Ohh to the touchy subject of Immigration which I am sure my readers have many different views on. National Review dearly needs to gets someone to balance him out. Sadly the last person that was doing a good job doing died recently.
Let me quote in full (The bolding is all mine)
Wise as Doves and Harmless as Serpents [Mark Krikorian]
Last week, the National Association of Evangelicals endorsed amnesty and increased immigration. (See NAE president Leith Anderson's statement at Thursday's Senate hearing; the CIS panel discussion on the topic, offering a dissenting view, is here.)
Anderson's statement is almost a parody of all the fallacies about otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants, immigrant family values ("Immigrants often model for us forgotten truths about the importance of love, commitment and mutual support within the family"), "for you were aliens in the land of Egypt," and so on.
Surprisingly, the NAE also shilled for cheap-labor employers: "In today's globalized labor market there must also be a workable system for employers to be able to legally hire the help that they need." Who was it who said that we're better off with novelists animated by Christian principle than with Christian bishops writing novels? The same should go for making immigration policy.
We did a poll a few years ago that suggests how out of touch this latest elite group of amnesty-backers is with its ostensible constituency.
While the majority of both Protestants and Catholics opposed amnesty and supported attrition through enforcement, those Protestants who described themselves as born-again were the most opposed to amnesty, and while that's not a complete overlap with the member denominations of the NAE, it's pretty close.
Roy Beck, a very active United Methodist layman, has a couple of blogs on this (here and here), including contact information for the headquarters staff of most major denominations, evangelical and otherwise.
So I'm not just picking on the evangelical hierarchs — a Roman Catholic priest I know who's written about the immorality of illegal immigration (this is a different priest from the one I hosted on my panel discussion) tells me that when he speaks about this at parishes people come up to him afterwards, amazed, saying that from what they'd been hearing from the pulpit they didn't realize they were allowed to think such thoughts.
10/13 09:33 AMShare
There is a lot going on here. I also realize that people have different views on this subject. I am not a big fan of CIS and Numbers USA etc. Their ultimate agenda is far more extreme that most Americans know. It is really not about illegals but a extreme environmental agenda.
Also "amnesty" is the eye of the beholder and they use that word because they know it elicits alargely negative response. However the poll numbers are a lot more complicated than that once people are asked about what would they would approve and would not. Mark knows that and in fact the recent Presidential Republican Primary numbers in the most conservative and religious of States shows that.
Still the theme here is depressing. Notice the term "elites" if you will. Again a largely radical Protestant mindset that is a minority in that community. Christian Doctrine is not ran by Opinion poll or it should not be. The fact that has been in certain cases has caused the great mess Christianity and division which is a scandal.
As to having "forbidden" thoughts that is a lot of nonsense. The Catholic Church proclaims certain basics but there is room for prudential judgment on these issues.
The Church's voice is in a lot debates. I think it has an obligation to speak just like it does on marriage and abortion. Krikorian is just a voice at a conservative magazine (and by the way I am not sure we can categorize his position as right or left exactly ) version of the lefts get the church out of politics.
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