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A Religious Protest Largely From the Left (religious leaders on budget)

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papau Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-14-05 12:01 PM
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A Religious Protest Largely From the Left (religious leaders on budget)
religious leaders on the House's budget proposal, which would trim many programs that aid the poor.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/13/AR2005121301764_pf.html

A Religious Protest Largely From the Left
Conservative Christians Say Fighting Cuts in Poverty Programs Is Not a Priority

By Jonathan Weisman and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A08

When hundreds of religious activists try to get arrested today to protest cutting programs for the poor, prominent conservatives such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will not be among them.

That is a great relief to Republican leaders, who have dismissed the burgeoning protests as the work of liberals. But it raises the question: Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

Conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities, and their priorities are abortion, same-sex marriage and seating judges who will back their position against those practices.

"It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important," said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. "But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that."

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders "have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees," he said. "They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical."<snip>
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pilgrimm Donating Member (187 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-14-05 03:57 PM
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1. Great article
The Christian Right always makes the excuse that they are not obligated to support social programs, because although there is a biblical mandate to be charitable, it does not say that it must be done through the government. Well, I'm no theologian, but where does it say that they are obligated to promote the rest of their agenda through the government?
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