Trayvon Martin Case Used For Politics By President Obama, According to Richard Land

US President Barack Obama speaks during a bill signing in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on April 4, 2012 in Washington, DC. President Obama signed HR 1148, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which is intended to stop insider trading by members of Congress. AFP PHOTO/Brendan SMIALOWSKI

By David Gibson
Religion News Service

(RNS) A top Southern Baptist official has accused President Obama and black civil rights activists of using the Trayvon Martin shooting to foment racial strife and boost the president's re-election chances.

"Rather than holding rallies on these issues, the civil rights leadership focuses on racially polarizing cases to generate media attention and to mobilize black voter turnout," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and the denomination's top public policy official, said on his radio program on Saturday (March 31).

"This is being done to try to gin up the black vote for an African-American president who is in deep, deep, deep trouble for re-election and who knows that he cannot win re-election without getting the 95 percent of blacks who voted for him in 2008 to come back out and show they are going to vote for him again."

Land's remarks were first reported Monday (April 2) by the Associated Baptist Press.

Martin is the 17-year-old African-American youth who was shot to death in February by a neighborhood watch captain in Sanford, Fla.

Martin was unarmed and was walking back to his father's house with a bag of candy and an iced tea when he was confronted by George Zimmerman, who was patrolling the gated community where Martin was staying. What transpired next is a matter of dispute, but Zimmerman shot Martin once in the chest and killed him. Zimmerman was not arrested or charged, and because his father is white and his mother is Hispanic the growing controversy over the case has become racially supercharged.

Obama himself weighed in on the case, saying that as a parent he was pained by the shooting and adding: "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

"The president's aides claimed he was showing compassion for the victim's family," Land said. "In reality he poured gasoline on the racialist fires."

Some activists and pundits have tried to broaden the focus in this case beyond race to include issues of gun control and Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law, which has been cited on Zimmerman's behalf.

But the racial aspect of the Trayvon Martin case remains the central flashpoint in the debates. NBC on Tuesday apologized for a "Today" show segment that broadcast an edited version of Zimmerman's conversation with a police dispatcher moments before the shooting to make it sound as though Zimmerman was prejudiced against Martin because the teen was black.

There have also been criticisms of predominantly white churches for not speaking out more quickly on behalf of Trayvon Martin and his family, though some groups -- including the National Council of Churches and the group Churches Uniting in Christ -- have subsequently weighed in with expressions of concern. Evangelist Franklin Graham also spoke out after a recent meeting with leaders of the NAACP.

"I had to admit I didn't know much about the cold killing of an unarmed teenager in Florida last month," Graham wrote this week in The Huffington Post. "It will likely take more time and information to determine if there was a racial injustice that Feb. 26 night, but it takes no time to conclude there was an injustice, one that snuffed out the earthly life of Trayvon after 17 short years."

By contrast, Land's remarks seemed to represent an escalation of the rhetoric by a religious leader.

In his radio show, Land described activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton as "racial ambulance chasers" who, along with fringe groups like the Black Panthers, are fomenting a "mob mentality" that is akin to what the Ku Klux Klan used to do to blacks in the South.

"This situation is getting out of hand," Land said. "There is going to be violence. When there is violence it's going to be Jesse Jackson's fault. It's going to be Al Sharpton's fault. It's going to be Louis Farrakhan's fault, and to a certain degree it's going to be President Obama's fault."

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Comments

[Voice Truth]

08:55 AM on 04/11/2012

Mr. Land's words are ridiculously ill chosen and quite frankly foolish. The Lord clearly tells us to not bear false witness and Land has done so against President Obama. He does not represent Southern Baptists well as I know many of that denomination. And if Southern Baptists want to keep themselves from having the appearance of being political, they should distance themselves from these words.

[sloop uk]

03:04 AM on 06/08/2012

Because you don't agree with ihm. Right.

[CSKAP]

02:44 PM on 04/10/2012

I kind of missed what he said about the Neo-Nazi’s patrolling the town now.
Were they part of his congregation?

[whoissurprised]

01:07 PM on 04/10/2012

Rev. Jeremiah Wright admits that Obama has heard every word of his 20 years hate. Wright was delivering a sermon at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Charleston, West Virginia, as part of their Holy Week event for Easter.

[Clevelandinwi]

06:13 AM on 04/10/2012

What exactly is a 'richard land'? I've never heard of it. Is it known for 'anything' at all?

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

02:27 AM on 04/10/2012

Ah yes, the Southern Baptist Church, still holding on to their delightful heritage of bigotry and lies. They broke off from the Baptist Church because they were pro-slavery and they never changed their views. The Civil War made slavery illegal, the Civil Rights Act outlawed the Jim Crow Laws but the Southern Baptists still teach that Blacks are inferior to Whites and that women are inferior to men and should be subservient to their lord and masters.

Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. A Black family is as welcome at a Southern Baptist Church as a pride of lions in a yard full of pitbulls.

[dnorah]

10:06 AM on 04/10/2012

FYI: Many Southern Baptist ministers are Black.

[jimtodd]

01:06 PM on 04/10/2012

Reading your stream of comments makes me hope your god is real.

[Sunwyn Ravenwood]

05:02 PM on 04/10/2012

Yeah, worst case of Stockholm Syndrome I've ever seen.

[Voice Truth]

08:51 AM on 04/11/2012

What are you talking about? Although Mr. Land's words in this case were silly and way too political for a man purporting to be a Christian leader, mainstream Southern baptists are nowhere near what you say. Try going to such a church next sunday instead of mouthing lies.

[Catriona]

01:49 AM on 04/10/2012

Southern Baptist leaders just being... themselves. No surprise there.

[Le petit grenouille]

08:07 PM on 04/09/2012

What the Hell is going on? The preachers are spouting politics and the politicians are preaching religion. TAX the Bas***ds!

[crowepps]

04:21 PM on 04/09/2012

Oh, gee, what a surprise -- a rich, white Southern Baptist male complaining that the victim being black doesn't have anything to do with him being gunned down as a probable criminal. Right.

I saw the news clip about members of the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement showing up to patrol Sanford, ready to protect the Whites from the uppity, but I didn't see Lands' statement scolding them for acting as though this is all about race.

myFOXdfw.com: http://www.myfoxdfw.com/dpps/news/neo-nazis-patrol-where-trayvon-martin-killed-dpgonc-20120407_19057829#ixzz1rZnptU9k

[Dwight Robertson]

01:51 PM on 04/09/2012

Political imput from the church, should bring about taxation

[phal4875]

01:19 PM on 04/09/2012

Conservative Christians are not famous for their tolerance of women, gay people, black people, Hispanics, or just about anyone who is not a white Christian.

[dnorah]

10:12 AM on 04/10/2012

Didn't you heard Jerimiah Wright's Easter sermon? His wasn't a lesson in brotherly love & kindness.

[crowepps]

04:28 PM on 04/09/2012

That's really interesting.

Do you know the secret of just what kind of super powers are available to him that enabled him to inspire the conservatives to openly and blatantly attack women, Hispanics, Blacks, gays, unions, the middle class, everybody who has ever enjoyed having sex AND be clumsily obvious about trying to keep anybody who isn't in the 1% from voting?

If he has such awesome mind control powers that he can induce the conservatives to cut their own throats like that, don't we WANT him to be in charge?

[detroitblkmale30]

08:23 AM on 04/09/2012

There is going to be violence. When there is violence it's going to be Jesse Jackson's fault."

um there already was violence, That's why Martin is dead. There's been violence like this case for generations which is why so many blacks are upset that something like this STILL happens in the U.S.

Shame on Land for stoking the fires he is supposedly seeking to calm.Being angry over an injustice and taking to peaceful marches is a FAR cry from taking matters into your own hands, oh wait that's what Zimmerman did.

[angelrubes]

09:04 AM on 04/09/2012

Perfect! You said it all!

[phal4875]

01:20 PM on 04/09/2012

Everyone is pretty sure that Trayvon Martin was unarmed and is dead and that George Zimmerman was armed and is alive and walking around free.

[ruthtruth]

08:14 AM on 04/09/2012

After listening to Cardinal Dolan and a monsignor on Meet the Press yesterday I am amazed at the falseness of what they said. If we American's had wanted religion to rule the day many of our ancestors wouldn't have come here in the first place. If the Church kept strictly to Church stuff and not go into the public realm to make money off of the general public there would be no need for the conversation on birth control. You put your name on something that serves the general public, you follow the rules just like everyone else. As of yet I haven't heard of one woman being dragged into a pharmacy and BC pills forced down her throat. If anyone has please let me know. If you want the church to run everything then maybe you should move to the Vatican.

[Bueno Hombre]

07:07 AM on 04/09/2012

To my knowledge other than at the temple with the money changers, Jesus did not get angry, belittle anyone, condemn an individual, call anyone a name, protest (march) against groups, or even criticize an individual. He used stories about unnamed people to illustrate what should be done, made suggestions on what would make an individual better, or gave examples to suggest a better way of doing something. If any church does not allow sinners into the church who will be there to hear the message?

[Enrico Dagastino]

11:50 PM on 04/08/2012

Preachers are subject to the direct economic relationship between themselves and those who are responsible for their employment. They will continue to say what is popular with their employers. To do otherwise is to put their situation in jeopardy. This relationship, based on economic principles, has been and will continue to be the norm. What is outside the norm is the willingness of preachers to ask for reasoned consideration of differing points of view. That objective approach puts their situation at risk and therein lies the root of much polarization.

[mari2JJ]

12:38 AM on 04/09/2012

Actually, my first husband was a Southern Baptist Pastor who served in churches in Texas, Alaska and Canada, and although from the South, he felt this sort of racism was so un-godly that he preached about it as a sin, about racism and an anti God's creation idea that he felt was just generally an attitude true Christians could not hold. So let it be known, Land does not represent my first husband's ideals nor those of many others in the Southern Baptist Convention. But that is not the only religious group that specifies blacks as second class and worthy of mistrust and an assumptions that somehow they are just not true Christians. But in the end, even a Church bigwig like Land will have to answer for his racist meme that absolutely defies Biblical admonitions. No other way to try to explain their un-Godly comments.

[dnorah]

10:14 AM on 04/10/2012

And so will J. Wright?