Harold Meyerson of The Washington Post has a really good column today where he asks the valid question of whether the values of the religion-draped Republican party match up with the values of Jesus Christ as presented in the Gospels.Among other things, he asks, how can Bush doctrine of preemptive war and torture square with the Sermon on the Mount?
He also takes to task the Republican presidential candidates who appear to be in a contest to see who can be the cruelest to illegal immigrants and their children. He writes:
Yet the distinctive cry coming from the Republican base this year isn't simply to control the flow of immigrants across our borders but to punish the undocumented immigrants already here, children and parents alike.
So Romney attacks Huckabee for holding immigrant children blameless when their parents brought them here without papers, and Huckabee defends himself by parading the endorsement of the Minuteman Project's Jim Gilchrist, whose group harasses day laborers far from the border. The demand for a more regulated immigration policy comes from virtually all points on our political spectrum, but the push to persecute the immigrants already among us comes distinctly, though by no means entirely, from the same Republican right that protests its Christian faith at every turn.
It is a fearful and confusing time in America, as with all such times it is easy to score political points through talking tough, promoting vengeance and using violence. Let's hope somebody of one party or another can choose a better way in 2008.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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