Will Muslim women remove their burkas for Obama?

Will Amish women take off those prayer veils? Will conservative Catholic nuns slip out of their plain habits? The clothing for men and women members of conservative religious groups is about headship; it's symbolism, not modesty. It's about relationships and spiritual authority: God, then men, then women. It's every bit as symbolic as an IHS on a podium or window that Obama wanted draped and blacked out.

Gerald F. Seib missed it again in Capital Journal in today's WSJ. "Not a single new policy was revealed" at Obama's Georgetown speech. It was a speech of metaphors, he said. Well, Mr. Seib, you didn't see the significance of the trial balloon, did you? You got all warm and fuzzy on the "house upon a rock" thinking it was Biblical. No sir, that just comes from 20 years of Rev. Wright's turning a phrase. Obama didn't know how to speak black when he first got to Chicago, having been raised in a white, agnostic home. You need to dig a little deeper. Let me help.

Obama asked that a Christian symbol be removed, and Georgetown University, one of our oldest Catholic institutions, made the mistake of complying. Seems like a small thing unless you remember some of Obama's promises (threats) during the campaign. That he intended to rein (reign) in "faith based" groups that get government money. He's planning to have all religious symbols removed from buildings that use government money for child care, food distribution, job training, mortgage workshops, voter registration, etc. Churches are going to have to do a lot of "soul searching" and just may need to tell the government that they won't be their go-to guys any more. Remember that the request removed not just a symbol, but a tradition of separation of church and state [i.e., the state doesn't tell the church how to adorn its own buildings and property], and destroyed the historic artistic atmosphere of the room. Georgetown is as old as our Constitution--maybe its crumbling is a sign?

"Julie Bataille from the university's press office e-mailed me that the White House had asked that all university signage and symbols behind the stage in Gaston Hall be covered.

"The White House wanted a simple backdrop of flags and pipe and drape for the speech, consistent with what they've done for other policy speeches," she wrote. "Frankly, the pipe and drape wasn't high enough by itself to fully cover the IHS and cross above the GU seal and it seemed most respectful to have them covered so as not to be seen out of context."

The primary command of the church, given by Jesus himself, is

"Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age."

So if the U.S. government decides you can't obey what the Bible says about the primary mission of the church, or that you need to bless the weddings of gays, or that you can't have religious instruction in your schools, or that you can't have a Bible in the classroom, I guess you'll just have to turn down that Faustian compact we've had for so many years.