Presidential candidate McCain, who has said he "admires" Hagee's leadership of the pastor's San Antonio based Cornerstone megachurch, actively sought out and has said he is "glad to have" pastor Hagee's  political endorsement. McCain has not disavowed Hagee's support regardless of growing public controversy over the pastor's speech and writing which has been characterized, variously, as anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic, anti-gay and misogynist.

In the undated sermon which appears to have been given at least within the current decade and probably within the last several years, Hagee also claims "America has become a pagan society" which is "in a moral, emotional and spiritual free fall" and is "rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah." But available empirical evidence, in terms of national social trends, does not support Hagee's dire claims. Additionally, recent federally funded studies have shown that nationally (controlling for differences in the makeup of student populations) public schools in America perform at least as well as private schools and Christian private schools perform, on a number of criteria, worse than secular private schools and government funded public schools.

It is a staple of many American fundamentalist evangelical sermons and writings to claim that an epidemic of social pathologies, such as violent crime and divorce, afflict America and that the alleged epidemic has been brought on by insufficient public displays of Christianity and "secularism", which typically is portrayed as a "satanic religion" rather than a political accommodation which allows, within democracies, political factions holding different religious, sectarian and philosophical beliefs to coexist. However, federal studies suggest American social trends have, in the decade and a half since the early 1990's, been on the balance positive.

In pastor John Hagee's writings, in his media appearances and for decades from his pulpit, Hagee has routinely suggested the United States is afflicted by a massive rise in social pathologies but Hagee's claims are generally contradicted by data, from the federal Center For Disease Control and the FBI, which indicate that national rates of murder, violent crime, divorce, rape and several sexually transmitted diseases steadily fell steadily and in some cases  dramatically from the early 1990's up to at least 2006.

"America has become a pagan society," thunders the powerful and influential Texas pastor in the Cornerstone Church sermon, "and we are in a moral, emotional, spiritual free fall. When a school teacher cannot refer to the Ten Commandments on the wall but can command your child to read Harry Potter, which is nothing but a precursor of witchcraft, we' going in the wrong direction here. This is not intelligence! We are embracing the era of darkness! re embracing the era of darkness! When the Boy Scouts of America are censored and penalized for refusing to accept homosexual scout leaders, we are a pagan nation where we're rebirthing Sodom and Gomorrah!

Hagee goes on to state that, "The Ten Commandments have been thrown out of the public schools - when you throw God out, Satan comes in. When you reject truth, all that's left to embrace is a lie. When you reject the love of God, hate walks through the door. When you reject light, you have embraced darkness. When you reject faith, you have embraced fear. When you reject peace, you have embraced torment. When you reject the Holy Spirit, you embrace a demon spirit and I assure you whether or not you believe in demon spirits, they're very real and they're in your church."

The evangelical, fundamentalist Christian leader, who has extensive access to prominent American politicians, claims he can call any major Israeli politician at will. John Hagee is founder of the nonprofit 501(c)(3) group "Christians United For Israel which is devoted to supporting an intransigent US foreign stance against any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal which would cede any Israeli land. Hagee who has claimed that CUFI is connected to mailing lists of individual evangelists who have millions of followers, declared that the summer 2006 Israeli invasion of Southern Lebanon, which was accompanied by massive Israeli bombing that caused much of the population of Southern Lebanon to flee north, was "thrilling."



[The End]



BELOW: HAGEE-MCCAIN AND HAGEE STORIES & VIDEOS & CONTEXT: MEDIA FAILURE TO COVER RELATIONSHIP

Talk To Action stories:

McCain-backer Hagee's 'Thrilling' Worldview: Rapture, Then "Holocaust" (Bruce Wilson)

McCain-Backer John Hagee lies, to Jewish Bloggers, On His Motives For Supporting Israel (Bruce Wilson, with video)

McCain Courted Hagee for at Least a Year (Frederick Clarkson)

What Secret "Other Matters" Did McCain Discuss With "Apocalypse Now" Hagee ? (Bruce Wilson)

McCain Reneges on Pledge To Never Seek anti-Catholic Support (Bruce Wilson)

Hagee Acknowledges McCain Sought His Endorsement (Bruce Wilson)

McCain Backer Hagee Showcases 'Islamic Terrorist' Implicated as Possible Fraud (Bruce Wilson)

McCain Backer Hagee Envisioned "Worse Than Auschwitz" For Israeli Jews (Bruce Wilson)

McCain Was After Hagee Like a Dog In Heat (Bruce Wilson)

AIPAC Event Helps Mainstream Allegations Of "Satanic Liberal Jewish Conspiracy" (Bruce Wilson - story details full extent of Hagee's ideological extremity)

Boldly Backwards To The 16th Century: McCain For President (Bruce Wilson)

Senior McCain Advisor: Religious Right is a "Serious Problem" (Frederick Clarkson)

On Bennett Show, McCain Waffles Over Hagee Hate Speech (Bruce Wilson)

Hagee's Howler Frank Cocozzelli, on controversy over Hagee's "Great Whore" (widely taken to mean the Catholic Church) statements.

Wright Wrongly Receives Far More Coverage than Coe, Hagee and Parsley Frederick Clarkson

For McCain, Silence on Religion is Golden Jon Perr

Media Failure To Cover Hagee-McCain Relationship

At least two major News Dailies have just mentioned the John Hagee/John McCain relationship in relationship to the Obama/Wright flap (below) but there's still a vast imbalance in coverage. As Media Matters For America demonstrates, WaPo and The NYT have been treating McCain/Hagee with kid gloves:

Summary: A Media Matters for America review found that since February 27, the date that televangelist John Hagee endorsed Sen. John McCain for president, The New York Times and The Washington Post combined have published more than 12 times as many articles mentioning Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. and Sen. Barack Obama as they have mentioning Hagee and McCain.

But as bad as the track records of those two papers on the issue is, the Media Matters report may actually give an inaccurate sense of the real imbalance: I did a comparison simply based on search terms ("Obama,Wright" and "McCain","Hagee" ) and got a news story ratio of 1:50. One McCain/Hagee story for every 50 Obama/Wright stories. Boston Globe, April 30, 2008 Let's Focus On Obama's Views, Not Wright's (Globe columnist Scott Lehigh):

It's also important to remember that Wright is not the first controversial clergyman to surface in US politics. And that some of the others have made explosive statements that have passed by with far less notice - and with much less forceful denunciations from political hopefuls. Take the example of Jerry Falwell, a pillar of the Christian right, who died last year. Falwell regularly made offensive comments against gays. And after Sept. 11, he opined that the attacks had come because this country had forfeited God's protection, and that pagans, "abortionists," feminists, gay and lesbian activsts, the ACLU, and People for the American Way had "helped this happen" by trying to secularize America.... Certainly Republican John McCain, who sought the endorsement of televangelist John Hagee, hasn't been held responsible for Hagee's various controversial statements, including his (later retracted) suggestion that the devastation of New Orleans was God's punishment for a planned gay-pride parade. McCain... has rejected Hagee's controversial comments and allowed that it may have been a mistake to seek Hagee's endorsement, McCain has also said that he admires the man and remains pleased to have his support. Still, his unpersuasive attempt to distance himself from Hagee has largely been accepted.

New York Times, April 30, 2008: Mr. Obama and Rev. Wright:

Senator John McCain has continued to embrace a prominent white supporter, Pastor John Hagee, whose bigotry matches that of Mr. Wright. Mr. McCain has not tried hard enough to stop a race-baiting commercial — complete with video of Mr. Wright — that is being run against Mr. Obama in North Carolina.

[note: I would very strongly contend the comparison here, because I consider Hagee's bigotry of a radically more extreme nature and because Hagee wields vastly more political influence than Wright. ]

My Current MCCAIN/HAGEE VIDEOS

3:40 1:40 3:38 "McCainflopping"