Lutheran Leaders' Message on Immigration Reform: 'Now, Get It Right'

LUTHERAN LEADERS’ MESSAGE ON
IMMIGRATION REFORM: ‘NOW, GET IT RIGHT’

BALTIMORE, JUNE 8, 2007—Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and several Lutheran bishops call on Congress and the White House to renew efforts to achieve fair immigration reform.

“Now is the time for President Bush and Congress to enact a bill that is truly humane and pro-family,” said LIRS President Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr. “LIRS has long supported comprehensive immigration reform, but the Senate bill that stalled last night fell far short of what is needed. Reform must protect family unity, secure the rights of immigrants, allow immigrant workers to come out of the shadows and live with dignity, and provide a path to permanence for those who are undocumented.

“After painstaking deliberation, we opposed the Senate bill,” said Deffenbaugh. “While it would have had some positive impact in the short term, such as providing documentation to undocumented people and reducing the family backlog, the long-term consequences would have been to abandon family unity as a cornerstone of U.S. immigration law. That would have had a devastating impact on family unity. Overall, it was not the comprehensive fix that our broken immigration system requires.”

“I’m disappointed with the current Senate bill,” added the Rev. Gerald L. Mansholt, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s Central States Synod. “I hope that our leaders in the Senate, the House, and the office of the president can come together to find a way to bring about comprehensive immigration reform in such a way that it lifts up the importance of the family and keeps families united, which is what the current proposal is missing this year.”

“Core spiritual values unite us in this diverse cultural and religious place called America,” noted the Rev. Stephen P. Bouman, bishop of the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod. “Central to these shared values is the family. Senate Bill 1348 failed to speak to our common spiritual foundations.”

“Our nation is founded on strong families that stand at the center of our communities,” observed the Rev. H. Gerard Knoche, bishop of the ELCA Delaware-Maryland Synod. “The Senate’s proposal turned away from that long-standing tradition and from the Christian principle that we should welcome the stranger in our homes and families.”

“This proposal was very problematic,” said the Rev. Paul Stumme-Diers, bishop of the ELCA Greater Milwaukee Synod. “The family is the first community for us as human beings, and is the strongest building block for creating stable, productive societies.”

“Under the Senate bill U.S. citizens would have completely lost the ability to petition for adult children and siblings and would have to have waited years to unify with their parents,” explained Deffenbaugh. “LIRS applauds Senators Clinton, Menendez and others for their efforts to put the principle of ‘families first’ back into this legislation, and we commend Senator Joseph Lieberman for an amendment that would afford greater protection to asylum seekers. That kind of resolve gives us hope that the day of truly comprehensive immigration reform will come. We call on the White House and Congress to revive real immigration reform and, in good faith, achieve a truly workable compromise.”

Joggling Marathons

These two make my three miles of joggling look like a cake-walk... Guess I need to start training more. Apparently, one of them is a divinity student. What is it about pastors and joggling?

Summer Discs

And to continue the summer lists, here are a few of my favorite "listens" for the summer:

Wilco, Sky Blue Sky- Jeff Tweedy et. al. just keep getting better
Arcade Fire, Neon Bible- This Montreal group makes punk fun and eloquent
The Gotan Project- Brazilian techno
Lucinda Williams, West- she writes these folk loops that sing
Thom Yorke, Eraser- composed on his computer, like Radiohead but more personal
Over the Rhine, Films for Radio- best recent discovery of a Christian rock group
Pink Martinis, Hey Eugene- songs from all over
SF Jazz Collective
The Decemberists- The Crane Wife

Summer Reading

Read two books over the Memorial Day weekend that I can recommend. First, a must read this summer is Michael Chabon's new glorious novel, The Yiddish Policeman's Union. I haven't had such fun reading a novel in long-time. It's a murder mystery, scifi alternative future based on the idea that the "new" Israel is relocated to Sitka, Alaska in 1948. And there's a lot of Yiddish. It's grand.

Second, I read Milan Kundera's book on the novel. The Curtain. I haven't read a piece of literary criticism that was as strangely compelling as this in some time. And also infuriating. I just have one gripe with is book, and it is a MAJOR gripe. does Kundera not realize that women write novels? Great ones? It's as if he has never read anything in the whole tradition of the novel that was written by a woman. Of the classics, what about Jane Austen? George Eliot? Or more contemporary, Marilyn Robinson? Doris Lessing? Virginia Woolf? I could go on... But I also still think The Curtain is worth reading.

Summer reads I have in the bag ready for future trips include Don Cheadle's Not On Our Watch, on the genocide in Darfur; Gerharde Forde's post-humous collection, The Preached God; Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red; John Stubb's biography of John Donne; and of course, Harry Potter.

What else should be on my list?