Bishop Charles E. Blake, head of the 6 million member Church of God in Christ, is also the leader of a group of black church leaders who are endorsing healthcare reform, specifically supporting President Obama's various priorities and proposals. I haven't been able to find any other names from this group, but when I do I'll post them.
This is good news on a couple of fronts. First, it gives a boost to healthcare reform, especially reform that actually makes it easier for the poor and middle class to afford healthcare rather than just transfers money from the US Treasury to insurance company executives' personal bank accounts. Secondly, it shows, again, just how spectacularly the GOP's purported outreach to minorities has failed. Since Bishop Blake and those with him base their support largely upon taking Obama at his word that healthcare reform won't violate the Hyde Amendment, it's not unrealistic to consider that they could have easily decided not to trust Obama, to throw their lot in with those (white) people who claim to oppose reform based upon their belief that taxpayers will fund elective abortions.
When your main argument against healthcare reform is that Obama is a Welfare Thug with a bone in his nose, it's hard for non-whites to take you seriously when you assure them that you're not racist. I'm just saying.
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, Blake is throwing his support behind healthcare reform because he believes that US law will remain unchanged, that women who otherwise qualifiy for public support for their healthcare will be denied assistance for a perfectly legal procedure because a minority of Americans, the vast majority of them men who have no skin in the game, as it were, believe that pregnancy is divine punishment for being naughty and sinners shouldn't be allowed to escape it. Forward with one foot, backward with another. This stuff isn't so much sausage-making as it is a demented game of Twister played in the dark while drunk, the caller giving instructions and colors in ancient Sumerian.
