Pastor says Obama poses 'real threat' to black Americans
by Jim Brown
February 15, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - A black pastor says although there is a leadership vacuum in the African-American community, Illinois Senator Barack Obama does not fit the bill to fill the void. The New Jersey minister hopes his new website, ObamaNation.com, will expose Obama's voting history and prove to black voters that the much-touted Democratic presidential hopeful does not represent their values.
Pastor Clenard Childress heads the group Christians for Social Justice and is assistant to the national director of the pro-life group called Life Education and Resource Network, or LEARN. Also, he has recently launched the new ObamaNation.com website and its "Obama Blog," to educate the black community regarding what he calls the "horrific" voting record of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Childress says "winds of change" are blowing in the black community, but he believes the election of Obama as America's next president would be "a step back" at best. "All polling shows that African Americans are pro-life," the pro-family advocate notes, and "all polling shows that they are not in agreement with same-sex 'marriage.'"
Childress says his organization's goal is to get these facts about black America to translate into action at the voting booth. And one way of making that happen is to make Obama's own voting record known, the Christians for Social Justice official explains. With regard to abortion that record is disheartening, he notes; "even on the Born-Alive [Infants Protection] Act, I was appalled that he would deny medical assistance to a child that survived an abortion."
Obama has become a media darling because "he's just as humanistic as they are," Childress contends. He says ObamaNation.com is an attempt to expose the Illinois senator's liberal stances on several key issues affecting the black community.
It is time, the Christians for Social Justice spokesman insists, for black social activists and pastors to hold their elected officials accountable and to stop "giving them a pass because of their party." He says, "African-American pastors at large and much of the membership of their churches -- and the African-American community -- usually just vote party without looking at the person. And that's really up to the respected, the elected, and our clergy to begin to change."
Senator Obama's support for abortion garnered him a 100 percent rating from Illinois Planned Parenthood, an organization whose founder called blacks "human weeds." But according to Childress, the Illinois lawmaker and Democratic presidential candidate does not represent the views of the African-American community on abortion or any number of other important issues, including homosexuality.
