President’s speech provides ‘raw materials’ for future consensus
- May 16, 2006 - 4
WASHINGTON, May 16, 2006—Dr. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, commented on President Bush’s May 15 speech regarding immigration reform.
“I thought the President’s speech was a tremendous, giant step forward. He spent the majority of his time talking about the issues that concern the highest percentage of Americans, including Southern Baptists: border security and border control.
“He clearly sent the message that the government is serious about controlling the border. Unless the American people are convinced that their government is serious about enforcing the law at the border, no significant consensus can be built around the other issues related to immigration.
“Once the government has convinced the people that it is serious about committing the resources necessary to control the border, then a consensus can be built around some type of guest-worker program and some path to permanent residence for most of those who are in this country illegally and wish to stay.
“That’s especially true when you consider the other significant impetus of the President’s speech last night, which was on assimilation and the absolute necessity of people learning to read, write and speak English as the key to assimilation. The ability to read English is insufficient. One must be able to speak and write English in order to fully assimilate and aspire to the American dream.
“This is a very complex issue which is going to require a lot of effort and a lot of trial and error before we get the right mix. However, the program outlined in the President’s speech is a giant step forward and provides the raw materials for the American people to achieve consensus on how to deal with the issue of illegal and legal immigration.”
The Southern Baptist Convention is America’s largest non-Catholic denomination with more than 16.3 million members in over 43,500 churches nationwide. The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the SBC’s ethics, religious liberty and public policy agency with offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Washington, D.C.
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4 comments (post your own) feed
1 On Jun 12th, 2006, at 5:04pm, peter wrote:
Bush’s policy is dividing this country into two groups. one for law and order the word illegal means that you have broken a law there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything good and evil the second group with an agenda to make this country into a third world country you cannot bring into this country millions of unskilled uneducated individuals and expect this country to survive with all this countrys problems we do not need to import more statistics shows that ther are at least 200,000 sex offenders of the 15 million illegal this includes child sex offenders. bush/ Congress and the senate are under the oath of office to defend this country from invation I just hope that the Southern Baptists are right side of history
2 On Jun 12th, 2006, at 5:28pm, peter wrote:
do not sell out your belief for the carrott that Bush is offering, none of the bills that bush is pushing will pass. Did you see him send Carl Rove to congress or the senate to push for the marriage ammendment.Did you see Dick Chaney on “RUSH” talkshow talking about the marriage ammendment, but he has done both of these for amnesty for the illegal aliens, his plan is to bring 90 million immigrants to this country in 10 years providing that the census are right in saying that there is only 15 million illegals here now, some census say there are over 20 million here, for everyone who is legalized is aloud to bring 4 family members with them wheather they are sick, uneducated or unskilled.Hopefully you can see how this will over tax the medical educational and employment of this country.
3 On Jun 20th, 2006, at 11:51am, Laura L Courtney wrote:
Immigration is in fact a part of this Nations history. All Founding Fathers came to this land from various countries. I say all because even the ancestors of federally and non federally recognized Indian Tribes initially came from other countries.There is a difference between what these men and women did and what is happening in our Nation today.There were’t any immigration laws. They did it on the premace that this was now their home and they pledged their loyalty to this Nation.Today we have a influx of people who come to this country illegally,do not want to become citizens and have very little respect for our laws or heritage.
I cannot condone lawlessness by anyone.Does not that mean I do not have sympathy or compassion for these people? No, not at all. I just so happen to believe that instead of illegally entering our Nation they should wait their turn. While they are waiting they should take that opportunity to make their country a better place to live.
4 On Jul 2nd, 2006, at 3:37pm, Dave Carlson wrote:
I support the President in his pursuit for balance and compassion on the immigration issue. A “just law” creates “just results”. Laws that are not enforced except selectively prove that the laws at our Southern Border are not “just laws” because they have not produced “just results”. All Americans are somewhat guilty of letting this problem get to this point.
That is not an excuse to break the law nor is it an excuse to bash the foreigner among us or mistreat him. The question is what do we do now?
“Earned citizenship” is not amnesty if it includes fines and penalties for lawbreakers, and it does put them at the end of the line. Attrition could be called another word for “self deportation”, which is not considered compassionate. Who would starve out the foreigner?
The SBC Resolution #6 is a statement to encourage Baptists to use this opportunity to evangelize the foreigner among us and encourage him to pursue a legal status.