"Assertions of supernatural causation== 
 , the Marigny, the Bywater, Uptown  where most gay people live, they were spared the water. We've come back not only to dry land, but to our jobs.""]] 
 Various political and religious leaders have suggested that Hurricane Katrina was sent as a divine retribution for the sins of New Orleans, or of the South, or for the United States as a whole.  

 *New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, in a speech of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (the ""Chocolate City speech""CNN.com - Nagin apologizes for 'chocolate' city comments - Jan 17, 2006) said that ""God is mad at America... [for] being in Iraq under false pretenses... [and is] upset at black America also... We are not taking care of ourselves. We are not taking care of our women, and we are not taking care of our children when you have a community where 70 percent of its children are being born to one parent."" 
 *Muhammad Yousef Al-Mlaifi, a Kuwaiti government official,World Tribune.com - Kuwaiti: 'The terrorist Katrina' is a soldier of Allah' credits God's retribution for American foreign involvement:  
 ""I do not think – and only Allah [really] knows – that this wind, which completely wiped out American cities in these days, is a wind of mercy and blessing. It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire."" 
 *Avner BoskyWhite House & World News at www.watch.org credits God; God's reason: U.S. Pressure for Israel to withdraw from Gaza: 
 ""What happens in Israel affects the rest of the world, and how any country treats Israel has a lot to do with how God treats that country. We are praying, deeply concerned and grieved about the onset of Katrina."" 
 *Fred Phelps,http://www.godhatesfags.com/featured/20050831_thank-god-for-katrina.html the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, credited Katrina as God's retribution for homosexuals: ""New Orleans, symbol of America, seen for what it is: a putrid, toxic, stinking cesspool of fag fecal matter.... Pray for more dead bodies floating on the fag-semen-rancid waters of New Orleans."" 

  
 *Steve LefemineSome say natural catastrophe was 'divine judgment', Houston Chronicle.] credited God: ""In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion.... Providence punishes national sins by national calamities.... Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion."" (article originally from the Washington Post, as carried on the Houston Chronicle site, also reposted on the ExChristian.net site) 
 *Reverend Bill ShanksWHY DID THE HURRICANE KATRINA HAPPEN? Some reasons given by religious conservatives. credits God; God's reasons: Abortion, debauchery, homosexuals, witchcraft: 
 ""New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion  it's free of all of those things now.... God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there  and now we're going to start over again."" 
 *Rev. Dwight McKissic, the senior pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Arlington, Texas said ""New Orleans flaunts sin in a way that no other places do. They call it the Big Easy. There are ten abortion clinics in Louisiana; five of those are in New Orleans. They have a Southern Decadence parade every year and they call it gay pride. When you study Scripture, it's not out of the boundaries of God to punish a nation for sin and because of sin. When I look at