Update: See Bruce Murphy's Can Neumann Beat Walker in Milwaukee Magazine.Why do political operatives think Mark Neumann is the best candidate for the GOP nomination for governor?
Neumann is running for statewide office with the same rigid anti-gay, anti-Catholic, and anti-Semitic ideology that sent state senator Tom Reynolds packing a few years back.
For those who don't recall Neumann's last statewide run (1998), it was unrelentingly negative against heavily-outspent Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Middleton).
Neumann has the money and drive to win the Republican nomination against Scott Walker. And apparently believes he can target rightwing constituencies sufficiently well to put up winning numbers in the general election.
But the Neumann "church" work that James Klauser cites as a qualification comes from a highly politicized rightwing, Pope-is-the-anti-Christ church that is in a word: Mean.
Just yuck. See for yourself.
Go to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) and use Roman Catholic as a search term (upper-right search engine), or gay or Jew. It gets very yucky very fast.
Neumann's rightwing ideology and intolerance is pervasive in his politics.
Some examples from Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS):
- We recognize the Pope as the Anti-Christ by his false teachings and by his matching the traits of the Anti-Christ as revealed in Scripture, not by the alleged symbolism of something he wears or carries.
- (Luther) had hoped that the Reformation with its clear preaching of the pure gospel would convert the Jews. Luther himself provides examples from the Talmud in 'On the Jews and Their Lies' (Luther's Works 47:226-228): 'Their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to to break his oath to a Gentile. ... '
- Christians must take care during their lifetimes not to regularly associate with any group or organization that would take their focus off Christ alone as their salvation.
- We must warn the impenitent that homosexuality, like all sins, excludes people from eternal life (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). The church, therefore, must not, bless same-sex marriages or unions, since these are contrary to the will of God. The church must not place into nor retain in the public ministry of the Word people who defend, condone, or persist in words or actions that are contrary to God’s law.From a purely political perspective, this yuckiness does not work in Wisconsin.
Where is Catholic League president Bill Donohue?
Neumann has enough money and political savvy to buy his way into the GOP nominee spot, and then will implode during the general election.
ReplyDeleteI would like to post a comment, but I am speechless. I always wondered what they taught in that seminary in Thiensville.
ReplyDeleteHorne
Interesting how those outside the WELS, those who demand that God conform to their own standards, so quickly lable the WELS as mean and other unsavory adjectives. The WELS simply believes that God is the standard, that he reveals himself in the Bible - all of it, not just selected passages. Sinners of every stripe are in the WELS and know their need of forgiveness. They also know everyone else's need for forgiveness. But when some think their sin is not sin, but their right or priviledge, they don't repent of it and close the door to their own forgiveness. The WELS is not about political or social reform, but about one's relationship with God.
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