Chad Groening – OneNewsNow – 1/20/2011
The president of a Protestant renewal organization is blasting a Methodist agency for pressuring church members to “Drop the I-Word.”

The Capitol Hill-based General Commission on Religion and Race of The United Methodist Church (GCORR) is one of several Methodist groups that have already expressed disapproval of any effort to stem the tide of illegal immigration into the United States. But now, the GCORR is taking the issue a step further as it has joined a left-wing ACORN ally’s “Drop the I-Word” campaign to demand that no one ever be referred to as “illegal” by concluding that anyone who does use “the ‘I’ word” is a racist.

“It’s almost Orwellian or even totalitarian to try to banish a word for political purposes, especially in an effort to erase clarity,” contends Mark Tooley, president of The Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD). “Obviously, violating America’s immigration laws is illegal by definition.”

But he explains that Methodist agencies and documents already avoid any use of the word “illegal” when discussing immigration, so he believes this GCORR campaign is directed more at individuals who are members of Methodist churches around America.