Posted by David Bernstein:
Obama Mixes Religion and Politics:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_08_16-2009_08_22.shtml#1250818305
President Obama [1]gave advice via conference call to one thousand
liberal rabbis regarding how to push for his health care reform
efforts at high holiday services (which have by far the largest
synagogue attendance of the Jewish year) without seeming partisan:
"I am going to need your help," the president told a telephone
audience of about 1,000 rabbis on Wednesday morning, according to
the Twitter feed of Rabbi Jack Moline of Alexandria, Va., who added
that Mr. Obama advised the group to share stories of health care
dilemmas with congregants to illustrate what is at stake in the
current debate.
Many religious leaders prefer not to make overtly political pitches
to their congregations, and one rabbi asked Mr. Obama how to
reconcile the sanctity of the high holidays with the partisan
politics of the health care reform fight. The president responded,
another participant said, by framing it as a moral rather than a
political question, stressing the 47 million Americans who lack
insurance.
I don't see anything terribly scandalous about this; the scandal would
be if rabbis abuse their pulpit by pushing a political agenda, not the
president (who, after all, is a politician, so what can you expect?)
asking them to do so.
But I will note that if President Bush had urged a huge group of
conservative ministers or priests (there is no such group of rabbis)
to subtly use their Christmas or Easter sermons to push for tax cuts,
or the Iraq War, there would be howls of outrage from certain circles
that I will predict will be utterly silent over Obama's actions.
References
1. http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/obama-says-a-prayer/
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