U.S. Religious Left campaigns for climate change legislation
The U.S. “Religious Left” — which has been active at the grassroots level to support President Barack Obama’s drive for health care reform – has now launched a campaign in support his other major domestic initiative: climate change legislation.
Faithful America, a coalition of progressive evangelical, Catholic, mainline Protestant and Jewish groups, unveiled a video on Thursday urging viewers to “TELL CONGRESS: STOP CLIMATE CHANGE AND ITS EFFECTS.” The campaign is called Day Six.
You can see the video below:
A climate bill aimed at reducing America’s emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming is being crafted in the U.S. Senate. The House of Representatives earlier this year passed its own version.
The Day Six campaign also asks people to sign an online petition that urges senators to : “… support a climate bill that addresses the root causes of climate change and makes needed investments in vulnerable communities already experiencing its devastating effects.”
The organizers say that: “‘Day Six’ is a reference to the creation story in Genesis, when God made human beings stewards of creation.”
Obama accuses some healthcare critics of “bearing false witness”
U.S. President Barack Obama enlisted the “Religious Left” on Wednesday to help galvanise public support for his faltering drive for healthcare reform, using the language of faith as he accused some of the critics of his biggest domestic project of “bearing false witness.”
Obama made a brief pitch to a “call in” organised by various liberal and progressive faith groups called “40 minutes for Health Reform.” It is part of a campaign launched last week to counteract a movement to stop “Obamacare” that has been driven in part by conservative Christian activists.
“There has been a lot misinformation in this debate and there are some folks out there who are frankly bearing false witness,” Obama said.
Obama took issue with some of the most emotive allegations that have been raised by social conservative opponents of his vision for overhauling America’s healthcare and health insurance system.
“This notion that somehow we are setting up death panels that would decide on whether elderly people get to live or die … that is just an extraordinary lie.”
“You’ve heard that this is all going to mean government funding of abortions. Not true,” he said.
Why is it the only people complaining about Canadian health care are Americans?
Liberal U.S. religious groups launch “40 Days of Health Reform”
Liberal U.S. religious groups launched “40 Days of Health Reform” on Monday.
You can see our coverage here and a video of their nationwide TV spot below.
The campaign aims to energize efforts by President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party to overhaul America’s healthcare system.
(PHOTO: U.S. President Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting about healthcare at the Kroger Supermarket in Bristol, Virginia July 29, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing)
It’s only 9 months into this Administration and somehow you know completely the mindset of their democratic liberalism, you know for a fact that this administration is socialist, you know for a fact the heart and religious conviction and beliefs of this administration, you know for a fact how John F Kennedy who was killed by a hatred filled brainwashed communist sympathizer, would react by today’s democratic party. You know for a fact that McCain endorsed positively ACORN in 2006.
You know for a fact that Florida and Ohio didn’t commit voter fraud in 2000 and 2004 respectively, each run by the Republican party. You know for a fact that 2010 will be a hard hit for Democrats.
Ahh but one thing you don’t know you don’t know much about the resolve and vision, it’s a strong conviction we democrats have taken to heart to improve the lives of all Americans not the select few.
Religious Left pushes for healthcare reform
America’s “Religious Left” is jumping into the healthcare debate with a plan to launch a “40 Days for Health Reform” initiative starting Monday.
The move comes as conservative resistance hardens to President Barack Obama’s attempts to overhaul America’s healthcare system. This has taken the form of angry scenes at townhall meetings and has been driven in part by the ”Religious Right,” which claims on Christian radio stations and on the blogosphere that, among other things, “Obamacare” will result in taxpayer-funded abortion. That’s a point disputed by most Democrats and their allies.
The pro-faith-based healthcare reform campaign is organized by liberal leaning religious groups such as Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Faith in Public Life. Borrowing a page from the Religious Right, the conservative Christian movement that rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s as a key base for the Republican Party, the campaign will feature prayer rallies and a national TV ad.
It brings together evangelicals, Catholics and mainline Protestants and includes heavyweights from the Religious Left such as Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners. There are many people of faith in the United States who believe that coverage needs to be extended to the nearly 46 million Americans with no health insurance because of biblical calls to care for the poor and the sick.
In his campaign for the White House Obama had tapped into the religious community and frequently invoked his own Christian faith. It remains to be seen if the faith community can inject some energy into what some see as a faltering drive at health care reform.
One wonders if this part of Obama’s ambitious domestic agenda has a prayer without such help.
Just wanted to let everyone know that Bill Moyers will be covering a cool documentary on his PBS show tonight called, “Money Driven Medicine”. It should be really interesting!
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/index- flash.html
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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This is nuts. This is science, not religion, and religion only muddles an already badly muddled debate. Occasionally religious leaders have a place in the public arena, for instance to represent otherwise disfranchised people – the Southern Christian Leadership Council, for instance – but otherwise religious people should stay in their temples and pray or jump around or do whatever they do, and not bother the intelligent minority who are trying to figure this problem out.