Congrats — sincerely — to Annise Parker for her mayoral victory in Houston. Fourth largest city in America. A banner event for gay people, just (just?) 32 years after Harvey Milk’s election.
But I was focused instead on this story out of Houston, showing that the (Christian-based) Salvation Army is among several charities in the Houston area requiring families seeking support to supply proof of legal immigration status to receive toys for their kids and food on their table. I like this observation:
Suppose the parents had committed a crime that’s even more serious than moving across an international boundary without permission in order to do work in exchange for money (hard to imagine a more serious offense, I know). What if they’d, I dunno, broken into people’s homes and stolen jewelry and now they’re in jail. Is the Salvation Army going to say that their kids shouldn’t have toys to play with? What sense does that make?
Do you think it’s crossed their little minds that the Holy Family was a homeless immigrant family at the time of Jesus’s birth?