Ah, hypocrisy — it is so very useful when it spotlights the true nature of some people.
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.
… 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.”
… Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government’s role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.
“There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact,” he said. “But it does not say government should do it. That’s a shifting of responsibility.”
Perhaps Mr. Perkins didn’t pay attention in his social studies class. The government is us.
