Acronyms like DINO (Democrat in Name Only) and RINO (Republican in Name Only) are generally thrown around as pejoratives, suggesting that the person in question claims to be a member of one party while disagreeing with or failing to support key issues by which that party is traditionally identified.
Nobody better exemplifies this term than Harry Jackson, who continues to get mileage out of pretending that he is a Democrat:
Similarly, evangelical leader Bishop Harry R. Jackson, Jr., who leads a socially conservative black pastors group called High Impact Leadership Coalition, has urged his black congregation in Maryland as well as other black Christians to vote on their values rather than their race.
Jackson is a registered Democrat but has joined several Focus on the Family Action broadcasts to criticize Obama for his support of abortion and same-sex “marriage.”
Yesterday, Jackson joined a group of African American and Latino pastors in Florida to rally supporters to ban gay marriage and again used his Democratic affiliation to create the impression that his efforts are something beyond standard right-wing activism:
A group of black and Latino pastors pledged Wednesday to rally support among their congregations for Amendment 2, the measure that would essentially ban gay marriage in Florida.
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“We are not standing here against gays,” Bishop Harry R. Jackson Jr. the coalition’s leader and pastor of Hope Christian Center in Beltsville, Md., said at a news conference at the Tampa church. “We’re standing simply to proclaim that marriage should be preserved.”
Nearly 40 pastors stood behind Jackson, the second gathering of bay area pastors working to support Amendment 2. This month, a separate, similar effort launched that drew mostly white Southern Baptist pastors.
Jackson, who is a black Democrat, said he aims to build bridges between minority and white clerics so they can work together on social issues from a biblical perspective.
As we pointed out several months ago, Jackson’s “Democratic” affiliation is purely a political tactic, which he fully admits:
I voted for President Bush, but here in Maryland—a primarily Democratic state—in order to vote in the primaries that affect the election, you need to be a Democrat. That’s where I started. Over time, however, I’ve found that I have very little in common with the Democratic Party in terms of national moral values issues. Still, being able to say I’m a registered Democrat disarms many of the people who want to write me off as an “Oreo” or an “Uncle Tom.”
Need more proof? Well, generally Democrats don’t respond to allegations that one of John McCain’s high-level staffers is gay by calling on McCain to be more vocal in support of efforts to deny marriage equality in order to minimize the damage:
A conservative Christian pastor and political activist says the revelation that John McCain’s Senate chief of staff is an open homosexual should compel the presidential hopeful and his running mate Sarah Palin to “rise up” and “unashamedly” declare their support for traditional marriage.
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Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., of the High Impact Leadership Coalition says the Buse revelation is not likely to diminish McCain’s support among conservatives. However, the Maryland pastor is concerned that U.S. senator has not been more vocal about the marriage amendment battles in Florida, California, and his home state of Arizona.
