Thursday, October 01, 2009

The Gamaliel Foundation

The post below resulted in my interest in a previously unknown to me socio-political organization called the Gamaliel Foundation. Here are a few talking points of what I found out about it.

  • It is a Left-Wing activist group.
  • It is multi-faith, meaning it includes Muslims, Buddhists any anyone else in its governing leadership.
  • It was formed in Chicago in the 60's to assist an African-American organization fighting to "protect homeowners on Chicago's West Side who had been discriminated against by banks and lending institutions."
  • They desire to make the government provide civil rights and healthcare to our nation's illegal immigrants.
  • They assembled a large number of left-wing religious leaders in 2003 to organize a voter drive to oust the incumbent Pres. Bush from the White House.
  • Their "Yahoo Group" describes themselves as "... an affiliate of The Gamaliel Foundation, a power organization, which has affiliates in 22 different states and South Africa."

To me, it looks as if this is just another liberal pseudo-religious organization out to undermine the foundation of the government of the United States of America.

Am I against immigrants having healthcare? No. Am I against ILLEGAL immigrants having healthcare? Most definitely YES! I was a legal resident of 5 different countries. I had a million hoops to jump through to remain a legal resident of those countries. Was I afforded any of the benefits provided to citizens of those countries? NO! Why should we foot the bill for folks who are unwilling to go through our legal system to live legally in our country? I surely can't answer that one.

The Gamaliel Foundation just made my personal "watch list". I think it is bad for America.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Rick,

You wrote: "Am I against ILLEGAL immigrants having healthcare? Most definitely YES!"

Can you explain why some of God's children shouldn't have health care? Don't we, as Christians, have the responsibility to care for ALL of God's children, even those who may have broken some laws? What about the children? How can we love them as we love ourselves if we deny them healthcare?

Can you cite any scriptural basis for your belief that we do not have a responsibility to care for the sick if they are illegals?

Thank you.

A New Reader

Rick Boyne said...

Dear New Reader,

Thank you so much for reading my blog and for taking the time to comment!

You hit the nail right on the head when you said, Don't we, as Christians, have the responsibility to care for ALL of God's children, even those who may have broken some laws? What about the children? How can we love them as we love ourselves if we deny them healthcare?

It isn't our government's job to take care of people who have entered into our country illegally. It is the church's job. The commands of God to care for the sick was given to the church, not to governments.

I don't want to assume, but I think many people are confusing the rights of a government to take care of their own, and the citizen's rights of a country to say "enough is enough" with the mandate to the church.

I am very sorry if my post came across as you say that I have a "belief that we do not have a responsibility to care for the sick if they are illegals?" That is not my belief at all. I should have been a little more specific in my post to say, "Am I against Illegal immigrants having government paid/provided healthcare? Most definitely YES!"

One of the real problems we have is our broken health care system. Lawyers, greedy patients, health care providers, drug companies, and medical equipment suppliers have driven prices up to an intolerable level. The government wants to "fix" healthcare, until they have reform the tort laws and reform the insurance industry, it will only get worse.

Monk-in-Training said...

Rick,
I am curious why you called them a "liberal pseudo-religious organization"?

It seems to me that one could just as easily call something like Focus on the Family a "conservative pseudo-religious" organization?

This is one of the things that so bothers me when politics and faith get mixed up. We may not like a group's politics, but I am very concerned when their faith is impugned.

As a Christian that often comes down on what our modern politics often calls the liberal side of the fence, I am extra sensitive to this, as it happens quite often around here.

I suppose my point is that I may not care for the Gamaliel foundation, but I have no window into the soul of another and, personally would be reticent to call their faith "pseudo".

Rick Boyne said...

Monk,

Those are good questions. Let's break it down:

liberal- the values they embrace are not on the conservative side of life;

pseudo-religious - religion is not their goal; they are using religion to meet their liberal political agenda. In other words, IMO, they are hiding under religious organizations to make them "acceptable". They aren't not a Christian organization, they are not a Muslim organization; they combine the two which corrupts both.

organization - well, they sure aren't a church! ;-)

I am not looking into the heart of people when I used the word pseudo, but instead into the heart of an organization. There is a huge difference there.

I don't like organizations that mix faith and politics; the lines between the two get fuzzy, at least in people's hearts and minds.