Facebook Group 'Praying' For President Obama's Death Passes One Million Members

A Facebook group accused of "praying" for the death of President Barack Obama has raised controversy online, with many calling for Facebook to remove the group as "offensive speech."

The group, which lists its location as "Marysville, OH, 43040," currently has over 1 million members--Facebook users who say they "like" the group. It includes an album of anti-Obama imagery uploaded by the group's members--what Facebook labels "fan photos--that show the president against a communist flag, juxtaposed with insulting and derisive captions, or even a cartoon "associating Obama to Hitler."

The group is called, "DEAR LORD, THIS YEAR YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZIE. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARAH FAWCETT. YOU TOOK MY FAVORITE SINGER, MICHAEL JACKSON. I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW, MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA. AMEN."

Geekosystem notes that the title is "likely a riff on a letter circulating New Jersey teachers' unions earlier this month that employed similar language with respect to (Republican) governor Chris Christie. The president of the New Jersey Education Association went on to issue a formal apology for the email."

Another group, "Petition to remove Facebook group praying for President Obama's death," has been created to denounce the anti-Obama group and advocate for its removal. The group, which has just over 650,000 members, is asking users to "Please act to encourage facebook to remove the page praying for the death of President Obama," and lists three steps Facebook users can take.

Facebook has repeatedly come under fire for hosting Facebook pages many find inappropriate and offensive.

Geekosystem observes,

Facebook's procedure for dealing with potentially offensive groups is pretty murky. Facebook has stated in the past that it takes seriously the free speech of its groups, even potentially offensive ones: A number of Facebook groups praising Joe Stack, the man who crashed a small plane into a government building in February, are still alive and well.

Facebook's terms of use ban members from posting "content that is hateful, threatening, pornographic, or that contains nudity or graphic or gratuitous violence." To many, such as the blog AllFacebook.com, the anti-Obama group is in clear violations of Facebook's rules, and should be removed.

Controversy erupted in September 2009 after users discovered a Facebook poll that asked whether President Obama should be killed.

Comments

[mrfreeze]

12:48 PM on 06/07/2010

Since prayer doesn't work, I vote to let more of the sub-prime humans continue to waste their vital Life energy with this nonsense.

[Peter Finarovsky]

08:15 PM on 05/21/2010

I hope that Karma finds its way to punish every single last member of that group.

[ReedYoung]

01:25 PM on 05/18/2010

Flip the middle finger to fb on the way out the door. Join this group:

"Praying for President Obama to die is unacceptable so I'm quitting Facebook"
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=120171088016419

... and make that your last activity on Facebook before you delete your account, on or before May 31.
http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

[Nikki Friar]

10:28 AM on 05/12/2010

It really makes me sick to my stomach, when people devote so much time and energy towards such hate. I really don't get it. Call me naive, but do something useful with your time ......

[israeli1980]

08:58 PM on 05/10/2010

Geez...out of curiosity I looked up this page-for-ignoramuses, and it turns out two of my FB friends "like" it. *&$%! To de-friend, or just call them out over the newsfeed...hmm.

[ReedYoung]

12:46 PM on 05/18/2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/15/delete-facebook-account-q_n_576956.html

[Howard Porter]

08:36 AM on 05/10/2010

The sort of warped thinking behind this deathwish for the elected leader of our country is not only misguided and unpatriotic, but unChristian, immoral and could get you interrogated or even arrested if something does happen to our president. Plenty of room for political dissent out there without advocating a Lee Harvey Oswald stunt. This page and it's supporters have been reported to the US Secret Service, so play this game at your own risk.

[Bob Chavarria]

02:05 PM on 05/04/2010

A bunch of ignorant hillbillies can start a group praying for the Presidents death, but when I created 2 different groups To show support for the creators of South Park and freedom of speech in general, FEARbook took them down one after the other and threatened to delete my account altogether. The first group was called "Standing up for freedom of speech through satire and "blasphemy"" the second was called "standing up for freedom of speech, by any medium necessary" that last one got me the warning. So showing unflattering drawings of a dead man is totally off limits, but praying for our Presidents death is no big deal ? Really?

[labrown]

07:11 PM on 05/08/2010

You can bash Christians and the USA until the cows come home but don't say a word about Islam.

[fuman]

12:18 PM on 05/09/2010

Well, ALL religion is myth. Muslims are currently the big worry, but really, ALL religion is childish and dangerous to society.
It's been a couple of hundred years since Christianity was this bad, but let's not forget.
They were just as bad in their day.

[Carlg123]

01:52 PM on 05/04/2010

I hope that the FBI and the secret service has taken every name down and if anything happens to the President they arrest them all or at least detain them under the Patriot Act and send them to Gitmo.
I have yet to see a liberal behave in such manner. This just goes to show what the Christian conservatives are really like.

[labrown]

07:12 PM on 05/08/2010

After calling Bush Hitler and wishing him dead for 8 years this gross hypocrisy makes me wanna puke!

[Sasha Muradali]

10:24 PM on 05/03/2010

That's terrible!

Facebook should close down terrible hate groups, just like that one! It's disgusting.

[androidny]

02:35 PM on 05/04/2010

OK, close them down... what's next? Where does the repression of Free Speech end? What if Palin got voted in as POTUS and your FB group was deemed a 'hate group' and got it closed down? From what I can tell, this group is praying to an imaginary god to kill the president. What if one of these wing-nut FB fans actually got a bead on Obama and took him out, claiming to be the Hand of God? In all actuality, by the language of the Patriot Act, one could tag this group a terrorist organization and shut them down. Fear. Hate. Mistrust. Erosion of Liberty. A nation divided cannot stand.

Bin Laden... allegedly sitting in a cave in northwest Pakistan singing Allah Akbar.

The terrorists have already won.

[telestai]

01:10 AM on 05/03/2010

Have those loyal Facebook fans forgotten/never read the Biblical injunction to pray FOR our leaders?

[androidny]

02:19 PM on 05/04/2010

Only if they are republican...

[larry278]

06:21 PM on 05/02/2010

It's fortunate that those who pray for Pres Obama's death don't dare prey on BHO & their god(s) don't grant the prayers of these deluded xisters? Obama must deal with BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now; if BP's oil spill becomes part of the Gulf Stream; the xians will have another object for their prayers. Anybody for a $50.00 21 shrimp basket of fried shrimp at Xmas, 2010?

[Ferrante Photo]

02:12 PM on 05/02/2010

Damn them and their prayer.

[ena]

10:13 PM on 05/02/2010

Dont' worry they are all Screwtape assistants praying to their Father Below. This is sheer blasphemy that will earn them what they deserve for these sacrilegious actions.

[sim]

10:23 AM on 05/02/2010

One million terrorists. Erase them.

[wendoxia]

01:36 AM on 05/02/2010

a total embarrassment.

and if this was praying for the death of george w bush, would the right be laughing it off?
i joined the website and report every comment, every day as inappropriate. its all i can do.

[RuleofLawNow]

08:54 AM on 05/02/2010

Well done. Of course, if the target were a conservative, it would be FOX news of the year. Bagger violence, physical or otherwise, is never a problem for them because being God's chosen makes you above self-reflection and critique.

[stfuman]

12:28 PM on 05/02/2010

I've been tyring to fight the good fight over there.. but it's useless these people want blood whether they mean it literally or not.

[mollybeejay]

07:37 PM on 05/02/2010

The sad part is that they do mean it literally. They won';t rest until some one is hurt. Look at what the anti-abortion crowd did in Kansas.

[tc399]

11:33 PM on 05/01/2010

@Plainslady: The picture I sent in was a full frontal nude of myself with the exception of the hat and boots. I have no idea why the censors at Huffpo decided to airbrush on clothing. Maybe they couldn't stop laughing.