Latino Evangelical Politics
December 26, 2007We have been consistent about covering the political preferences of Latino Evangelicals. Our latest entry, from this past Monday’s newsletter, is Voting With Your Soul, which specifically focuses on Florida:
This past summer Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean declared, “Contrary to partisan rhetoric, the truth is that Democrats are people of strong faith and we are guided by our values.” He launched a “faith outreach intitiative” to “reach out to diverse members of the faith community to build coalitions around shared priorities.”
Among those members was Luis Cortés, a Philadelphia-based minister and former George W. Bush supporter who is now on the DNC’s Faith Advisory Council. Last week Cortés predicted that many Latino evangelicals who voted for Bush in 2004 will abandon the Republican Party in 2008 and vote Democrat.
“We’re really saying with a straight face that Democrats have figured out some kind of way to go after Hispanic evangelicals?” asks Jeffrey García, a Miami-based Democratic strategist. “I think it would be more useful to go after hermaphroditic evangelicals. With all due respect to hermaphrodites.”
Previously, we took a big-picture look at political challenges faced by Latino evangelicals nationwide.
For Dios, But For Which Candidate?
Caught in the crosshairs of their double-barreled identity, Latino evangelicals are having a hard time finding a candidate to back in 2008.
Like their mainstream evangelical peers, the group’s advocacy of conservative stances on social issues has traditionally allied them with the Republican Party. But this year, the hard-line anti-immigration position taken by some leading Republicans has soured Hispanic evangelicals on the GOP.
“The Republicans have put us in a very difficult spot,” says Reverend Miguel Rivera, president of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, which represents some 3 million Latino evangelicals. “We are ashamed of our party.”
That’s quite a turnaround. For the past eight years, the Republicans have enjoyed the embrace of Latino evangelicals largely through the personal appeal of George W. Bush. Bush made it a point to address Latino evangelicals directly through Spanish-sprinkled speeches at National Hispanic Prayer Breakfasts.
We also feature an op ed on the topic by José Cruz, a Democratic political consultant who is also an associate pastor:
Hispanic “Faith-based” Voters Are The Real Swing Vote
After years of being courted by the GOP, one crucial demographic of the “faith-based” community may be the determining vote of the 2008 elections. Hispanic evangelicals might shift to the Democrats or simply abstain. Either way, the impact will be significant.
“Center stage for the Hispanic faith-based community in the 2008 election is the family values issue of family reunification which is the immigration issue” says Reverend Luis Cortés, president of Esperanza USA a network of 10,000 evangelical churches. Cortés says “The vast majority of people come here because there are jobs available that they need to do in order to help their own family survive. That’s a faith issue.”
For over two decades “faith-based” voters have been a pillar of the Republican Party and Hispanic evangelicals have by and large found a home within this political movement. They represent a small but rapidly growing percentage of the overall “faith-based” electorate, yet they can have a critical impact in the ‘08 election.
And lastly, here is a piece we did about the immigration political activism of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States:
Hispanic Voter Outreach From On High
Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony on Sunday led the 76th annual procession in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe through the streets of East Los Angeles. The theme of this year’s mile-long parade: Mother without Borders: Bringing Down the Walls of Injustice.
It’s no surprise the Los Angeles Archdiocese picked immigration as the theme of the procession.
Over the past year, Archbishop Mahony has emerged nationally as an outspoken advocate of immigration reform. And what he says carries weight. He heads the country’s largest archdiocese, comprising five million souls, more than half of whom are Hispanic.
Last year, he urged his flock to disobey the harsh immigration reform bill if it passed and was instrumental in getting thousands to turn out for massive protest rallies. “He had a galvanizing effect on the opposition to that bill,” notes Kevin Appleby, director of migration and refugee policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
