Pastors Decry Harmful Policies Passed in Legislative Session

Advocacy group says General Assembly moved state away from a "moral agenda"

A group of Tennessee pastors affiliated with the Southern Christian Coalition is decrying the recently concluded session of the Tennessee General Assembly as one that moved the state away from what the group calls a "moral policy agenda."

Rev. Brandon Baxter, Pastor of East End United Methodist Church, Nashville said, "A moral agenda draws on the words of Jesus saying, 'so in everything do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Baxter said that a moral agenda based on these principles would "expand Medicaid and resource rural hospitals so that they can remain open, acknowledge that reproductive rights are between a woman her faith leader and her doctor, prioritize housing those experiencing homelessness instead of criminalizing them, resourcing public schools and increasing teacher pay instead of financing private schools through vouchers or pseudo private schools, protecting children in state custody, providing them a bedroom to sleep in, instead of an office couch, taking children's accusations of abuse seriously, rejecting discriminatory and oppressive bills against LGBTQ communities, fighting for racial equality and against white Christian nationalism, getting rid of the death penalty once and for all and of course, passing common sense gun reform so that our children and communities can be safe from gun violence."

 Rev. Rick Roberts, Pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church in Nashville shared that less than 2 months ago he joined a group of ministers calling for common sense gun reform. "Governor Lee and the Tennessee Supermajority Legislature have had had years to answer our call to stop or repeal permitless carry, to pass an Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) to temporarily remove firearms from people deemed by a judge to be a danger to themselves and others. These are common sense laws, supported by over 70% of our Tennessee brothers and sisters. 88% of Tennesseans call for universal background checks. Yet, even after Covenant, our Supermajority would not even consider these bills, which is immoral and negligent."

The group noted that Gov. Lee has recently issued a call for a special legislative session gun violence.

Tennessee pastors speak out on the legislative sessionPhoto bySouthern Christian Coalition