LOL, Obama, a Moonie?
I do too much internet dwelling, guilty as charged. That's the pretext for this post. I came across a rather odd blog called "How well do you know your Moon?" supposedly run by members of the cult, the Unification Church, aka the Moonies. One particular post caught my eye. There was a picture of what was purported to be a picture of a young Barack Obama, speaking at a Moonie event. The caption read "Barack Obama once spoke at an event in support of the co-messiahs of the Unification Church, Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han, where they were honored as the “True Parents”." Here is the referenced photo:
My instinct as a sane person was to recognize this for what it is: bullshit. Likely a photo-shopped image (the photo is rather grainy). At the same time, I did think about the fact that Obama has talked at length about his Mothers efforts to familiarize him to a range of different faiths growing up, in order to cultivate tolerance. I can't imagine Obama ever attended a Unification Church, let alone spoke at an event for them. Also, the moonies are ultra-right wing and rabidly homophobic among other things (along with being a cult) so I can't imagine the organization being the least bit enticing to a young Obama. Anyway, I tried to search the internet for a debunk of the image or even a mention of it on any other site and came up dry. Anyone here know how to spot a photoshop?
= new reply since forum marked as read
It’s not unusual for religious organizations to sponsor various events and invite politicians to curry favor. It’s also not unusual for politicians to speak at events held by their constituents, whomever they may be.
Jim Jones and his church were fairly influential in the Bay Area in their time, and of course rubbed elbows with Moscone, Feinstein, etc..
Suggesting someone is a Moonie on account of s context-free photo is a stretch.
Here’s Al Gore with Fred Phelps - the “God hates Fags” church leader:
Here’s Rosalyn Carter with Jim Jones:
Politicians get their photos taken with all sorts.
...whatever the event may have been, the characterization accompanying the photograph is unlikely to be accurate.
You might want to run that photo through tineye.com or google search by image.
That there is no reference to it suggests it was not a particularly big deal.
A lot of religious organizations do various things in lots of cities. Politicians showing up at religious organization events, even odd religions, is not unusual. There’s a First Amendment, and no shortage of wacky religions in this country. Many of them have money and voters.
Here’s John Kerry with Rev. Moon’s daughter:
Is that part of the banner which is clipped, says something about “annual awards”.
One sure fire way to get a politician to come to your event is to give them an award of some kind.
And so, if you dig into this, you find out that there is a “true family values” event held every year in Chicago....
http://familyfed.org/news-story/chicago-holds-23rd-true-family-values-awards-banquet-53996/
