Clergy Call 2009 Transcript: Tony Campolo
Clergy Call 2009 Press Conference Remarks
My name is Tony Campolo. I am an Evangelical Christian. Most of the leaders of the Evangelical movement have made strong claims that, whatever their differences about beliefs and practices with gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender persons, they want those persons to know that, as Evangelical Christians, they love them. Well, now is the chance to demonstrate that love. They can do that by joining efforts to support this bill that extends the federal hate crime law to include violent offenses and discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation, and disability.
Justice is love translated into social policy, and this proposed law is designed to extend justice to Americans who often do not have avenues to obtain the same protection under the law that the rest of us enjoy. Sometimes, local authorities do not prosecute hate crimes as they should, perhaps because of the biases and prejudices that exist within the communities that elected them. Sometimes, in certain communities, hate crimes are not viewed as serious by some juries in courts of law. This federal law would give to those who fail to get justice on the local level recourse on the federal level.
The call for justice appears hundreds of times in scripture, and for that reason alone, we Evangelicals who have such a high view of scripture should want justice for gays, lesbians, bi-sexual, and transgender persons.
One thing more: this bill does nothing to take away from any preacher his or her First Amendment rights. There’s protection for those in the pulpit and for preachers to say what they want to say anywhere else, as long as it does not promote violence.
I support these bills because I believe in justice, because I believe in the scripture, and because I believe that every evangelical that wears the WWJD pin should be asking, “What Would Jesus Do?”
I support H.R. 1913. [1]
1 This is the draft that Tony wrote on May 4, 2009. An additional paragraph was added on May 5, 2009, to include remarks about Matthew Shepard, ENDA, the concept WWJD and Christians knowing “What Jesus would do”.
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