(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - Inspired by a common spiritual conviction that God has called on all Americans to protect the vulnerable and promote the dignity of all individuals living in society, the interfaith coalition is aiming to protect those struggling to overcome poverty in the U.S. and abroad and to exclude programs that protect people in poverty from the budget deficit debates.
More than 25 heads of communion and national religious organizations are spearheading an 18-month faith-based public policy campaign to urge Congress and the Administration to exempt programs that assist at-risk families and children in the U.S. and abroad from budget cuts. The campaign will consist of high-level meetings with policymakers, a Washington fly-in of religious leaders and daily prayer vigils among other actions.
The daily prayer vigils are being held in Washington DC on the front lawn of the United Methodist Building (100 Maryland Avenue, NE, Washington, DC).
Led by a different religious organization each day at 12:30 p.m. EDT, the prayer vigils will continue throughout the White House led budget negotiations. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) led a prayer vigil on 12 July.
The campaign was announced via a teleconference featuring a number of the country's leading religious officials.
During the briefing, Dr. Sayyid M. Syeed, the National Director for the Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances at the Islamic Society of North America, spoke first about our responsibility to stand up for those who cannot speak for themselves.
He said, "It is our religious duty as part of the faith communities to convey our concerns about the problems of the budget cuts that will directly impact low income individuals and the dispossessed. We are asking for a budget that should be just and equitable. It is our Islamic duty because this is one of the pillars of Islam."
Rabbi Steve Gutow, President of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, added, "To hurt the poor by trying to balance the budget or lessen the debt is a little bit ridiculous." He went on to say, "We were known by our founders as a city on a hill with a light of justice that emanated forth and we cannot and we must not be any less than who we are."
Sister Mary Hughes OP, President of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious noted that "Because of the lag in current funding, homelessness is up 15 percent in my state. There are usually one or more children involved in each [homeless] family. There are faces associated with budget numbers."
Chemberlin, President, National Council of Churches, said "Extreme politicians are threatening to stop Medicare and Social Security payments, stop paying our men and women fighting overseas, plunge even more Americans into unemployment, and completely abandon the poor, only so that they can maintain a few tax loopholes for the richest Americans."
To kick-off the campaign, the religious leaders sent urgent letters this week to President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) stating that "People who are served by government programs -- those who are poor, sick, and hungry, older adults, children, and people with disabilities -- should not bear the brunt of the budget-cutting burden."
The religious leaders wrote, "We share our grave concern and dismay that the ongoing conversations and negotiations regarding our nation's budget may yield an outcome that places individuals and families struggling with poverty at risk of even further hardship while shielding the wealthiest in our nation from any additional sacrifice."
In addition, the religious leaders, writing as the heads of numerous U.S.-based religious institutions and faith-based organizations that have worked for decades in conjunction with federal programs to combat domestic and foreign poverty, made it clear that religious groups would be unable to make up the difference in funding if the government further cuts or eliminates programs for society's most vulnerable populations.
The interfaith leaders warn that without a sustained federal commitment to federal- and state-run assistance programs, religious organizations and Houses of Worship while doing their best to help, cannot be the sole support for the country's most vulnerable in their most pressing times of need.
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