Obama to Participate in Faith-Based Call-in on Health-Care Reform
Story summary:
President Obama will participate in a national call-in and audio Webcast to push for health-care reform on August 19. The program is sponsored by 25 religious denominations and organizations, and it was announced today by a coalition of faith-based groups that are supporting health-care reform. The call-in program will also feature religious leaders who support health-care reform, and it will have a definite religious flair. Indeed, on a call-in press conference today, organizers of the event painted universal health care as a religious issue.
Obama to Participate in Faith-Based Call-in on Health-Care Reform
President Obama will participate in a national call-in and audio Webcast to push for health-care reform on August 19. The program is sponsored by 25 religious denominations and organizations, and it was announced today by a coalition of faith-based groups that are supporting health-care reform.
The call-in program will also feature religious leaders who support health-care reform, and it will have a definite religious flair. Indeed, on a call-in press conference today, organizers of the event painted universal health care as a religious issue.
Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners, an evangelical organization, called it "deeply theological issue, a Biblical issue and a moral issue."
The Obama call-in program was one of several announcements made this morning by the coalition, which has launched several ambitious efforts to promote health-care reform in recent months and announced some more today. That includes a six-figure ad buy on cable TV that will feature local pastors endorsing health-care reform in key states with Congressional representatives--mostly Blue Dog Democrats and moderate Republicans in districts where conservative religious traditions dominate.
They also plan a "health care sermon weekend" Aug. 28-30, where pastors will preach on the necessity of health-care reform.
Leaders of these efforts insisted today that the effort is not a politically liberal effort, but is supported by faith-based groups across the political spectrum. It is true that many of its leaders are anti-abortion. But a look at the faith-based organizations sponsoring Obama's call-in program reveals groups that tend to be fairly liberal, such as the Episcopal Church and Unitarian Universalist Association. I don't see any groups traditionally associated with the Christian right there.
Indeed, the Christian right has also been spending big bucks on its effort to defeat health-care reform. The Family Research Council has raised $500,000 that it will spend on ads in five key states--Kentucky, Louisiana, Alaska, Nebraska, and Pennsylvania, spokesman J.P Duffy told me today.
