JustASC

The New York Sun opines on the Sarah Palin/Jews for Jesus thing in a perhaps surprisingly sensible way:

But these columns have been cautioning against the idea that politicians need to be held accountable for every thing that is said from the pulpits of their congregations. In an editorial of March 18, 2008, “Obama’s Moment,” we said that religion by its nature calls forth great passion, and that religious institutions – churches, synagogues, mosques – are places where things are often said that strike the congregation in a way that they mightn’t strike the wider public.

None of this is to excuse the errors of Senator Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, or of Rev. Kroon. But it is Mr. Obama and Mrs. Palin who are running for office, not the clergymen. To make a big issue of these kinds of things in respect of the candidates, whether they are Democrats or Republicans, would be to impose a religious test for office of the sort that the framers of the Constitution forbade, right in Article VI…”

I overlooked the Sun’s editorial back in March, even though I had written something similar the same week. The Sun‘s editorial, saying Obama should be judged on his policies and not on “Reverend Wright’s demagoguery,” never got much play in pro-Israel circles, despite the Sun’s impeccable pro-Israel credentials.