Faith leaders in Texas are accusing Gov. Greg Abbott and other Republicans of using ‘election integrity’ as an excuse to enact restrictive laws that target voters of color.
Faith leaders in Texas condemned a pair of controversial election bills Wednesday (April 7) working their way through the state Legislature, accusing lawmakers of trying to “dress up Jim and Jane Crow in a tuxedo.”
An array of clergy and other religious leaders assembled outside the Capitol in Austin to express opposition to the bills, known as SB 7 and HB 6. They invoked their respective faiths while criticizing provisions of the proposed legislation such as banning drive-thru voting, shortening early voting hours, sending mail voting applications only to voters who request them and requiring disabled voters to prove their disability with documentation from a physician or the federal government.
“We have those in leadership — in Texas government — (people) who have in their ideological DNA the same mindset of those slave masters who denied the humanity of Black people,” said the Rev. Frederick Haynes III, pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas. “The same mindset of those individuals who upheld Jim and Jane Crow segregation.” Continue reading.