Faith leaders across nation arrested for acts of civil disobedience in protest of family separation

[babylonsister]

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/27/1775874/-Faith-leaders-across-nation-arrested-in-acts-of-civil-disobedience-in-protest-of-family-separation

Faith leaders across nation arrested for acts of civil disobedience in protest of family separation
Gabe Ortiz
Daily Kos Staff
Wednesday June 27, 2018 · 12:38 PM EDT


Chanting “reunite” and holding signs reading “Stop separating families,” hundreds of demonstrators, including faith leaders, protested outside the Federal Courthouse in Los Angeles Tuesday, near the hotel where Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III was due to speak to the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

Inside the hotel, Sessions used his time to crack a “joke” about the more than 2,000 migrant kids kidnapped from their parents. Outside the nearby courthouse, dozens of demonstrators, including clergy members wearing religious robes, chanted and were arrested in defense of those children.

“Sometimes you have to break the law,” said Pastor Sandra Olewine of the First Methodist Church in Pasadena, the first demonstrator taken into custody after a group blocked the street in an act of civil disobedience. “We are sitting down for the children.”

Despite Donald Trump’s sham executive order, the administration has no plan set in place on how to reunite the 2,000 kids separated from parents at the border. Instead, reports indicate that some parents have already been deported without their children. This is a moral crisis that faith leaders said merits direct action, including their own arrests.

“We are building a just and sacred society,” Rabbi Jonathan Klein said. “My faith says I have no choice but to be here.”

Members of the clergy from different denominations hold hands as they block the road in front of the Federal Building ahead of their arrest in an act of civil disobedience as they joined activists protesting the visit of Attorney General Jeff Sessions as well as the Trump-administrations hard line immigration policies in Los Angeles, California on June 26, 2018. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP) (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)

All across the country, faith leaders have escalated their moral resistance to Trump’s racist mass deportation policies. In Washington, D.C. that same day, another group of clergy, including Rev. Dr. William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign, were arrested in protest of family separation and other unjust policies.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

“Jesus said that nations will be judged by how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the incarcerated and the immigrant,” Rev. Barber and faith leaders said. “’Woe unto you who legislate evil,’ the prophet Isaiah declares, ‘and rob the poor of their right.’”

Sessions is also facing a formal complaint from more than 600 of his fellow Methodists for separating kids from parents. “As his denomination,” they wrote, “we have an ethical obligation to speak boldly when one of our members is engaged in causing significant harm in matters contrary to the Discipline on the global stage.”

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Wonder if any of the RW x-tians will protesting with them?

Not a serious question of course.