Health care? Security? Jesus would be focused on abortion, gay marriage.

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: Pastors Guiding Voters to GOP
The Christian right wants to tap members who might not go to the polls. The focus is issues, but some leaders don't oppose endorsement.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
September 30, 2006

With a pivotal election five weeks away, leaders on the religious right have launched an all-out drive to get Christians from pew to voting booth. Their target: the nearly 30 million Americans who attend church at least once a week, but did not vote in 2004.

Their efforts at times push legal limits on church involvement in partisan campaigns. That is by design. With control of Congress at stake Nov. 7, those guiding the movement say they owe it to God and to their own moral principles to do everything they can to keep social conservatives in power....

***

The Rev. Rick Scarborough, a leading evangelical in Texas, has recruited 5,000 "patriot pastors" nationwide to promote an agenda that aligns neatly with Republican platforms. "We urge them to avoid legal entanglement, but there are times in a pastor's life when he needs to take a Biblical stand," Scarborough said. "Our higher calling is to Christ."

The campaign urges individual pastors to use sermons, Bible studies, and rallies to drive Christians to the polls — and, by implication or outright endorsement, to Republican candidates. One online guide to discussing the election in church, produced by Focus on the Family ministry, offers this tip: If a congregant says her top concerns are health care or national security, suggest that Jesus would be more focused on abortion and gay marriage....

***

The law restricting political activity of churches and charities dates to 1954, when then-Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed it through in a pique of anger over a nonprofit's effort to derail his re-election. Tax-exempt organizations, including churches, may not participate or intervene in political campaigns on behalf of any candidate. Intervention is broadly defined as "any and all activities that favor or oppose one or more candidate for public office," according to the Internal Revenue Service....In practice, though, there are many ways around the restriction, as the faithful recognize....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-churchvote1oct01,0,7179475.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[Erika]

1. Yeah. Let the little creeps go out in the name of a corporate fascist

and the Foley types.

They call it Godly, I call it stupid.

[Zambero]

2. Problem is, Jesus never addressed abortion or gay marriage

He was much more concerned with helping those in need, the poor, the sick, the outcasts of society. Precisely the type of individuals the religious right pretends do not exist. He also had no use for hypocrites and holier-than-thou types -- "whited sepulchres" is the term that he used. It's beyond sanctimonious to suggest that Christ would focus on issues that were never on his radar screen when he walked this earth. Of course, the GOP needs those votes and any lie or stretch of the truth invoking religion will do!

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Well said, Zambero. nt