Today’s fatwa from the new pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, the separatist and anti-American church in which Barack Obama bends his knee, places a pivotal decision before the senator: he is either with them or against them.

The church, whose manifesto and pastor spoke indefensible words of separatism and hate, could have taken its lumps, reformed, and move on. Instead, under the direction of the Reverend Otis Moss II, it came out swinging. Moss accused the media and society at large of character assassination and “crucifixion.”

Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.

If chanting “God damn America” and visiting Muammar Qaddafi with the anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan helps the oppressed, then spitting into one’s palm while spinning three revolutions on one’s right foot will cure cancer.

Ed Morrissey on Hot Air points out that elsewhere in the church’s release, Moss speaks of his church as “inclusive and global.” Well, only if you don’t count Caucasians.

The reaction puts Obama in a difficult place. Having sworn to stand by the church while superficially denouncing its former pastor’s hate speech, Obama, now, must decide which principles guide his public life. If he stays with and defends his church, he leaves behind his pretence to bridge-building. If he leaves his church, he admits that the roots of his philosophy were diseased since germination.

This is a no-win for Obama.

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