Evangelical leaders join Obama in push for amnesty

July 19, 2010 6:25 AM
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We've been hearing rumblings of evangelical leaders moving to the left on the immigration issue for awhile. Now it seems they are ready for an all out push.

Normally on the opposite side of political issues backed by the Obama White House, these leaders are aligning with the president to support an overhaul that would include some path to legalization for illegal immigrants already here. They are preaching from pulpits, conducting conference calls with pastors and testifying in Washington -- as they did last Wednesday.

"I am a Christian and I am a conservative and I am a Republican, in that order," said Matthew D. Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious law firm. "There is very little I agree with regarding President Barack Obama. On the other hand, I'm not going to let politicized rhetoric or party affiliation trump my values, and if he's right on this issue, I will support him on this issue."

When did evangelical leaders lose respect for the law? When did they start preaching from the pulpit that it's ok to disregard our laws?

"Hispanics are religious, family-oriented, pro-life, entrepreneurial," said the Rev. Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy arm. "They are hard-wired social conservatives, unless they're driven away.

I agree with Land's assessment of most Hispanics. BUT, that does not give them a pass on obeying our laws. All aliens MUST come to this country legally.

But some evangelical leaders said their latest strategy was to push a handful of lame-duck Republicans to join Democrats -- probably after the midterms -- to pass an immigration bill on the ground that it is morally right.

"My message to Republican leaders," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the president of the evangelical National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and one of the leaders who engaged his non-Hispanic peers, "is if you're anti-immigration reform, you're anti-Latino, and if you're anti-Latino, you are anti-Christian church in America, and you are anti-evangelical."

http://www.gopusa.com/fresh-ink/2010/07 ... mnesty.php