Religious Right to Christians for Immigration Reform: Very problematic when Bible gives you guidance

[ck4829]

Oh ho ho, now this is rich.

Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a right-wing group dedicated to attacking progressive elements within mainstream and evangelical Christianity and resisting the advance of LGBT equality at home and abroad. IRD calls the Evangelical Immigration Table a front group for George Soros and derides the Evangelical Immigration Table's “I was a stranger” campaign as “a masterful piece of emotional blackmail.” IRD has suggested that EIT is trying to manipulate evangelicals, which would be “a sad betrayal of a flock by its shepherds.”

IRD has also insinuated that religious backers of the Senate immigration reform bill are just eager to get their hands on a “slush fund” of taxpayer dollars the bill includes for organizations that assist immigrants.

Tooley has criticized pro-reform leaders’ “superficial ‘God-talk’” and suggested that religious leaders should not be spending their time on immigration reform, which he says is not of the same “moral order” as “marriage, human life, and religious liberty.” In speaking about immigration, Tooley says it is “very problematic when people of faith start to claim that the Bible gives them very direct guidance on a particular contemporary political issue.” Well, that will certainly be news to the folks at the Heritage Foundation and the conservative evangelicals who are presumably the target for Friday’s event.

Totally different when they cite Leviticus against gays, say "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve", or want Genesis taught in schools though.

[hrmjustin]

1. WTF!!!!!!

[pampango]

2. "A powerful group of religious leaders pushed House Republicans to pass immigration reform. Why

won’t the right listen to evangelicals?

Jesus Vs. Tea Party on Immigration

Last week, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, made an urgent request to House Speaker John Boehner on behalf of the Catholic Conference of Bishops. He asked Boehner, a Catholic, to pass stalled immigration reform legislation, calling the current immigration system “a stain on the nation’s soul.”

But on Wednesday, Boehner told reporters immigration reform isn't going anywhere fast. "We have no intention of ever going to conference on the Senate bill," Boehner said, all but guaranteeing that reform will be pushed into 2014 and the chaotic politics of the mid-term elections. Dolan and the bishops are just one piece of an unprecedented coalition of religious leaders—from Southern Baptists to conservative Catholics to religious progressives—who have combined their efforts this year to convince Congress to pass immigration reform.

At the beginning of the year, proponents of reform had hoped that the increased role of evangelical leaders might give immigration legislation enough of a lift to get through the GOP-led House, where social conservatives dominate the ranks of the chamber, which is 88 percent Christian. Instead, they have run into a buzz saw of resistance from Tea Party groups and talk radio hosts, all threatening to run primaries against Republicans who support reform, especially with a path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants.

"Maybe Republicans think someday this will be like the TARP vote that will hang over their record and some right-winger will say, 'He's for amnesty for brown people" ... "It just goes to show the Tea Party tail is wagging the Republican dog. Everybody is for this. There are maybe five conservative journalists, Heritage Action, and one national Tea Party group that opposes it. Republicans can't stand up to those people?"

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/11/13/losing-the-faith-on-immigration.html