The Poor Christian Right Voters

Laura Flanders writes:

It isn’t about Terri Schiavo, it’s about tossing a bone to poor Christian voters who voted Republican this November but haven't gotten a thing for those votes so far, except a slap around the face with another brass knuckle budget and tougher treatment for poor folks who go bankrupt. It’s about performing compassion when this congress is really only-and-all about profits. And it’s about obscuring the corruption and fraud on which Delay’s power is built, and hoping poor voters will forget that once they’ve cast their votes, the GOP doesn’t care about them anymore. Their first order of business is well, business.
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It isn’t about what DeLay calls “a culture life." When he was governor of Texas, George Bush signed into effect a law that grants hospitals the right to cut off life support in cases that are even more controversial than Schiavo's. Under Texas law, hospitals can cease to feed a patient whose prognosis is so poor that further care would be futile if that patient has no way to pay his or her medical expenses. A baby was pulled of life support under that legislation this past week, against his mother’s wishes. It was ok with the National Right to Life committee in 1999 and it was ok with Governor George W. Bush. What changed? Only political expediency.

Comments

[dlw]

My friend Steve Knight at Knightopia whom I was in the same youth group with for a year or two and who is the person that first set up my blog for me, has a post where he challenges the Schiavo supporters on why they are doing nothing about the genocide in Sudan.

I myself got into a debate of sorts with Catholic Convert Funky Dung at Ales Rarus on this issue.

My friend Steve is contemplating drafting a letter to send to some conservative Christian heavyweights (like Hugh Hewitt) just imploring them to give Sudan at least as much coverage as Schiavo. For him, that's the real issue -- social awareness that leads to action.

I'm a bit cynical as Sudan is not a good wedge issue and is far more costly than keeping Terri alive.

I myself wrote my friend John Pisciotta, who is a Catholic Economist at Baylor University and the head of Waco Pro Life and someone with whom I've arm-wrestled on this issue for over two years now. He agreed with me that the discipleship of pro-life Christians was falling short. He however informed me that prolife waco was a local organization and did not involve itself in national or international events. I wrote back to him suggesting that they form a petition drive that would be sent to the national groups demanding that more be done about Sudan in addition to what was being done for Terri.

I think that is a wise course. If we can convince prolifers that to be consistently prolife requires that they also demand action on Sudan then maybe they will also form petitions at the local levels that will be sent to the national organizations.

The key is not to beat the religious right, but to seek to redirect their activism along more effective routes that will more likely generate bipartisan support.

dlw

[Carlos]

dlw, good response to Clarkson and hopefully you can get this up on a Daily Kos Diary. Not beating, but redirecting. That's a good soundbite.

[dlw]

Well, there are times I do feel like beating some of the leaders of the religious right or maybe chasing them out of their churches with a whip.

dlw