Religious Leaders Speak Out

By Rori Picker, Acting Executive Director, RFP-USA

Religions for Peace - USA Presidents Rev. Bob Edgar, Imam Mahdi Bray and Rev. John Thomas joined six of their colleagues to deplore the recent racial and religious slurs on Senator Barak Obama.

Speaking against what they called "this willful, malicious attempt to mislead and inflame - and against any further attempts to use political attacks to divide the religious community," they wrote:

We must come together as one nation, and see our stake in each other as Americans. The bitter, destructive politics that have so riven our country in recent years cannot stand. As American leaders of different faiths - Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Jew - who have worked cooperatively and greatly respect all of the 2008 candidates in both parties, we do not offer this statement as an endorsement of any individual candidate. However, certain moral standards should infuse our national dialogue, and the recent attacks on Sen. Obama violate values at the heart of this dialogue. The false and malicious attacks levied at him are anathema to all of our faith traditions, and we condemn them outright.

See the full text of the letter here.