One good thing about keeping a blog is that you can make sure that your letters to the editor see the light of day one way or another:
Michael Gerson hasn’t learned that people who live in glass churches shouldn’t throw stones. In a recent column in The Washington Post, he took Barack Obama to task for his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, while retaining his membership in the Anglican Church of Nigeria, which is led by the flamboyantly bigoted Archbishop Peter Akinola.
Akinola is well known to international human rights advocates for supporting a Nigerian bill that would have deprived gays and lesbians of basic rights of speech, religion and association and mandated jail time for displays of affection “direct or indirect,” “public or private.” He also was president of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) in 2004 when a para-militia associated with CAN carried out a retributive massacre of more than 650 Muslims in the town of Yelwa. Asked by a reporter from The Atlantic whether the massacre had been planned, Akinola declined comment.
Wright’s rhetorical excesses pale in comparison to Akinola’s deeds. Yet Gerson strains after the gnat in Obama’s eye while ignoring the beam in his own.
(Here is an instance of Gerson carrying water for the archbishop, and a response. )