Comprehensive reform won’t get passed without some Republican support. Evangelicals said they support reform because they don’t want to see families ripped apart by deportations and restrictive immigration laws. But don’t count on evangelicals to continue to support immigration reform if it includes provisions to ease immigration for gay and lesbian couples, a measure Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Mike Honda (D-Calif.) want included in a comprehensive reform bill:

Taking the lead for immigration overhaul is the National Association of Evangelicals, an umbrella group that represents more than 40 denominations. Last year the association passed a resolution calling for comprehensive immigration overhaul, and this year reform is one of its top three policy priorities, along with reducing abortions and studying the impact of climate change on the poor. The association’s president, the Rev. Leith Anderson, was in the front row for Mr. Obama’s address, along with Dr. Land and Mr. Rodriguez.

One of the more recent converts to overhaul is Mr. Staver. He said that deporting illegal immigrants violated the biblical imperative to welcome the stranger. “We’re going to break up families,” Mr. Staver said, “and I don’t see how you could claim to be pro-family and condone the separation of families.”

(To which Mr. Fischer responded, “We don’t want to break up families, so let’s help them all return to their country of origin.”)

Mr. Staver was one of six evangelical leaders, including two prominent black evangelicals, who issued a statement last month advocating a comprehensive new law. One, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican candidate for Ohio governor in 2006 and now a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, said he expected more evangelical leaders to come on board.

But Mr. Blackwell said the whole effort could implode if the final legislation extended family reunification provisions to same-sex couples where one spouse did not have legal status. For evangelicals, he said, “That would be a deal-breaker.”

“What Would Jesus Do” if he owed money to a collection agency? That’s one of several questions raised by a lawsuit filed in a Minnesota court. A Monticello debt collection company is facing a federal class action lawsuit because it sent out collections notices with a WWJD header. The case pits the religious rights of a small business against the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act which prohibits harassing, oppressive or abusive communication in debt collection procedures.

According to court documents, Bullseye Collection Agency sent a collection notice to Mark and Sara Neill that had “WWJD” at the top of the notice, which the Neills contend “has the effect of invoking shame or guilt in alleged debtors and ‘portray[s] the debtor as a sinner who is going to hell.’” [...]

“WWJD is not illegal,” senior counsel Horatio Mihet said. “The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act forbids only religious slurs and insults, but does not prohibit courteous references to people of historical, philosophical or religious significance. Courts cannot be used to legitimize religious harassment. The big business bully thought it could crush its competition by pouncing on it with a lawsuit. Liberty Counsel will not permit that to happen.”