The Pharisees

Maureen Dowd comes up with a nice illustration of the disconnect between the words and deeds of the Washington Pharisees.

Mr. DeLay moved yesterday to file a friend of the court brief with the Supreme Court asking that Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube be restored while the federal court is deciding what to do. But as he exploits this one sad case, Mr. DeLay has voted to slash Medicaid by $15 billion, denying money to care for poor people in nursing homes, some on feeding tubes.

At some point, Christians, particularly Evangelicals, must begin to question their reflexive loyalty to politicians like Tom DeLay. At some point they must call upon the Tom DeLays of Washington and the world to demonstrate a belief in the principles of Christianity, rather than just spew the same strained rhetoric about gays and abortion. What about the things Jesus actually bothered to talk to us about, such as compassion for the poor? The $15 billion in Medicaid money that Dowd mentions represents a compassionate set of national priorities. Making healthcare accessible for poor people is a Christian thing to do. Mr. DeLay and those like him choose to ignore millions of invisible, struggling families. When the cameras are on, however, they make quite the show of bringing their offerings to the altar of Terri Schiavo's hospice bed.

Ask yourself this. How many patients had feeding tubes removed in this country since last Friday, when Terri Schiavo's was removed? How many since Sunday, when congress intervened in the Schiavo case? Who spoke up for them?

Of course, we pray for a Godly outcome to the Schiavo saga. But, only the most willfully blind person can fail to see the naked political opportunism at work in this spectacle.