Obama thumbs down to pastor’s comments

Obama, a member of the church since the early 1990s, said he would have quit Trinity had such statements been “the repeated tenor of the church. I wouldn’t feel comfortable there.”

Earlier on Friday, Obama responded by posting a blog about his relationship with Wright and Trinity on the Huffington Post. Wright brought Obama to Christianity, officiated at his wedding, baptised his daughters and inspired the title of his book, The Audacity of Hope.

Obama wrote that he’s looked to Wright for spiritual advice, not political guidance, and he’s been pained and angered to learn of some of his pastor’s comments. Obama told MSNBC that Wright had stepped down from his campaign.

“I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country or serves to divide us from our allies,” Obama said in his blog posting. “I also believe that words that degrade individuals have no place in our public dialogue, whether it’s on the campaign stump or in the pulpit. In sum, I reject outright the statements by Reverend Wright that are at issue.” In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he said: “We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant.”