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SPECIAL REPORT

Is There a Double Standard for Presidents Talking About Their Faith?

By Fox News
Published | Updated

Now some fresh pickings from the Political Grapevine:

Trouble Spot

It is no secret that President George W. Bush was heavily criticized by the atheist community during his time in office. The Arizona director of American Atheists, Monty Gaither, said back in 2001: "Unlike someone like Jimmy Carter, who talked about his religion a lot but never tried to alter the laws to favor religion, Bush not only talks about it, but he wants to shove it down everyone's throat."

Now the Politico newspaper reports in a June 9, 2009 article titled "Obama Invokes Jesus More Than Bush,” that the current president has actually spoken about his faith far more frequently: "Barack Obama has mentioned Jesus Christ in a number of high-profile public speeches — something his predecessor George W. Bush rarely did in such settings."

Yet, the Politico says that atheists who railed against President Bush are giving president Obama a free pass. Nathan Bupp, from the atheist organization Center for Inquiry, tells the paper that non-believers see the current president's invocations of faith as a, "symbolic gesture... they realize (President Obama) is not doing what he's doing for Pat Robertson-type reasons."

Apples & Oranges?

A Nebraska abortion provider has likened the murder of fellow late-term abortion Dr. George Tiller to the assassination of this country's most renowned civil rights leader. The Washington Times reports that Dr. LeRoy Carhart says: "This is the equivalent of Martin Luther King being assassinated. This is the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitanian and any other major historic event where we've tolerated the intolerable for too long."

Carhart compares activists who plant crosses in the yards of abortion providers to the Ku Klux Klan: "I think there is absolutely no difference in putting a cross in front of a person's home because of what race they belong to than there is putting a cross in front of our homes because we do abortions."

Carhart regularly assisted Tiller in conducting late-term abortions.

— FOX News Channel's Zachary Kenworthy contributed to this report.