The God (Hit) Squad

As the conservative frothing-at-the-mouth over President Obama gets even crazier (The swine flu vaccine is actually a biological weapon! Obama will get New York attacked again!) we now have what may be the single worst combination of religion and politics since the Inquisition.

A company called CafePress which makes and sells customized knickknacks such as T-shirts and bumper stickers now offers a line of products with the phrase "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8." Now at first, this may seem like asking God to provide the president with the wisdom to do the right thing, but no. The verse reads, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office."

All right, so it's not asking for divinely inspired wisdom, it hopes Obama won't be re-elected in 2012. Right?

Wrong.

You see, the chapter goes on to deliver some decidedly ungodly sentiments:

Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
Let the extortioner catch all that he hath; and let the strangers spoil his labour.
Let there be none to extend mercy unto him: neither let there be any to favour his fatherless children.
Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.
Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD; and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
Let them be before the LORD continually, that he may cut off the memory of them from the earth.

It should be pointed out that CafePress does not create the designs for their products; those are provided by their customers, and the company generally accepts everything which is not actively illegal. Close-up views of the designs show they were submitted by teabagger websites such as SatireWorks.com, as well as accounts with the user names "Hang Em All" and "RightWingStuff."

After the story broke, CafePress took down the items, but later put them back up, saying:

We initially pulled the Psalm 109:8 content from our products today because broader media dialog indicated that these designs potentially suggested violence towards the president. Based on current public discourse and further review of the actual content, we have determined that it is fair political commentary and we are in the process of reinstating this merchandise. As with all of our content, these designs will continue to be reviewed and if at any time their meaning is construed as advocating violence we will revisit our decision.

This is hardly the only time when Christian-right zealots have called for the president's murder, but it may be the sneakiest and yet at the same time the most blatant. The people buying these things know the Bible backwards and forwards, and it lets them advertise their desire to see the president dead without actually coming out and saying it.

Stuff like this gives religion a bad name.

UPDATE: After further hullabaloo, CafePress re-removed the items, saying:

We try to create an atmosphere of self-expression. Many of the things we encounter are not black and white, but grey. When the dialogue is civil, we want to let the larger community work things out rather than making an uninformed ruling. The dialogue has played out and common sentiment has reached agreement - this merchandise is not appropriate.

Glad to know someone over there realizes it.