Take the statement: “Pro-life Christian conservative groups stand headstrong against Obama’s recent pro-abortion policy in Pennsylvania.” Most know this to be true.   But what about these: “All members of these groups criticize Obama for his acts toward socialism and immigration reform,” or  ”All are currently printing out pictures of Obama with the Hitler mustache.” These two are surprisingly false.  The truth is that some pro-life Christian conservatives are evangelicals who support Obama’s initiative for immigration reform.

While immigration reform continues to polarize communities and divide our country, it also has fostered a constructive conversation and relationship between conservative evangelicals and Obama.

According to a blog post in the Washington Post, evangelical Christians are supporting immigration reform because their membership largely composes of Hispanics and other sections of the ethnic and immigrant constituency.

Latinos make up a growing segment of their congregations – for some, it is the fastest growing. Religious leaders are aware of this, Rev. Samuel Rodriguez said.  He adds,

They want to show that they care about the issues that are important to their members.

Therefore, evangelicals refuse to repeat the mistakes of the past, when a wall emerged between the African American church and the evangelical community because many evangelicals opposed the Civil Rights movement. Today, they refuse to see that wall emerge between evangelicals and the large immigrant constituency which supports them.

Dr. Richard Land, President of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, sees comprehensive immigration reform as a biblical mandate—and worries that conservatives will burn bridges with the country’s fast-growing Hispanic bloc if they take a hard anti-immigrant line.  Describing political similarities between Hispanics and white Southern Baptists, Land recently told CNN,

Hispanics are hard-wired to be like us on sanctity of life, marriage and issues of faith.  I’m concerned about being perceived as being unwelcoming to them.

Evangelicals recognize immigration reform as a biblical imperative of reconciling the rule of law with compassion for the stranger. In this case, they support interpreting the rule of law with compassion for immigrants.

The fact that these pro-lifers support a Democratic President shows that in some cases they refuse to follow party politics and, instead, take political action based on what they think is morally and ethically correct.

In response to an article on the Opinion Streams blog, Rob J posts,

GOP leadership…exploits the name of God and bastardizes our ideals to foment hatred, division and racism and to engender animosity toward Christians by associating us with a platform that is anathema to God’s love.

So far, Organizing for America records 454 evangelicals who support Obama.

The morally-based mindset of these evangelicals should signal to those in America that it is necessary to place aside party politics and platforms while deciding which laws should govern our nation. If we are striving to establish bipartisan immigration reform, we must lessen Congressional polarization. We can only approach bipartisanship if we think for ourselves, and support an immigration policy that works to accept all communities.

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