By The Rev. Charles F. McCarron
Episcopal Diocese of Long Island
Episcopal Community Services Executive Director
Led by Bishop Provenzano, a group of us participated in a peaceful witness of presence by walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, calling for comprehensive immigration reform and justice for the strangers in our midst.
A better symbolic action couldn’t have been chosen than that of crossing bridges.
Muslims, Christians and Jews; Hispanics, Asians, Europeans and Africans, seniors and children, all took part. The date for the witness, July 29th, was chosen, because it was the date when the new Arizona State immigration law, perhaps the greatest sign of the need for comprehensive reform, took effect.
Arizona has taken center stage in the debate about how to fix our badly broken immigration system. The apparent failure of the Federal government to take on comprehensive immigration reform, has left a gap which localities and states are beginning to try to fill. Most people on both sides of the debate regard Arizona’s law as poorly crafted.
What people may not realize is that police associations and top cops around the country and across the state oppose the new law for the burden and risk of civil rights violations that it places on law enforcement officers.
Because of the dangers to civil rights that the Arizona law presents many religious groups have voiced their opposition.
Our Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori addressed the Arizona law on June 15 at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and perhaps gives the best summary of the issues, and the rationale for why a group of Episcopalians may choose to witness to the need for immigration reform and justice, by walking across a bridge on a hot summer day.
I encourage you to read the Presiding Bishop's statement.
CLICK HERE for the Presiding Bishop's web page and statement
