Celebrating Victories
by Anthony Suggs
On September 5, 2017, the current presidential administration announced its intention to fully repeal the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) program. DACA offered temporary immigration status to individuals brought to the United States as children. The very next day I started my job at the Office of the Bishop, tasked with building a robust Advocacy & Social Justice Ministry for the Episcopal Church in Colorado. Immigration seemed like a good place to start. Within a week, I was attending an emergency community meeting, where activists, faith leaders, and community members met with and heard from people directly affected by the repeal of DACA. A local DACA recipient was clear: “If we are fighting only for the rights of those who were brought here as children,” she told us “and not for their parents, we aren’t fighting for enough. If we care only about keeping half a family here while the other half is deported, we aren’t fighting for enough.” We need to dream bigger, she said to us. In essence, we need to dream as God dreams.
In the realm of immigration reform — just one of the many policy areas in which the diocese has ministries — things have gotten even more complicated since September 5, 2017. We have had victories and setbacks. We have learned over the past two years the importance of celebration and gratitude in the midst of struggle. Taking time to celebrate victories as we are working for social justice is an important spiritual practice. If we fail to recognize where we have truly made a difference, we can get lost in despair and fail to see God’s hand in our work and ministry. I have no doubt that God has been hard at work in us these past two years. So, I thought I’d take this chance to tell you about the amazing things I have seen God do through our diocesan ministry in advocacy and social justice…so far.
Community Partnerships
None of this work would be possible without the strong relationships that we have developed with amazing organizations working for a better Colorado for all. In 2018, we became the first denomination-wide member of Together Colorado, joining them in their ministry and work of community organizing in Colorado. Our partnership with Together Colorado has focused on state-level immigration reform, intent on creating more oversight and accountability for private prisons like the ICE Processing Center in Aurora, which the GEO Group operates with little outside accountability.
We have also worked closely with the Colorado Council of Churches to form the Voices for Justice group during the 2018 and 2019 legislative sessions. Made up of faith leaders and lay people from many denominations, this group meets every week to track, report on, and analyze policy. In addition, the group identifies major legislation and organizes faith-based testimony at committee hearings in the capitol building.
Many of you may have read in the most recent edition of the Colorado Episcopalian that this work has culminated in the formation of Faithful Tuesdays. On Faithful Tuesdays during the legislative session, a coalition of faith groups hosts weekly press conferences and actions in the capitol building to highlight the need for economic justice, equity, and combating racism in our statewide policy. This coalition includes the Episcopal Church in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Synod (ELCA), Together Colorado, Colorado Council of Churches, Rocky Mountain Rabbinical Council, Colorado Sikhs, the Interfaith Alliance of Colorado, the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, the NAACP, Mile High Ministries, and more. With an average attendance of 40 to 50 people every week, Faithful Tuesdays offers a public witness to our legislators that the faith community of Colorado wants justice and dignity for all Coloradans.
I’m pleased to say that our ministry brought more than our presence and public witness at the capitol. It brought meaningful legislative results as well.
Legislative Advocacy
Our ministry of legislative advocacy has been full of life, community, and connection. The Lent/Easter 2018 edition of the Colorado Episcopalian (“Christ Has No Body Now But Yours”) explains how all of our legislative advocacy is rooted in the acts of General Convention of the Episcopal Church and the resolutions of Executive Council, which are the governing bodies of the Episcopal Church. This rootedness gives us the full weight of the Church as we pursue policies that bring dignity, justice, and compassion. This rootedness, combined with the community connections I just described, have resulted in some truly incredible victories. I want to give you two examples: a bill and a constitutional amendment.On the heels of the DACA announcement in 2017, the immigrants’ rights community in Colorado was hard at work improving the lives of immigrants in Colorado. Our primary focus was SB251, a bill to protect, strengthen, and improve an existing program that allowed certain undocumented immigrants to receive a valid Colorado driver license.
Access to these identity documents improves access to work opportunities, keeps individuals safe from the dangers of uninsured driving, and reduces overall numbers of detentions and deportations, many of which start with traffic stops. One of our own Latino mission developers, the Rev. César Hernández, testified before a house committee in support of this bill. Ultimately, our coalition was able to secure bipartisan support in the 2018 legislative session and passed the bill through the Senate (controlled by Republicans) and the House (controlled by Democrats), making life easier and safer for our immigrant brothers and sisters in Colorado. Our work continued in 2019 when we successfully passed a bill expanding the program from four to ten DMV offices across the state.
During the same legislative session, we were also laying the groundwork for the full abolition of slavery from the Colorado state constitution. At that time, our constitution prohibited slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for crime. We joined many other Coloradans in saying that slavery and involuntary servitude should be prohibited without exception. There are two ways a constitutional amendment can make it to the ballot to be approved by the people: an amendment can be petitioned with signatures or be referred by the legislature. Amendment A was referred by the legislature. Not only that, it passed unanimously through both chambers, an almost unheard of level of bipartisanship.
A similar amendment was proposed in 2016 by many of the same people we are currently working with. But the language included in the Colorado Voter Guide (and the ballot itself) was confusing, and the amendment failed. This time, we decided to make the ballot language a top priority. I chaired the legislative subcommittee responsible for fine tuning the language and worked with the Legislative Council to ensure that Colorado voters could finally end slavery in all circumstances. In the end, we won, and the Church played its part in passing a constitutional amendment.
So, as you can see, we have much to celebrate, and it is in celebrating this achievement that we can discern the next steps of our ministry as the Episcopal Church in Colorado. What gifts are you already bringing to the table? How can I better involve you, your loved ones, and your community? I look forward to hearing from you because, as amazing as the last two years have been, I’m sure it will be nothing compared to what we can do together going forward.
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Anthony Suggs is the Missioner for Advocacy & Social Justice for the Episcopal Church in Colorado.
FOR MORE INFORMATION about the Advocacy & Social Justice Ministry in the Episcopal Church in Colorado, please visit episcopalcolorado.org/advocacy.
