An America fatwa

Another example of how the Religious Right is clinically insane:

Wiley S. Drake, a Buena Park pastor and a former national leader of the Southern Baptist Convention, called on his followers to pray for the deaths of two leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The request was in response to the liberal group's urging the IRS on Tuesday to investigate Drake's church's nonprofit status because Drake endorsed former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for president on church letterhead and during a church-affiliated Internet radio show.

Drake said Wednesday he was "simply doing what God told me to do" by targeting Americans United officials Joe Conn and Jeremy Leaming, whom he calls the "enemies of God."

"God says to pray imprecatory prayer against people who attack God's church," he said. "The Bible says that if anybody attacks God's people, David said this is what will happen to them.... Children will become orphans and wives will become widows..."

"Let his days be few; and let another take his office," the prayer reads. "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

An American preacher is actually petitioning God to cause the deaths of his fellow Americans. That's about an inch away from the sort of thing that happened to Salman Rushdie. If some member of his church actually decides to take matters in his own hands and "do what God tells him to do" with a bullet, Ayatollah Drake will have blood on his hands.

Realize that this isn't some fringe group. This is a guy that used to be a leader of the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the second largest in the world, behind only the Catholic Church.

A commenter on another blog pointed out that Drake is claiming God told him to tell his followers to ask God to kill these people. Why doesn't God just go out and do it without all these people asking him to? It's funny how "what God wants me to do" and "what I want to do" always seem to line up so nicely.