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Archive
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| Voting Rights or Voting Wrongs?: Clergy Combat New Restrictive Laws |
| July 30, 2021 |
Host Ambereen Khan talks with two clergy activists, Rev. Timothy McDonald, and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner about the struggle to preserve voting rights. (Originally broadcast in June 2021) |
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| Voting Rights or Voting Wrongs?: Clergy Combat New Restrictive Laws |
July 30, 2021 |
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Since last year's presidential election, a torrential wave of voting reform laws has been proposed by state legislatures. According to a report from the Brennan Center at the New York University School of Law -- as of May 14, legislators have introduced at least 389 bills to restrict the vote in 48 states. Many of these laws are linked to what Democrats and others call the "Big Lie" –the false assertion that President Donald Trump was the real winner of the 2020 election and that President Joe Biden's election happened through widespread voter fraud. Just as they did in the Civil Rights Era, a large and growing number of religious leaders and faith-based activists are mobilizing to push back. Host Ambereen Khan talks with two of those clergy activists, Rev. Timothy McDonald of Atlanta’s Iconium Baptist Church and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The Rev. Timothy McDonald and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner unpack their reasons for organizing against new voting reform laws making their way through most state legislatures. Both describe these new laws as aimed at suppressing the votes of minorities and the poor and both link their activism to their religious convictions.
They describe their activism against new voting laws in Georgia, where McDonald is a pastor, and beyond. Both men believe a successful movement must build on the foundations of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, both born with the help of faith-based activism, and want to see a movement that includes religious people of all backgrounds as well as the non-religious, or "Nones".
Rev. Timothy McDonald, III, Founder of the African American Ministers Leadership Council and President of the African American Ministers In Action of People for the American Way, Senior Pastor of the First Iconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Rev. McDonald received a B.A. from Berry College in Rome, Ga., and holds a Master of Divinity from Emory University
Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner. Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Senior Vice President of the Union for Reform Judaism, Ordained at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, he received his BA from Wesleyan University.
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