And speaking of the Voter ID laws, we’re put in mind of the one area where the Left’s dogmatic adherence to the “wall of separation between church and state” has never been enforced: in the cooperation between black churches and the Democratic Party during elections.
As recently reported in the UK Guardian, opponents of state Voter ID laws, overwhelmingly Democratic, are openly working with black preachers to mobilize congregations to vote:
Opponents of the new laws have been waging a multi-front battle either to get the measures killed or to prepare those potentially affected by the laws for what they will need to do to register and vote.
The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, is scheduled to hold a symposium in May in Washington for a nationwide gathering of ministers to explain how the new laws could impact their efforts to mobilize parishioners to vote.
In 2008, several black churches organized "Souls to the Polls" drives in which worshipers took advantage of early voting periods and went en masse straight from Sunday services to their local polling stations to vote. (“NAACP to challenge state voting laws before U.N. panel in Geneva”).
In February President Obama directed a special appeal to African-American voters, even suggesting that some church folk might want to become “congregation captains” to assist in organizing voters.
The President’s campaign website explains it this way:
Congregation captains will take the lead on educating others about the importance of participating in this campaign and how to get involved. Working in your individual capacity, you’ll reach out to key community members and mobilize your personal networks with house parties and other outreach activities, as well as provide assistance in conducting voter registration drives.
I’ve observed for years how the same media that raises the cry of “Theocracy!” at the barest sign of a religious influence in the political world, (e.g., Falwell or Palin or Santorum), bestow an absolute immunity on black churches that openly endorse the election of Democrats. The subject is simply never raised.
Dig deeper and you may find that this hands-off policy is contingent on how long the black clergy, many of whom preach social conservatism in their churches on matters like abortion and homosexuality, pliantly continue to lead their parishioners to support a Democratic political platform that radically contradicts those views. In short, the black churches get a pass because liberal opinion makers consider them reliably non-subversive.
What a shame.
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2 comments:
To me, it's about money. The Democrats bring the black people the money (snap,section8,aa,eeoc,racial preferences in contracts,etc, grants, urban renewal, fha, quotas, etc), the other things like abortion never really mattered.
I voted early during the 2008 election. I opted to go to the polling place midday and mid-week hoping it would not be overly crowded. While standing in a long line that weaved its way through the parking area, a church bus pulled into the lot. The first person off was a black preacher, who in turn helped mostly elderly black folks off a bus that appeared to have standing room only. Talk about getting out the vote! And all along I was laboring under the false impression that black folks were opposed to busing!
I also heard the bus thing happened several times a day, every day.
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