This morning six people knelt in prayer singing Amazing Grace in front of the doors leading to the Alabama Senate chambers. They would not be moved, just as Legislators have not been moved by the pleas of thousands of Alabamians to repeal the nation’s harshest anti-immigrant law.
They were compelled by conscience and faith to stand against an unjust law — a faith leader, a student, a retiree, and citizens who were once undocumented immigrants. A mother with her baby also joined the prayers and singing to protest the way the law “rips mamas from babies” and causes children to live in fear of losing their parents.
This law causes good people to face unjust arrest every day. They risk arrest when they go to work to support their families, when they drive to church or the grocery store, and when they take their children to school. Today love moved us to risk arrest for them.
Responding to the mocking of churches by some Legislative leaders, Rev. Fred Hammond said, “When moral and religious teachings are dismissed as exaggerations, then it is necessary for people of faith and of conscience to step up and do everything in their power to prevent such laws. To remain silent is to be complicit with such evil.”
