American Christians risk a pile of propaganda from the pulpit this Sunday. President Obama’s clearly impeachable extension of his administrative amnesty, to illegals who would have been covered by the DREAM Act amnesty that Congress has repeatedly refused to pass, has the support, not merely of much (if not all) of the political class, but also of Big Religion. Here is Peter Brimelow on his Episcopalian Church. Here’s a scathing indictment of the Catholic Bishops’ hypocritical just-issued statement of support for Obama.
As an evangelical Christian myself, I’m particularly interested in the evangelical family organization Focus on the Family. According to the group’s own website,
Focus on the Family is a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families thrive. We provide help and resources for couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design, and for parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles. [About Focus on the Family]
But Focus on the Family has just betrayed its contributors, betrayed families and betrayed its own principles by, for the first time, supporting amnesty.
As reported in my blog entry, Focus on the Family Boards the Amnesty Bandwagon, the group’s current leader, Jim Daly, joined a group of 100 similarly deluded evangelicals in signing a document, "Evangelical Statement of Principles for Immigration Reform" calling for "a bipartisan solution on immigration that….[e]stablishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents" a.k.a. amnesty.
It’s pretty much the same old Open Borders drivel served up with a little evangelical rhetoric mixed in. I encourage VDARE.COM’s evangelical readers to scroll down to see the list of leaders. If any of them head up organizations or churches you support, then it is your Christian duty to rebuke them.
And of course, withhold your contributions.
Here are some of my previous articles on evangelicals and immigration:
We evangelicals are being betrayed by our leaders. Of all major American religious groups, evangelicals are the most pro-enforcement and anti-amnesty. [Religious Leaders vs. Members: An Examination of Contrasting Views on Immigration, Steven S. Camarota, CIS, December 2009]. And, according to Roy Beck of Numbers USA, approximately one-third of his group's members are evangelicals.
But many evangelical leaders join with Catholic leaders and secular leaders in betraying their constituents and promoting Open Borders.
What’s particularly hypocritical in the case of Focus on the Family is that the group is violating its own motto "Helping Families Thrive". Illegal immigration (and legal immigration for that matter) hurt American families. Mass immigration raises American’s taxes, increases crime, lowers wages and helps the Democratic Party gain hegemony.
Of course, Focus on the Family says it’s not just an American ministry but a "global Christian ministry". OK, but even from that standpoint it is betraying its principles. Mass emigration from Mexico and other countries hurts families in those countries. Read my previous articles:
A recent news item in the Mexican media reports on a Mexican government office in one city receiving 250 requests from Mexican women whose husbands are in the United States. [Buscan mujeres a sus esposos en EU, by Saúl Maldonado, El Siglo De Torreón, Durango, June 12, 2012] These women want child support. It’s highly unlikely very many will get it.
Emigration to the U.S., in other words, encourages many Mexican men to abandon their families. Does Focus on the Family support that? Its support for amnesty is encouraging it.
A truly Christian ministry would also understand the difference between Christian charity and Big Government Socialism. True Christian charity is helping people in the name of Christ, with our own freely-given resources—not taking taxpayers’ money to spend on illegal aliens who ought to be in their own country.
Focus on the Family also betrays its own principles by supporting amnesty and the demographic transformation of the U.S.A. Despite all the rhetoric about "Hispanic Family Values", Hispanic women in the U.S. have higher abortion rates than white women. They have a higher rate of out-of-wedlock births than white women.
Mass immigration and the attendant rise in the Hispanic population is increasing the rates of both abortion and out of wedlock births. Does Focus on the Family approve of that? (See my Mexican "Family Values" Won’t Improve America? )
And there’s a major political issue here. Most immigrants, and most Hispanics, vote for the Democrats. That means our current immigration system (legal and illegal) is strengthening the Democratic Party—which is more likely to support abortion and gay marriage.
We’ve been told repeatedly that Hispanics are “natural conservatives” and if we’d just give Hispanics veto over U.S. immigration policy, that they’d be happy to support us on social issues.
But the idea that fighting gay marriage is going to be a big issue in the Hispanic community is wishful thinking. Thus Victoria DeFrancesco Soto writes at Latino Decisions
According to a recent impreMedia-Latino Decisions poll, 63 percent of Latino voters strongly disagree with religious leaders telling members which candidate to vote for. The distaste for mixing politics and religion is actually higher among Latinos than the general electorate. In the Latino electorate the view that politics is about moral issues such as marriage for same sex couples and abortion is in the micro-minority, fourteen percent…,
[President Obama’s Latino kryptonite same-sex marriage?, June 10, 2012]
Mexico, where most U.S. Hispanics originate, has a strong tradition of anti-clericalism in the political world. Mexicans aren’t accustomed to using religious or moral arguments in politics.
And the radical gay agenda has a lot of power in Mexico. Last summer, my family and I wound up in the middle of a gay rights festival and saw this firsthand. Latino Decisions’ DeFrancesco Soto reports that
"… 43 percent of Latino voters support same-sex marriage. This level of support for marriage between same-sex couples is almost double that of general electorate Republicans….. The conventional wisdom that Latinos because of their religiosity are "Republicans who just don’t know it yet" is not consistent with Latino public opinion."
Latino Decisions reports another poll that 75% of Latinos see elections as being more about economic issues and only 14% as being more about moral issues. [Moral values not a defining issue for Latino voters, By Matt Barreto, May 16, 2012]
The bottom line: Hispanics are going to vote for the Democratic Party—and thus against issues that Focus and the Family and its supporters feel are important. Not only is Focus on the Family’s support for amnesty traitorous in itself, it is also counter-productive for its proclaimed cause.
And Focus on the Family is betraying its donors. Like other ministries, it depends on freely-given contributions from people who agree with their ministry. The middle- class evangelical families who gave money through the years were contributing to support Focus on the Family’s work promoting family life. How many of these donors do you suppose were giving money to Focus on the Family thinking "I hope this money supports illegal immigration"? Yet now their money is being used to support it.
Anybody who contributes to Focus on the Family should stop—until it reverses itself on amnesty.
You can begin here, on Jim Daly’s pro-amnesty blog entry “Immigration Reform is a Family Concern". There’s a comments section below—add a comment and try to straighten old Brother Jim out. Tell him Focus on the Family will not receive a penny of your contributions as long as they are pro-amnesty.
The organization’s email is [email protected]. Here are the group’s forums and blogs. Its mailing address is Focus on the Family, Colorado Springs, CO 80995 (No street address is necessary—the organization’s 77-acre headquarters complex has its own zip code!)
If you've been harmed by illegal immigration, you can call call (from Monday to Friday) Focus on the Family's family help specialists at 1-800-A-FAMILY [= 232-6459] and counselors at 1-855-771-HELP [ = 4357].
Other ways to contact the group are on this page.
Or, if you’re passing through Colorado Springs, visit the headquarters welcome center and have a chat.
Focus on the Family needs to learn that today’s mass immigration is not "helping families thrive".
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) moved back to the U.S.A in 2008, after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here; his News With Views columns are archived here; and his website is here.
