Perry’s ad campaign: offensive, scary

As the days to the 2012 presidential race come closer and closer I have only become more and more frightened by the Republican candidates. (And seeing as how I generally associate myself as Republican, that terrifies me.)

Rick Perry’s new $1.2 million ad campaign for the Iowa caucuses is scary and utterly offensive to say the least. His ad starts off by saying “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian.” Perry is of course, playing to his extremist conservative Christian voters. However, this statement begs the question: Why would you be ashamed to admit that you were a Christian? Certainly he has never been oppressed before for stating such.

However, Perry does manage to attack a group of people in this ad that have been oppressed: “But you don’t have to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

 ​Rick Perry's representation of the Republican Party is  disheartening to some.  Photo by Gage Skidmore.


​Rick Perry’s representation of the Republican Party is
disheartening to some. Photo by Gage Skidmore.

Perry here is making a comparison that shows that he thinks that on one side there’s gays in the military and on the other side there are kids that want to pray in school. If kids wanting to pray in school are the images of what’s good and right, then to Perry, gays in the military are just images of what’s wrong in the world. I was raised Christian and I was raised to think that oppression and prejudice are what’s wrong in the world. If you want respect for your religion, Mr. Perry, then show some respect for others who don’t necessarily believe that same things that you do.

In this ad, Perry attacks President’s Obama’s decision to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, calling Obama’s actions “a war on religion,” a war that Rick Perry vows to end. I’m quite sure that Obama didn’t sign the repeal on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell because he wanted to start a war with Christians. He says that he’ll “fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.” What Rick Perry doesn’t seem to remember from his first grade history class is that this country was founded on the idea of religious freedom and the fact that the church should always be separated from the state.

Rick Perry’s ad campaign is just another thing to add to the long list of mishaps within the Republican primary race.

 

Kaitlyn Luckow
kluck791@uwsp.edu

About pointer

Avatar

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*