President Obama recently said in Turkey that a strength of the U.S. is that "we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
The right wing is up in arms over Obama's remarks, in which he also noted that "modern Turkey was founded with a similar set of principles." Yesterday, Fox News's Sean Hannity and Karl Rove lampooned Obama for saying the U.S. is a secular country. Rove accused Obama of identifying himself with the "Turkish secular movement" and denying the role of "faith in the public square":
ROVE: And to somehow go to Turkey and in order to sort of identify yourself with this Turkish secular movement that began in the early part of the previous century and try and somehow make Turkey and America equivalent is to deny each nation's reality.
And Turkey is a country that adopted a certain attitude toward the role of religion in the public arena, and America has a different attitude, and we have historically had, you know, a robust presence of faith in our public square and to deny that that's a reality is, you know, very strange, I think.
"Look, America is a nation built on faith. I mean we can be Christian, we can be Jew," Rove added. Watch it:
Turkey is a officially a secular democracy, dating back to the 1920s when the ruler Ataturk broke off ties with the Islamic caliphate. Indeed, like Obama, Rove's former boss, President Bush, also saw Turkey as a role model for the entire world.
Turkey "provides Muslims around the world a hopeful model of a modern and secular democracy," Bush said in 2002. "I appreciate so very much the example your country has set on how to be a Muslim country and at the same time, a country which embraces democracy and rule of law and freedom," he said in 2004.
The attack on Obama's remarks are part of a growing right-wing narrative. Yesterday on Fox News, Newt Gingrich claimed that Obama was "fundamentally misleading about the nature of America" in Turkey. Gingrich then made an astounding remark: "We are not a secular country."
Of course, Obama is absolutely correct to note that the U.S. and Turkey are both secular. Indeed, the U.S. Constitution says that Congress can pass "no law respecting an establishment of religion." Nor is Obama denying the "presence of faith in our public square," as Rove alleged. In fact, Obama brought a diverse array of religious leaders to the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives this week.
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