By Bob Allen
The head of one of the nation’s largest Hispanic Christian organizations said Jan. 21 that Latino voters should not put the desire for immigration reform ahead of concern for the unborn.
“I have a problem when we advocate life on Sunday, yet our voting pattern runs counter to what we preach about on Sunday,” Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference, said in an address at the Jan. 21-22 Evangelicals for Life conference in Washington. The event is co-sponsored by Focus on the Family and the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
“We can’t be pro-life on Sunday and vote pro-abortion on Tuesday,” Rodriguez said, warning Hispanic evangelicals “to not sacrifice children on the altar of political expediency” in the name of immigration reform. “If we preach pro-life on Sunday, we cannot support a candidate that advocates abortion on Tuesday.”
Addressing Latinos, Rodriguez said: “We’re marching for immigration reform. Wonderful. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.”
“But if that’s our priority, we’re never going to see it, because our priority must be we must be the most pro-life community in the United States of America,” he said.
While immigration is a legitimate concern while entering the voting booth, Rodriguez said “whatever we’re advocating for, it shouldn’t trump life.”
“We must begin with life,” he admonished. “So don’t tell me you support a political candidate because that candidate is pro-immigration but they are anti-life.”
“How can you be supporting a candidate who is in favor of immigration but likewise they’re in favor of seeing the destruction of our little daughters and sons in the womb?” he inquired. “That’s just intellectually incoherent. We must be above all things, pro-life, and everything else will follow. We must vote a biblical worldview.”
The conference, the first-ever event for evangelicals connected to the annual March for Life demonstration held each January to mark the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, wraps up Friday morning.
Tonight’s speakers include Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission head Russell Moore, and David Platt, president of the SBC International Board. The gathering is being live-streamed at http://live.evangelicals.life/.
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