American-born demonstrators wash immigrants' feet

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Source: Los Angeles Times

... they filed out of St. Thomas the Apostle Catholic Church on Thursday morning to march quietly past the ranch houses and quickie marts and strip malls of suburban Georgia, toward the old town square in Marietta, about eight miles off. There, in imitation of Jesus, who washed his apostles' feet the day before his execution, the American-born among them would wash the feet of a dozen immigrants.

The Maundy Thursday Christian tradition was intended to be an act of humility and solidarity. To some, it was also an act of provocation in Cobb County, a conservative Atlanta suburb where the Latino population grew nearly 80% in the last decade.

"Using Easter and invoking the name of God to advance the open-borders agenda is not only an insult to most thinking Christians, but creepy and transparent," wrote D.A. King, head of the Cobb County-based Dustin Inman Society, which opposes illegal immigration, in an email. "I have seen one of these marches, complete with cross-carrying professional victims and self-comparisons to Christ. It is quite nauseating."

This was the third year that Catholic activists have organized Holy Week marches around Georgia, but this year participants said they took on a particular poignancy, given the worries over the legislation, which, among other things, would empower police to check the immigration status of criminal suspects. Republican Gov. Nathan Deal has said he will probably sign it.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-foot-washing-20110423,0,5239552.story