM EDT

  Look at the new boss. Same as the old boss.

• JoeRoan | Aug 15, 2012, 12:32 PM EDT

  The Romney/Ryan ticket is not running with Ryan's plan. They are running with the Romney Plan. Neither plan wants to eradicate SS nor Medicare. They want to make much needed changes so that both programs survive. To do nothing (the Obama plan)is not an option. The Catholic politician, on the national stage, hasn't had much success. However, most major cities in America were built on the backs of the Irish Catholic, and others. Their police forces and Fire Departments were built and run primarily by Irish Catholics. We became councilmen and congressmen. Few were saints, but they did their fair share, by working for and earning what they had. The couldn't wait for the government to give it to them. We made it for ourselves.

• bob40wil | Aug 15, 2012, 12:23 PM EDT

  As long as pope is running the Church they will never be the new Protestants.

• Nicoletta | Aug 15, 2012, 12:11 PM EDT

  Niall, you are absolutely dead right. If Catholics vote with their (hopefully well-formed) consciences, the Republicans will win, Romney having made it crystal clear with his appointment of deputy that he is pro-life and anti-gay marriage.

• johhnyb | Aug 15, 2012, 12:05 PM EDT

  Great!!!!! Oh wait isn't that a sectarian, bigoted view? No not if you're a Catholic apparently.

• pilib04 | Aug 15, 2012, 12:05 PM EDT

  Niall, I wouldn't get too excited about Catholics and the Vice Presidency. John Nance Gardner once referred to the position as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." In the old days they used "spit" as a euphemism.

• seagreen | Aug 15, 2012, 12:00 PM EDT

  Ryan......

• seagreen | Aug 15, 2012, 11:59 AM EDT

  Ryun is a Catholic, and he wants to eradicate (social security) what I have contributed to since my first snow shoveling job at 14 yrs old. Voting a religious vein is over. The United States has turned into financial class structural/politics. Money is now religion !!!

• cillowen | Aug 15, 2012, 11:41 AM EDT

  lording uber alles are,ya'll know.

• cillowen | Aug 15, 2012, 11:38 AM EDT

  lording

• faberm1 | Aug 15, 2012, 11:36 AM EDT

  Better add the Mormons too. Harry Reid is a Mormon and so is Mitt Romney. They are not protestants.

• faberm1 | Aug 15, 2012, 11:14 AM EDT

  Colleen the rest of the world does not understand the Irish obsession with booze and jealousy . Get a life

• faberm1 | Aug 15, 2012, 11:12 AM EDT

  Is there a difference between a Catholic gaffe machine like Biden and a muslim gaffe machine like Obama ?

• torbreezy | Aug 15, 2012, 10:37 AM EDT

  Is the "Catholic" you refer to the same as "Catholic" in the days of yore?

• colleenbawn | Aug 15, 2012, 10:33 AM EDT

  Why are we so hung up on the religion of the candidates. As someone said recently. The rest of the world can't understand America's obsession with the three Gs GUNS, GOD AND GOVERNMENT. Now, the religious right scares me