<\/p>\n
In Georgia, faith leaders are asking corporate executives to condemn laws restricting voting access \u2013 or face a boycott. In Arizona and Texas, clergy have assembled outside the state capitols to decry what they view as voter-suppression measures targeting Black and Hispanic people.<\/p>\n
Similar initiatives have been undertaken in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio and elsewhere as many faith leaders perceive a threat to voting rights that warrants their intervention in a volatile political issue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very much in a part of our tradition, as Christians, to be engaged in the public square,\u201d said the Rev. Dr. Eric Ledermann, pastor at University Presbyterian Church in Tempe, Arizona, after the event outside the Statehouse.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people say, \u2018Let\u2019s not get political in the church\u2019 \u2013 Jesus was very political,\u201d Ledermann said. \u201cHe was engaged in how his culture, his community was being shaped, and who was being left out of the decision-making process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Georgia already has enacted legislation with various restrictive voting provisions. More than 350 voting bills are now under consideration in dozens of other states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy think tank. Among the proposals: tightening requirements for voter IDs, reducing the number of ballot drop boxes and curtailing early voting.<\/p>\n
African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Reginald Jackson, who oversees AME churches in Georgia, has been urging corporate leaders to do more to fight voting restrictions. So far, he\u2019s dissatisfied with the response, and says he may call for boycotts of some companies.<\/p>\n
In numerous states, voting rights activism is being led by multifaith coalitions that include Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups. Here is what some of the faith leaders are saying:<\/p>\n
The Rev. Dr. Cassandra Gould, director of Missouri Faith Voices, for whom the issue is \u201cvery personal\u201d:<\/em>\u201cI\u2019m from Alabama, a little town called Demopolis. It\u2019s 47 miles west of Selma, where my mother fought for rights, went to jail on Bloody Sunday (in 1965). \u2026 So those are the stories that I grew up with. I never imagined that I would still be fighting the same fight.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a playbook to suppress votes, to shrink the electorate. And we believe fundamentally, as a tenet of faith, that it should be expanded so that people are included, not excluded.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rev. Dr. Warren H. Stewart Sr., senior pastor at First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix and chairman of Arizona\u2019s African American Christian Clergy Coalition:<\/em>\u201cIf you read the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, it talks about justice, talks about being on the side of the oppressed, the downtrodden, the orphan, the poor. And this whole voter-suppression issue is about fighting against those who would oppress people of color, the poor, people who are struggling to make it in life. So it is a faith issue as much as a justice issue. They\u2019re not disconnected.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reaction of the Republican Party, to the most people ever voting in the history of the United States, is that \u2018we\u2019re gonna lose in the future.\u2019 So it\u2019s very obvious that this is not about accountability or about ethics, it\u2019s about politics. And that\u2019s unjust, and so that\u2019s why we\u2019re out here.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rev. Frederick Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas:<\/em>\u201cWe have those in leadership \u2013 in Texas government \u2013 who have in their ideological DNA the same mindset of those slave masters who denied the humanity of Black people. The same mindset of those individuals who upheld Jim and Jane Crow segregation. \u2026 Gov. (Greg) Abbot and his Republican cronies have decided to dress up Jim and Jane Crow in a tuxedo of what they call voter integrity, but it\u2019s still Jim and Jane Crow. \u2026 You are simply trying to create a problem for voters you don\u2019t want to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rev. Edwin Robinson, organizer of Dallas Black Clergy:<\/em>\u201cNo matter what side of the political aisle you find yourself, any attempt to hinder voting is an attempt to take away our greatest freedom and liberty. \u2026 We should be doing everything to protect our greatest freedoms \u2013 and make ways for our citizens to enthusiastically vote and do so free from fear and intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n The Rev. Anne Ellsworth, priest at St. Augustine\u2019s Episcopal Parish in Tempe:<\/em>\u201cI am a pastor in a white congregation. I am a priest in a church, the Episcopal Church, that is famous for our white, Christian, moderate stance. \u2026 My interest is in awakening knowledge in other white, moderate, Christian women who have remained silent or who have felt powerless or think that it doesn\u2019t matter to them. My guiding light is a quote from Martin Luther King: \u2018There are not enough white people who value or who cherish democratic principles more than white privilege.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cWhite Christian women know what it is to have our voices silenced. And we cannot stand by while other people\u2019s voices are also being silenced. We need to recognize our privilege and use it as leverage to fight voter suppression aimed at Black Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabbi Lydia Medwin of The Temple in Atlanta:<\/p>\n \u201cThe Jewish community has responded to the call of our African American brothers and sisters since the Civil Rights era began. When our partners and people that we care deeply about say to us, \u2018We\u2019re hurting, we\u2019re being treated unfairly,\u2019 we have no other response but to step up.\u201d<\/p>\n Rabbi David Segal, Texas organizer for the Religious Action Center for Judaism Reform:<\/em>\u201cThe backlash against Georgia passing legislation is actually helping us in Texas, because we\u2019re able to point to that and organize the anger around those laws to try and stop it here. \u2026 People of faith stand for inclusion and stand for respect and stand for acceptance and a different kind of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Florida, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio consider initiatives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,407],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-religion-and-belief"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47177"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}