Land apologizes for Nazi analogy for Obama plan

NEW YORK — The head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) has apologized for comparing Democratic health-care proposals to policies of Nazi Germany. ERLC President Richard Land reportedly told a Christian Coalition of Florida banquet in Orlando Sept. 26 — the night before the high Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur — that Democratic leaders were advocating reform that will result in rationing of health care. Such policies, he said, were driven by the same ideology that fueled the Holocaust. “I want to put it to you bluntly,” Land said, according to the Florida Baptist Witness. “What they are attempting to do in health care, particularly in treating the elderly, is not something like what the Nazis did. It is precisely what the Nazis did.”

Land went on to bestow an imaginary “Dr. Josef Mengele Award” on Ezekiel Emanuel, a doctor who is the president’s chief health-care adviser. The Anti-Defamation League called on Land to apologize and refrain from similar comments in the future. Land responded Oct. 14 saying he never intended to “equate the Obama administration’s health-care reform proposals with anything related to the Holocaust.”

“Now that I have had the opportunity to speak with you personally and reflect on my words, I deeply regret the reference to Dr. Josef Mengele,” Land wrote.

“I was using hyperbole for effect and never intended to actually equate anyone in the Obama administration with Dr. Mengele. I will certainly refrain from making such references in the future. I apologize to everyone who found such references hurtful.”