Monday, January 03, 2005

POINT OF PRIDE: WHO IS COMPASSIONATE?

Go to the OU's website. Take a good close look at the home page. See the big yellow box at the toop of the page? Good.

Now, hold your nose, and click to the Christian Coalition, or to the New York Archdiocese. or the Catholic League. or to the Jerry Fallwall Ministries.

Do you see what I see? Or, rather, do you see what I don't see?

On the Christian sites, there are no headlines about the tsunami. There is no mention of the dead, injured or the tremendous damage; no urgent appeals for donations; no phone numbers to call; and no links to organizations collecting money and providing aid for the victims

Those powerful and well-funded political Christian organizations appear to be suffering from a compassion deficit.Though they are quick to organize against same-sex marriage, abortion, and embryonic stem cell research, they are MIA on the tsunami.

Why? How come the people who love Christmas, and hate Desparate Housewives aren't rushing to claim the moral high ground this time?

UPDATE: ZB has delivered a long winded sermon (A response) in which he argues that Jews aren't obligated to help brown people, I mean people who live far away and adhere to other creeds. Big deal.

The big news isn't that the OU is, nominally at least, raising money for tsunami victims. The point is these particular christian organizations are run by a bunch of phonies. They blather on about values, values, values, but when the rubber hits the road all they care about are those issues and controversies that can be manipulated to increase their own power. There are no political chits to gain from helping distant victims of a natural disaster, so they don't bother.

Even the conservativly compassionate president couldn't be bothered to interupt his vacation until he saw that his silence had become a political liability. These "Compassionate Christians" are all cut from the same cloth.