Rev. Wright's honorary degree canceled by Northwestern

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/20080501/pl_bloomberg/axcinkuxnrh8;_ylt=AvMxlS58pv5ugH0GpRdgDAqs0NUE

Rev. Wright's honorary degree canceled by Northwestern

May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Northwestern University withdrew an invitation for the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to receive an honorary degree at this year's commencement.

Wright, former pastor to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, was selected to be honored at the June ceremony in Evanston, Illinois, on the recommendation of faculty committees, Alan Cubbage, vice president for university relations, said in a statement.

``In light of the controversy around Dr. Wright and to ensure the celebratory character of commencement not be affected, the university has withdrawn its invitation to Dr. Wright,'' Cubbage said.

Obama, an Illinois senator, has repeatedly denounced Wright's statements, which have included praise for Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and a suggestion that the U.S. government was capable of developing AIDS to infect black people.

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Hillary-hate sig pics and quotes.

She has destroyed Wright, hurt Obama. But no one here can post about her religious ties. They get locked.

sepulchers.

Oh, puh-lease. What an empty gesture, not to mention hypocritical. Isn't the purpose of a university to encourage open and free discussion? What message does this retraction send?

However, a commencement ceremony is intended to honor the hard work and stick-to-it-iveness of the graduates who earned their degrees. Had Wright been there to deliver a commencement speech, the focus of the day would've been on him rather than where it belongs - on the graduates. I agree with Northwestern in this instance. If you want Wright to deliver a commencement address, let him do it a year or two from now, once the furor surrounding him has died down and he won't distract from the purpose of the day.

Farrakhan is cool when it comes to calling out Neocons.

Thank Flying spaghetti monster they never offered any honors to figures like Jesus, Mohammed,Siddharta,Dr Martin Luther King Jr, Mahatma Ghandi or other folks that may have been contaminated by controversy...

he should be used to it, Obama uninvited him too

again.

He deserves every last ounce of bad PR now for those horrific comments.

And no do not talk about bus crap. He KNEW what his comments were going to do to Obama when he said them. This is not "God damn America" as some agree but outrageous statements.

Obama did good to denounce him.

Is it necessary?

This strikes me as wrong.
the man was who he was last year and 5,10,15 years ago.
Why pick on him now?
Is it because he upset the anointed one?
Or what?

It doesn't sound like that man is "who he was last year and 5,10,15 years ago" Several journalists who went to that church and/or had friends and family who did were really shocked by that press session. Many had never heard him talk the way he did in those clips either even though they attended pretty regularly and they talked about how his usual sermons went. He always has that style but not the topics or language.

Anyway the Q&A shocked them, both in some of the things he said and how rude he was. They didn't know him that way.
Wright had a very good reputation in Chicago, the church wasn't considered fringe he he was well respected.
But he was so disrespectful in that press conference. I understand he'd be angry at the skewed image he'd been given by the media and the horrible consequences (threats and hate mail to him and to the church) but he either shouldn't have done one yet or he should have used it to bridge some of the barriers. He knew the type of question he'd get.

Maybe he should have followed his own advice from that 9/11 sermon they asked about. He responded by saying they hadn't seen the whole thing and that Obama had no right to say he should have tried to bring peace, he hadn't seen the whole thing either, he did bring in peace. And he did. But instead of being angry when he answered he could have explained the sermon better and people would have it understood much better. Because after he talks about how horrible 9/11 was and asking God what the reaction should be and the horrid bible verse about revenge and the infamous crescendo part we heard in clip where he's talking about what that ambassador said on Fox about what we've done coming back to us...
He talked about asking God again and about reacting to violence with violence
God showed me that this was a time for me to examine my relationship with God, not time to examine others. Talk to God privately, spend time getting right with God- not trying to set others right. Make sure what you are doing is for the sake of eternity, not for the sake of the public. All of us need to start by setting right our relationship to God as our first step.

I'm thinking he forgot that and what he did was for the public, not for the sake of eternity. He was reacting to his own hurt, getting that revenge he warns against. To those who have known him 5,10,15 years ago that was not the man they knew.

Whoever we support I think it would have been nice had he replied more thoughtfully and patiently. This country needs a lot of healing.

However - he was ranting, and crude before.

I think this is hypocritical.

But people who knew him didn't know him that way...not even those who heard the other sermons. Really he wasn't known as some kook (before) and the church had a good reputation. Some examples

MSNBC's Tamaron Hall who said on Hardball April 30


Or Cynthia Tucker who said on "This Week" March 30th that her brother has attended, his friends are members and it's pretty mainstream conventional, nothing like the clips. That the sermons are sort of "Pull yourself up, family responsibility . (George changed the subject)
Or Jay Carney of Time on the same show who said they had reporters going through all the o;d sermons and they hadn't found anything controversial so there wasn't really a story. (Since the truth is not a story?)

Ask this lady
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=0e1cf4d3400e38e4f0022adba4725faa


The Rev. Jane Fissler Hoffman, Interim Conference Minister of the Southern California-Nevada Conference, is a member of Trinity UCC. She states:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=jane+fissler+hoffman&btnG=Google+Search


Rev Hoffman is white too if that is extra credit She speaks here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioaChVw_pUw

I just had a wellresearched post locked because it mentioned the fellowship.

And this crap keeps on with that ugly picture.