Clergy group issues call for ‘moral voters’
Charging that the runup to the 2016 presidential election resembles the darkest days of pre-civil rights America, leaders of a new progressive association of religious leaders Monday called on Houston voters to reject candidates whose campaigns have been marked by the “rhetoric of hate and violence.”
The call for “moral voters,” issued on the steps of City Hall, came as area polls opened for the first day of early balloting. While they stopped short of naming candidates who should be opposed, members of the recently formed Faith Leaders Coalition of Greater Houston expressed disapproval of aspects of Republic presidential candidate Donald Trump’s bid for office.
“This has been a contentious election season, one that has been marked with the language of exclusion and fear, especially over the social media,” said the Rev. Jonathan Page, coalition president and pastor of First Congregational Church. “As faith leaders, we unequivocally condemn Islamophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia and antiSemitism in all its forms.”
The group’s vice president, the Rev. Lisa Hunt, pastor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, charged that the “moral authority of faith leaders has been coopted by political parties which seek to leverage our numbers and influence for their consolidation of power. The parties encouraged focus on narrow wedge issues of the culture wars, so that the voices of faith leaders have been drowned out. … The Faith Leaders Coalition of Greater Houston arises to say ‘no more.’ ”
Progressive policies
Page said the coalition consists of 50 religious leaders, representing a wide spectrum of mainstream Protestant traditions. The group also includes Catholics, Humanists, Muslims and Reform and Conservative Jews. He characterized coalition members as “liberal to moderate.”
Notably absent from the organization are Southern Baptists and other evangelical Protestants.
Trump actively has courted white evangelical voters, and a recent Public Religion Research Institute poll reports that almost 70 percent of that group favors his candidacy. Only 15 percent indicated support for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Page said his organization, which will continue to advocate for progressive social policies after the election, will reach out to local evangelical leaders in the near future.
He said the new coalition coalesced around such issues as 2015’s heated political battle over Houston’s equal rights ordinance. The city ordinance, which would have for the first time barred discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, was opposed by some evangelical clergy and rejected 2-to-1 by voters.
“I thought it got twisted unfairly,” he said of the anti-ordinance campaign, which presented the measure’s gender identification aspects as an opportunity for sexual predators to access women’s restrooms.
‘Same kind of fears’
Hunt told those gathered at City Hall that the coalition will “work together for the wholeness of our citizens in areas including the environment, housing, health and education. … While our individual members may not agree on every issue, we will work together to form a more equitable, just and peaceful city.”
Also speaking was coalition member Mustafa Carroll, executive director of the Houston chapter of the Muslim advocacy group, Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Quoting Mississippi civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, he said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
The current political climate resembles that of precivil rights Mississippi, he said.
“The same kind of fears are being stoked,” Carroll said. “Maybe it’s in our DNA, but I know our DNA is better than that. Vote, but we want you to be politically active. Vote at all times. … As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, we’re at a point of time that we should live together as brothers and sisters or we shall all perish as fools.”
Monday’s announcement was attended by approximately 20 coalition members, but received little attention from pedestrians at City Hall.