Posted on 10/20/2006 5:31:13 AM PDT by Mr. Brightside
Hillary enemies find her cross just unbearable
Hillary Clinton has appeared a handful of times this summer and fall with a cross around her neck, and it's an image that touches a nerve with the people who hate her. But Clinton is among the most religious Protestants seeking the presidency in 2008. If she gets the Democratic nod, she could well be matched against a less openly devout Republican.
"She's actually the real deal, although a lot of people don't think of her as religious," said John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washingon.
Clinton, a Methodist like President Bush, though from a more liberal wing of that church, has appeared publicly wearing a cross intermittently during her time in the Senate. Her aides didn't respond to questions about whether she is wearing the symbol more now than in the past.
But her faith has been part of her public character since she taught Sunday school as the First Lady of Arkansas and was an active member of a Washington church as First Lady.
The Atlantic Monthly reported recently that she's a member of an elite prayer group of about a dozen senators, including conservative Republicans like Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback whose Christianity is central to their politics.
Clinton's public displays of faith anger her critics, who see her as an opportunist - more than 800 people wrote comments, most of them attacking her, below her photograph on the Daily News political blog.
But her public devotion is in striking contrast with many of the front-runners vying for President, and particularly the Republicans, most of whom are quite distant from the born-again Christian faiths of their most energetic partisans.
Rudy Giuliani is a Catholic on his third marriage. Massachussetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, not a mainstream Protestant. Sen. John McCain is an Episcopalian who has kept his faith out of his public life to the degree that longtime adviser Marshall Wittman said he wasn't sure whether the senator attends church.
"Sen. McCain goes to church every Sunday that he can. He is devout, but very private about it," said McCain spokeswoman Elaine McMenamin, who offered to put a reporter in touch with McCain's pastor.
I guess someone forgot to tell her that vampires are only fictional.
Funny, I would have expected it to burn clear through her chest.
Eight years as the First Lady and I dont recall one photo of her wearing a cross.
She deserves to wear a cross...
... a cross-shaped millstone that is tied around her neck and thrown into the sea.
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