The Immigration Debate, Religion, and the Progressive Agenda
The Democrats have been desperately trying to get religion, in an attempt to win the values war and sway back into the fold some of the voters who vote based on who their preachers, priests, or rabbis tell them to vote for. But, as the tremendous grassroots swelling of support for immigrants' rights should show them, the answer to their religious desires was there all the time.
As Nathan Newman points out in his tpmcafe post, this past weekend saw the largest rally ever in the city of Los Angeles, and it was fueled by the Catholic Church, labor unions and immigrants rights organizations.
Indeed, the Catholic Church has been key to mobilizing the immigrant community, working in concert with the labor movement to energize a base. And the base represents a substantial part of the service sector workforce in our country today (not to mention the remaining strands of garment workers in cities like Los Angeles).
This isn't the first time that the Catholic Church came to the aid of immigrant workers. In another century, and another wave of immigration, Irish workers were taught about dignity on the job and the rights of unionization from the pulpit, as issues like minimum wage, end to child labor, rights at work were all part of the Sunday litany. The grand coalition of religion and labor provided the soundtrack for a workforce organizing itself into a strong union movement. Now, when the unions are weak--and the church is divided over whether to lead with a social mission that preaches an end to abortion or a social mission that preaches the right to dignity at work and health care for all, perhaps this struggle over immigrants' rights will act as a way to reconnect a religious vision to the progressive camp. Even if many of those immigrants for whom people were marching aren't able to vote, their children will be voting one day and they will remember that the values that offered their families the dignity they need and desire came from a coalition of religious leaders and unions.
It is also worth a reminder that March 25 marked the anniversary of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, when 146 immigrant women (mostly Jewish and Italian) were killed by sweatshop conditions in the New York garment industry. The Jewish community played a key role then in joining with the largely immigrant garment unions in promoting decent working standards.
A basic religious tenet--of any religion--is about how one treats the strangers among us. It should be an argument that progressives can make and can win.
For what it's worth, I have never heard a priest during the Mass tell parishoners who to vote for. However, after Vatican II priests and brothers and nuns began to visibly stand with the poor and disenfranchised, particularly in Latin America which saw the birth of Liberation Theology. In Nicaragua, and other South and Central American countries, the Church often stood in direct opposition to the policies of the American government towards those countries. I do agree that Democrats should consider aligning themselves with "the strangers among us" but, at the same time, they should be aware that such an alignment may alienate as many people as it draws in.
March 27, 2006 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, such an alignment does more harm than good and, by allowing illegal immigration and all its side-effects, is deeply immoral.
March 27, 2006 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Democrats don't have to stand in favor of illegal immigration. Instead they have to propose reasonable and responsible solutions. They do have to stand for human rights and they have to make sure illegals are treated with due respect and in a Christian manner.
Let the Republicans make and push the loony tune solutions. They will turn the entire Southwest and Florida blue for a generation.
Take the high road folks. Don't let the Republicans drag you down in the mud with them. Whatever you do, don't get into a lowest common denominator bidding war with Republicans on this issue. That is what folks like Micheal Lind want us to do. Just say "no" and stay responsible.
Ron Byers
March 27, 2006 10:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been quite upset with the Church's recent crusade against gay rights/ gay marriage. The Church, in my opinion, has always been at its best when reaching out and being a proponent for the weakest amongst us. Wasting energy on keeping people from getting married (outside of the church) or fighting over whether communion should be given to pro-choice politicians is a shame.
But the cynic within in me questions how/why the Church has taken up this cause. Is it just because it's in the Church's beliefs to help the poor, or is it because this group (Mexican/Latin Americans) is by and large all Catholic. If such a government crack down was being aimed at a large group of immigrents that were {insert other religion here}, would the Church be out there like this?
March 27, 2006 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are oh so generous giving these illegal immigrants the jobs and opportuities that rightly belong to your FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZENS.
how very kind of you....
And WHAT COINCIDENCE that this "kindness" you feel towards illegal immigrants and letting them into America to flood the labor market, driving down wages for working American CITIZENS, what a coincidence that your viewpoint JUST HAPPENS TO BE THE VERY SAME as that of the elite, of the rich, of the powerful, of the megacorporations.
Will wonders never cease!
And OF COURSE the hundreds of millions that have been poured into think tanks and nonprofit foundations by the plutocrats and megacorporations and business lobbies, all those millions that went into creating "open borders" propaganda, and race-guilt propaganda (the better to guilt us into not fighting the mass immigration labor arbitrage, my dear), OF COURSE all that propaganda has NOTHING TO DO with your decision.
Say, now, have YOU ever received a grant to generate free trade progagnda, mass immigration propaganda, open borders propaganda?
Enquiring minds want to know.....
My documentary/book in progress is at
http://www.leftwingmediamachine.blogspot.com
March 27, 2006 3:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Democrats have been desperately trying to get religion, in an attempt to win the values war and sway back into the fold some of the voters who vote based on who their preachers, priests, or rabbis tell them to vote for.
Obviously, the key to swinging religious voters, if this model of following religious leaders, is to try and sway those leaders, either to get them to like Democrats more or to get them to like Republicans less. (Don't ignore the impact of doing the latter.)
One obvious way of doing this is to oppose the intolerant anti-clericalism on the left that seems at times to mirror the French Revolution, communism, or early 20th century Mexico. Some liberals seem to go beyond a secular political order consistent with the Golden Rule--treating minorities in the same way that one would want to be treated as a minority--into blatant anti-religious sentiments.
Another is to reestablish what you call the "grand coalition of religion and labor", a progressive coalition built upon economic and not social issues. Failure to reach out to this core Democratic base has caused nothing but misery for the party.
March 27, 2006 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
bluebell
Shall we hold our breaths waiting for Pat Buchanan, Peggy Noonan, etc. to follow their priests on this issue?
March 27, 2006 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
>>MassConnDem said: I've been quite upset with the Church's recent crusade against gay rights/ gay marriage.<<
I think that if such a crusade were in progress, I would have heard something about it. I am a faithful Catholic, and my parish is by no means a dissenting one. Our pastor is Irish. I have not heard so much as a word about this crusade from the pulpit at Mass. Just because some bishop in Boston or Colorado goes off about it doesn't mean there is a crusade.
Of course the the fact that many Hispanic immigrants are Catholic has something to do with the Church's support for their cause. There is no reason to be cynical about it. A shepherd looks out for his flock.
When my wife and I returned to Tallahassee from years away, converts to Catholicism, the left/alternative friends we had from the seventies wanted nothing to do with us. Never mind that we still shared many of the same ideas about what society should look like, such as putting the needs of all the people and the welfare of the planet Earth first, rather than private profit.
No, if they couldn't tick off a yes for every item on the, what, "Rainbow Coalition" (?) agenda, including abortion, we were beyond the pale. And it's not like I am picketing abortion clinics or anything. But yes, I accept that to be a Catholic, I must not be a party to an abortion. The only teaching I have ever heard at church about this had to do with being a Catholic, not with society at large. No one in America is forced to be a Catholic.
Yes, we do have a few laypersons who are actively involved in the right's culture war. I know that they begged our pastor to publicly endorse Bush in 2004. But did he? No. And in fact Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in a 2004 memo that Catholics could in good conscience vote for a candidate who had supported abortion rights if there were, "other compelling issues", (i.e. social justice).
But I have to say, if ever I felt that my vote was wasted, it was on John Kerry. "Reporting for Duty!" indeed. I needed a vomit bag after that. So terminally lame...
I have little faith in the Dems as a national party any more. The Greens have been hijacked by the Dems, poor things. But when the polls open, I will once again vote the party ticket, Allen Boyd, Bill Nelson and the rest, because, especially on the local level, city and county commissions, it still matters.
In 2001, Garrison Keillor, writing at Salon.com as Mr. Blue, and feeling every bit as thrashed as I did, counseled liberals to "take long walks and read the classics". Five years later, it is still good advice. When the wheel will turn, I do not know. I am feeling like our generation is played out, and that we will have to let our children sort it.
"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." (Julian of Norwich)
March 27, 2006 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our generation isn't played out. Keep the faith.
Demand more from our candidates.
Ron Byers
March 28, 2006 3:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well here in Massachusetts, it certainly feels like a crusade. That "some bishop" in Boston sounding off on it, isn't just a bishop anymore. He (Sean O'Malley) was elevated to a Cardinal last week.
I have heard it from the pulpit. Specifically from pastors urging their parishes to fight the legalization of gay marriage. And just last week the Catholic charities in Boston petitioned the state to be expempted from anti-discrimination laws. Specifically, here in Mass it is illegal for adoption agencies to discriminate against same sex couples. The Church was requesting exemption from this. Of course, no one consulted with the poor orphans on this one.
I think my feelings on it are coming from the fact that gay rights/gay marriage has become such a hot button issue in this state. Regardless of our opinion on the Church's stance on gay rights, and the magnitude thereof, my point was simply that it is refreshing to see the church fighting for the expansion of rights rather than the containment of them.
March 28, 2006 6:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the view from the ground in Boston. Here in the Bible Belt, the Church is not so integrated into social services. The Catholic definition of marriage as a sacrament cannot be squared with a legal definition that grants homosexual couples the civil protections and entitlements that married heterosexual couples enjoy.
That is why it is so much fun to be a Catholic. Stick up for labor, immigrants and the poor, and oppose the slaughter of innocent civilians in an unjust war, and the right hates you. Refuse to change the Church's teaching because a poll of Americans disapproves of it, and the left hates you. You are a pebble in everyone's shoe. A good sign, I think, rather like the Jews, peace be upon them.
March 28, 2006 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
bluebell
I'm a cafeteria Catholic and I'm not finding much to like on the food line. Mainly, I'm a cultural Catholic in the sense of being raised in an Irish Catholic family and joining another faith is a bridge I haven't been able to cross, though the Lutherans and Episcopalians may get me before I'm through.
I'll second the crusade against gays theme. In Minnesota, the Archbishop is siding with the lunatic fringe of the evengelical far right - I mean the worst of the worst haters - in their anti-gay agenda. Fine, if as a Catholic you don't believe that the sacrament of marriage should be extended to gays. I have mixed feelings myself about how gay relationships should be recognized but I know too many gays in long relationships to deny that their caring for each other needs to be celebrated in community. No issue has divided me more from the Church. I am also pro-choice so this isn't my only dispute with the Vatican, but when it comes to hate, I cannot go there. The Church is going far beyond the marriage issue and climbing on board the efforts to amend state constitutions to deny, in fundamental law, any kind of recognition of gay relationships. To me, that's like denying that the earth revolves around the sun. Nature and nature's God makes people gay and nothing the Vatican says will change that fact.
March 31, 2006 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for responding, bluebell. Even if we are not discussing immigration anymore, we are still talking about religion and the progressive agenda.
So, we've got anti-gay crusades in Boston and in Minnesota. And the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has protested a statement by Cardinal-elect William Levada that Catholic agencies "should not place children for adoption in homosexual households.'' Does anyone else still reading this thread perceive an anti-gay crusade in their diocese?
Levada, whose election as Cardinal has been opposed by Catholic conservatives on account of his leniency toward "pedophile", (i.e. gay), priests, and who found a way to accomodate the city's law requiring that all organizations that did business with the City of San Francisco provide spousal benefits to “domestic partners” of those they employed.
You have got to see this in the light of the "pedophilia", (gay priest), scandal and the Church's attempts to respond to it. Levada's elevation may indicate that his counsel is sought in Rome as the bishop of a diocese in which gays have significant representation.
I will never know what it is like to be a cultural Catholic. I worked with a guy who was one, from Boston. He was a pillar of his church here in Tallahassee, involved with RCIA and close to the African pastor of the largely black congregation, (he is white). But mention the Vatican and it was like a showing a red rag to a bull. And I have friends in my parish who are the same way. I can't relate. For me, the Church is the Pearl of Great Price. It saved my life. I am bound to consider that where I disagree with its teaching, I might be wrong, and it might be right.
April 1, 2006 9:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
In response to Cryofan's (why don't people use their real names on these blogs anyway?)remarks about illegal immigration being the tool of the super-rich corporations to hold down wages of the rest of working America:
Isn't this the same argument that was used to keep women and blacks out of the workforce at one point? Cryofan, surely you don't wish to repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1965, do you? Or was that also a tool of corporations to hold down white men's wages?
As the Boomers retire, we will need an influx of skilled workers in fields like nursing, teaching, engineering, and in middle and upper management. There are not enough GenX and GenY'ers to replace the retirees. Thus, I think we need to expand the H1B program or get rid of it entirely to allow foreign workers to naturalize more quickly. We need the workers to pay for the exploding Social Security and Medicare benefits of the Boomers!
That so many people are so threatened by unskilled workers (many of whom don't even speak English) is an embarrassment to our education system. I guess the Lou Dobbs's and Cryofan's of the world aren't confident that American workers can go back to school and gain more skills so that they don't compete with the unskilled influx.
I'm glad and confident that eventually the McCain-Kennedy bill will become the law of the land and will bring in tougher border security; require illegals to pay a hefty fine, learn english, and pass a civics exam; and go to the back of the line for applying for citizenship of foreigners migrating to the US legally.
On Cryofan's other point, I suspect that in another 100 years, open borders will become de facto. National sovereignty will continue to wither as travel gets cheaper, people use communication devices to bridge language gaps, and capitalism and democracy create wealth worldwide. The US trade deficit with China will be no more alarming than California's trade deficit with Alabama.
Free trade means competition, which means lower prices and higher quality, which means global growth and historically low unemployment (4.7%) in the United States.
Shalesh Kumbhat
April 24, 2006 7:14 AM | Reply | Permalink