Democrats are so cute when they talk about Jesus — which they occasionally do at Christmastime. When they need to make political points, slashing their opponents.
In 1999, Hillary Clinton was excoriating Rudy Giuliani, who was mayor of New York. She herself was first lady, and was soon to run for the Senate — from New York (where she had barely been). She said that Rudy was heartless toward the homeless. (We heard that for the whole eight years of his mayoralty.) And she said that Jesus was once a “homeless child.” This was in reference to the Nativity.
I wrote a column about this remark. I haven’t been able to find it, in a few minutes of searching, so that vital piece of literature is lost to history. But the point is: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were not homeless. Joseph and Mary had traveled from Nazareth, in Galilee, where they lived, to Bethlehem, in Judea, in order to be taxed. Or to be polled, as part of the census. Lots of people had descended on Bethlehem for the same purpose. Hence, no room at the inn.
It’s possible to excoriate Mayor Giuliani without dragging Jesus into it, you know?
This year, Martin O’Malley was ticked at the news that illegal aliens would be rounded up and deported. (I was less ticked than amazed.) O’Malley is running against Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. So he decided to say that Jesus was once a “refugee child.”
He has a greater leg to stand on than Hillary did, with the homelessness business — because Joseph and Mary, with their baby, fled to Egypt, to escape Herod. It’s been a while since Jews fled into Egypt for refuge …
Anyway, you can criticize government policy on illegals without dragging Jesus into it. When I hear the likes of Hillary and O’Malley, I think that Democrats, as a class, may have a point: that religion does not belong in politics. Is that the point they’re trying to make to me?
P.S. At the Democratic convention, of course, Jesse Jackson compared Vice President Dan Quayle to Herod. The mother of Jesus, said Jackson, “had family values. It was Herod — the Quayle of his day — who put no value on the family.”
Interesting. Quayle is pro-life. Herod was not. Neither is Jackson (though he was, before he wanted to be the Democrats’ presidential nominee).