ObamaCare and God’s Will
In governing style, Mr. Obama continually resets to the strategies of his community organizer roots, including enlisting members of the clergy to further his political agenda. I have already detailed his use of the Department of Health and Human Services Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships to hold conference calls with religious leaders, urging them to preach for ObamaCare’s passage from their pulpits, and offering supporting propaganda to distribute to their congregants.
Now, facing results from the February USA Today/Gallup poll of swing-state voters showing that 72% of all polled, including 56% of Democrats, believe that the individual mandate of Obamacare is unconstitutional, and with the question coming before the Supreme Court in two weeks—in the midst of a reelection campaign he would prefer to keep focused on victories—Mr. Obama is back in the trenches again.
On Wednesday, White House officials summoned dozens of leaders of nonprofit organizations that strongly back the health law to help them coordinate plans for a prayer vigil, press conferences and other events outside the court when justices hear arguments for three days beginning March 26.
White House officials would not release the names of groups attending Wednesday’s meeting, but presumably it included Methodist leaders, as among the activities planned during the three days of Supreme Court hearings on the bill include the establishment of a “radio row” for radio hosts to interview ObamaCare advocates at the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill.
The administration is not, of course, going to leave the matter strictly to prayer.
In the week before the Supreme Court arguments, administration officials will fan out around the country and join local groups in celebrating the second anniversary of the law, signed by Mr. Obama on March 23, 2010.
According to the New York Times, in addition to the unnamed church leaders,
Groups working with the White House include the Service Employees International Union; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Health Care for America Now, a consumer coalition that fought for passage of the legislation; Protect Your Care, a nonprofit group created last year to defend the 2010 law; and the Center for American Progress, a research and advocacy group with close ties to the White House.
It’s said that politics makes strange bedfellows, as with this mix of secular and sacred. Yet those who send up alarms over Catholic candidate Rick Santorum’s faith—as expressed so eloquently recently by Henry Giroux, “Santorum and God’s Will:”
what progressive or decent conservative for that matter would support Rick Santorum’s rejection of the separation of church and state
seem to have no problem with Mr. Obama’s continually mixing the two, as with his appeal to God’s will through a prayer vigil for ObamaCare in front of the Supreme Court. Strange indeed.
