"Republicans and Tea Party conservatives have long peddled themselves as America’s moral compass, citing scripture as they propose regressive laws and policies. But when a growing coalition of North Carolina progressives descended on Raleigh, N.C., Monday to decry the state’s Republican legislature, they drew support from another source of moral authority: progressive faith leaders. Throngs of demonstrators gathered outside the North Carolina statehouse on Monday, as they have every Monday since April 29th, to engage in the latest chapter in an ongoing showdown between the North Carolinians and their state government in a movement known as Moral Mondays. A clergy-led grassroots movement, Moral Mondays has brought thousands of North Carolinians from all walks of life to the state capitol to pray, protest, and denounce a series of right-wing laws and proposals currently making their way through the state legislature. The Moral Mondays movement, which is gaining support from five major Christian denominations, was originally spawned as a response to a regressive tax proposal that threatened to cut taxes for North Carolina’s wealthiest 5 percent while also raising taxes on the other 95 percent. But as the movement nears its third month, advocates are expanding their criticisms to include a growing list of extreme bills and laws endorsed by the Republican-dominated state leadership. These proposals, many of which have already passed through the state legislature, would: – Block the expansion of Medicaid in North Carolina – Institute discriminatory voter ID laws – Cut preschool for 30,000 children and move $90 million originally slotted for public education to an expanded school voucher program – Allow for hydraulic fracking in the state. – Repeal the Racial Justice Act, a 2009 law that allows death row inmates to appeal their conviction if they prove that racial bias played a role in their sentence."
Posted on: Wed, 19 Jun 2013 03:07:27 +0000
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