Clergy Confront Senator Graham, Urge to Withdraw Graham-Cassidy Bill
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 25, 2017
CONTACT
Michelle Nealy, mnealy@faithinpubliclife.org, (202) 735-7123
Mackenzie Harris, mharris@faithinpubliclife.org, (610) 283-8879
Interfaith Clergy Confront Senator Graham, Urge to Withdraw Graham-Cassidy Bill
Faith leaders deliver Moral Declaration calling on Senator McConnell to vote “no” on immoral health care bill
Washington, D.C. — On Monday, September 25th, interfaith clergy and community leaders rallied on Capitol Hill to condemn the Graham-Cassidy bill and called on senators to vote “NO” on this immoral piece of legislation.
Clergy delivered a Moral Declaration signed by more than 3,000 people of faith to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office. To read the entire Moral Declaration, click here.
To view a live-stream from the full event click here and to view photos click here.
Rev. Jennifer Butler, CEO, Faith in Public Life:
“We must heal the sick, take care of the poor and oppressed, bind up the broken hearted. Taking health insurance away from 34 million Americans, and jacking up costs for millions more is wrong, it is unholy and it is sinful.”
Rev. Dr. Leslie Copeland Tune, Director, Ecumenical Poverty Initiative:
“The insistence by this Congress, the Senators, even the House, to just do any old thing to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a viable replacement borders on what I would call ‘public service malpractice,’ and it is unacceptable. As a Christian, my faith calls us to care for people and to care for the least of these and to speak out on the behalf of the most vulnerable.”
Rev. Robin Tanner, Beacon Unitarian Universalist Congregation, Summit, NJ:
“We won’t stop until justice rings forth, until the core of what it means to be American and a decent human being becomes the foundation once more. Until all of our people are safe and cared for. Until all have health care. So do no harm, we say. Protect the people.”
Rev. James Brigman, North Carolina pastor, who walked from his home state to Washington D.C. in honor of his 9-year-old daughter who suffers from a rare virus and requires comprehensive health care:
“I do know the power of God, and I’m up here today speaking on behalf of my daughter and thousands of other children like her who can’t speak for themselves, that can’t walk up here for themselves, and can’t eat for themselves, the ones that have no voice. I’m thinking of each one of you. Because cutting Medicaid would be a terrible, drastic thing for them.”
Rabbi Alana Suskin:
“The Republican health care bill that strips children, families and elderly people of affordable coverage is the very definition of an unjust law. Isaiah: 10 warns, ‘Woe to you who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.’”
Samson Hampton, Disability Rights and Health Care Advocate and affected person from Rhode Island:
“I take about 150 pills a week to survive and my Medicaid pays for it. And if [the Senators] cut Medicaid I will literally die. The speakers today have been asking the Senators to vote ‘no’, I’m not asking them to vote ‘no’ I’m asking them to not kill me.”
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Faith in Public Life is a strategy center for the faith community advancing faith in the public square as a powerful force for justice, compassion and the common good.