Good God

Yay! A rare chance for me to be positive about politics and organised religion at the same time!

Liberal-leaning religious groups are launching radio ads in five states this week in which local pastors urge senators to back efforts to overhaul the nation's health care system... While participants said they are not focusing on specific policies, they said they wanted legislation that would provide federal subsidies for people who cannot afford adequate care... "It's morally unacceptable in this country," the Rev. Cory Sparks of Lafayette, La., said of the current health system's problems in a conference call held by leaders of the effort Tuesday with reporters.

The endless, grating, selfish hypocrisy [1] of the Religious Right has been poisoning political discourse for far too long in America; it's a delight to see Christian authorities reminding us God is against the poor dying for no reason. I suspect it's very deliberate that these pastors are staying clear of offering specific alternatives. They don't need to, it's not their job. Chris Matthews had it dead right last week (and that isn't a sentence I ever thought I'd write), essentially saying that step one is deciding people have to have access to healthcare, and step three is making fucking sure it happens. Step two is for the politicians.

Of course, it's difficult to see any way out of the problem that doesn't involve raising taxes, so one could argue that implicitly that is what these people are arguing for. Even in America, though I'm not sure any person sufficiently dedicated to Christ's teachings [2] would be against what could be considered state-enforced charity [3]. Anyways, it's just nice to see Christians (who of course have as much right to lobby their government as anyone else) making the case that America should have less suffering, rather than less alternative lifestyle choices.

Update: footnotes fixed.

Update II: This, by the way, is exactly the sort of shit I'm talking about.

[1] To say nothing of baffling in its priorities. Even if I accepted for the purposes of argument that I should respect a religion for having a different position on homosexuality than my own (which I don't, because those people are dicks), the idea that somehow its a more pressing problem than murder and pain and suffering seems beyond insane. I always imagined these people getting to the Pearly Gates, and watching St Peter flick through their This Is Your Life book, only for him to sigh in exasperation. "That's what you've been focusing on? Katrina displaced one hundred thousand people, you twat!"

[2] As oppose to dedication to the Church, which (regrettably) is often a very different thing.

[3] Sure, it sucks for the atheists, but "I don't believe in God so I can be as selfish as I want" ain't exactly the world's most sympathetic argument. Fortunately, despite the tedious insistence of many Christians, it's not an argument one comes across particularly often.