Faith-driven effort launched to aid gun control advocacy
NEW YORK — A leading gun control advocacy group has enlisted more t han a dozen religious leaders to boost voter turnout this fall in support of candidates who support measures to prevent gun violence.
Every town for Gun Safety, which expects to spend $60 million on this year's elections, is forging its interfaith effort amid ongoing concerns about shootings at houses of worship. The group's partners include representatives from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds, several of them well-known progressive activists.
Among those joining Everytown's initiative, details of which were shared with The Associated Press ahead of its official announcement, are evangelical Shane Claiborne, president of t he group Red Letter Christians, and Rev. Traci Blackmon, a United Church of Christ executive minister and a central member of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Another is Rev. Rob Schenck, a former evangelical anti-abortion activist who has since shifted to support the Roev.Wa de decision and sought to redefine a“pro-life” agenda as one t hat supports gun control.
Sch en ck described gun violence as a“life or death issue, which makes it a supreme moral consideration.”
“Churches, especially white evangelical churches, have largely ignored this question -- I think, much to their own detriment and to the detriment of the people they're called to serve,” said Schenck, president of the Washingtonbased nonprofit Dietrich Bonhoeffer Institute.
In addition to reaching out to clergy on gun policy issues, Schenck said, the Everytown interfaith project would aim to educate rank-and-file faith voters about candidates' stances on gun matters.
“You never want to pray for something you're unwilling to be the answer to,” he added. “So if we pray for a reduction in gun violence, we have to be ready to act on that prayer.”
Every town, cofounded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, counts 6 million supporters and already has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Biden released a proposal last month to boost security at houses of worship.
“The faith community has seen firsthand the devastating effects of gun violence in places of worship and feels more than ever that they have an urgent moral responsibility to stop the scourge of gun violence in America — and they're doing so by mobilizing their networks around candidates who support broadly popular gun safety measures in 2020,” Angela FerrellZ ab ala, chief equity, outreach and partnerships officer at Everytown, said in a statement.
President Donald Trump is campaigning for reelection as a proponent of gun rights after previously weighing, then walking back, calls for Congress to strengthen gun laws. Several members of Every town' s interfaith initiative are known as religious critics of Trump's record, including Schenck, Blackmon and Michael McBride, a California-based pastor who's active in helping communities of color during the pandemic.
Whether gun control advocates can make new inroads with voters of faith remains an open question. Michael Hammond, legislative counsel at the Gun Owners of America, recalled then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's 2008 comment that some disaffected working-class voters “cling to guns or religion” to help identify a nexus between faithdriven and gun- rights voters.