Donohue, Edwards & Forgiveness

Deal Hudson

So all the sudden the critics of Bill Donohue are trotting out the Christian idea of forgiveness.  These folks should take a look at their own postings and their own press clippings.  Up to now "forgiveness" hasn't been part of their moral vocabulary. 

It's very rare when anyone on the Left offers to forgive a conservative or Republican figure. Only someone with the stature of a Richard Cohen is willing to break the mold and put down ideology long enough to make a humane comment.

In the case of Marcotte and McEwan, John Edward's new campaign advisors, what would forgiveness require?  Rather, what would it take to say "It's OK if Edwards has decided to keep them on his staff."  It would take more than the 'I'm sorry if anyone was offended' remark that Marcotte and McEwan posted after Bill Donohue's first press release. 

That kind of mea culpa doesn't get at the issue, rather it only obscures what Donohue was trying to get Edwards to notice:  He had hired two campaign workers who have anti-Catholic and anti-Christian attitudes, and who have been in the habit of making these attitudes public.   

The offensiveness of the comments by Marcotte and McEwan are a direct hit--they were not oblique references to Christian belief but were intentional slurs. 

Forgiveness, in my opinion, It would take an explicit repudiation of both their comments and their attitudes, in other words, forgiveness would require evidence of their genuine self-searching and their conclusion that, indeed, they have been wrong to post such vile comments.

Without evidence of their conversion, Marcotte and McEwan represent a hatred toward Christian now housed inside the presidential campaign of John Edwards.  He needs to realize that and act, now.