Bishop John Harvey Taylor invoked the golden rule as he called for an “All-Faith Democratic Union” to actively protect human rights, when welcoming faith leaders to “A Multi-Faith Response to Our Current Constitutional Crisis” March 11 at St. Paul’s Commons in Los Angeles.
“We sometimes debate about whether events such as this and the organizations that host them are interfaith or multifaith,” Taylor said. “My friends, we are all-faith. Missing from public life today is a distinct, unified expression of our core principles. So I propose that we need an All-Faith Democratic Union. Its vision statement would be to hold power accountable to the golden rule to the extent that it rules out acts of unnecessary violence and cruelty for cruelty’s sake. Its mission would be to identify politicians who are in violation, organize against them, crush them peacefully at the polls, and send them home to see if they can learn some manners.”
Salam Al-Mayarati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, moderated the gathering coordinated by a multi-faith coalition endorsed by 22 faith-based groups and attended by 75 in person with another 300 viewing via livestream. Video is here.
Opening prayers began with the sounding of the shofar by Rabbi Sarah Hronsky, president of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders, and were offered by local representatives from Bahá’í, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh traditions.
“The golden rule is the divine law of the universe,” Taylor said. “It’s the only thing that works. It applies to everyone and everything – except, until now, our politicians and national leaders, who wield the power of life and death over creation. The golden rule has always ruled out cruelty for cruelty’s sake. And yet this government makes a whole religion out of cruelty,” he told the gathering.
“It has killed 130 men of color on the high seas without cause or due process, including those floating helplessly in the wreckage, begging to be saved. It kills peaceful demonstrators and tries to avoid accountability. It sends our volunteers into an illegal, unnecessary, stupid war. It brags about jettisoning rules of engagement in wartime. It makes a joke out of torpedoing an Iranian frigate that threatened no one.
“It bombs a girls’ school and lies about it. Borrowing the words of the Johnny Cash song, they’re killing people just to watch them die.”
Lo Sprague, president of The Guibord Center: Religion Inside Out, echoed the golden rule theme, observing that “the barrage of brutality has engulfed us. It is hard, especially hard, for good people to know how to fight back against the forces of oppression.
“As people of faith, we have been slow to respond because of our confusion about what to do, about what we can do behind the barrier of honoring the separation of church and state. James Talarico, Texas politician and self-proclaimed man of God, recently shattered that paralysis by saying politics is about how we treat our neighbors.
“There is a part of politics that is about partisan gamesmanship that we can easily stay clear of. But, when it comes to our neighbors, every faith has a code of ethics about hospitality, about how to treat the stranger, how to treat one another. Some call it the golden rule. It is the only piece of gold missing from our White House.”
The forum was convened in memory of Umar Hakim-Dey, a former Episcopalian who converted to Islam and was an activist and unifier. He served as chair of L.A. Voice, the faith-based organizers and was a lover of humanity, Taylor said. A video chronicling Hakim-Dey’s work was shown.
The purpose of the forum was “to make the golden rule run our politics,” said civil rights attorney Connie Rice, co-founder of the Advancement Project, a guest speaker. A well-known activist, she was appointed to former President Barack Obama’s Task Force on 21st century Policing and has argued cases for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
“When against court orders, the federal government inflicts state force to unconstitutionally abduct, summarily deport, torture and kill law-abiding immigrants and American citizens, the very tyranny our Constitution was created to end is in our living room,” she said. “In short, wake up and smell the bear spray.”
She offered several suggestions for defeating autocracy and regaining power to the people: “The mid-terms are do or die. It’s not about party. It’s about the vision of a pluralist democracy where everybody belongs. It’s about writing a Project 2028, a blueprint that restores what Project 2025 autocrats have destroyed.”
Project 2025 is a political initiative published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation with the goal of reshaping the U.S. federal government by consolidating executive power in favor of right-wing policies.
In contrast, Rice declared: “We are not going back, not to backs of busses, not to the back of the line, not back to Mexico, not back to Manzanar, not back to Muslim bans, not back to yellow Stars of David, not back in the closet, not back to Chinese exclusion acts, not back to broken treaties and not back to the back alleys where women and girls died.”
“We will win this war because we must, because our ancestors demand that we do,” Rice said, emphasizing the need for immediate action and “the fierce urgency of now,” quoting Martin Luther King Jr.
She and others addressing the gathering called for continued nonviolent resistance. Other speakers included Mike Downing, former LAPD deputy chief and interim chief; Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker, director of the AME Social Action Commission; Rabbi Susan Goldberg, founder of Nefesh, a Los Angeles Jewish spiritual community co-located at the Commons in Echo Park; Nirinjan Singh Khalsa of the California Sikh Council; Victor Leung, of the ACLU; and the Rev. Kirkpatrick Tyler of Parks Chapel AME Church in San Fernando.
Speakers urged financial, spiritual and physical support of student and other activist groups who have been protesting in the streets. Downing said the Minneapolis killing by ICE agents of nonviolent protestors Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti were “the worst thing I’ve observed, since I’ve been gone for nine years from the LAPD. What followed was not only the taking of life, but the swift re-engineering of the truth.
“They were not terrorists,” he said of Good and Pretti. Rather, they were targeted by a political agenda. “Federal accounts insisted on facts that footage contradicted,” and as newspapers close and media outlets are increasingly consolidated, fair and accurate reporting will become more of a challenge.
Panelists and guest speakers urged communicating with one another, educating, funding, responding to crisis situations and other actions to support people of color and immigrants being targeted. Organizing voter registration drives and employing rapid response teams to witness ICE arrests and conduct. Joining with organizations like Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice or CLUE and others who are organizing protests is also helpful.
Dupont-Walker, director of the AME Church’s Social Action Commission, urged moving beyond mere analysis to action.
“Everyone has something to do,” she said. “Do we believe that we’re doing the best in California to get everyone to vote? In preparation for coming here, I went to the voter registrar’s office to pick up traditional materials, wonderful, printed literature, because some of us don’t want to do digital. Do you know, they had nothing prepared? I mean, zero.
“I literally had to have an adult temper tantrum to get to the sixth floor to get copies of documents. They should be out in large numbers. Our primary is June and nothing is there. You can call every supervisor, all five of them, and tell them they’re not getting us ready for this election.”
Dupont-Walker added the importance of voter verification as well as voter registration. Verification online in advance of voting is increasingly important to detect and protect against possible alteration of voter information, including one’s registered political party.
She underscored the importance of talking to people. “This morning, I used my GPS to direct myself to this very familiar place. As soon as I got here, my phone said I had no internet network. I could only make emergency calls. The possibility that communication through those things is going to be cut off is strong, with what’s happening. We must begin to talk to each other.”
She noted that sometimes prospective hear consultants doubt an election win, and opt to not vote. “We must make sure this midterm election is not controlled by consultants. It must be controlled by us.” The states with the highest voter turnout in the last election were Minnesota and Wisconsin, each with a 76% voter turnout.
“Is there any coincidence those states are now under attack?” she said. “They’re sending a message to those who would identify in the category of white that you will not be protected. You need to understand what it means to side with those other people, you will be at risk. That’s the fear and intimidation factor for most” people of color, she said.
Goldberg added that the faith community has a special obligation to engage. “We know how to respond where people of faith have specific superpowers,” Goldberg said.
“We have a specific role to play. We bring a moral voice. They can say all they want about why they’re doing this, but when we proclaim in a multifaith group that it is simply wrong, immoral, wicked and that we know that the path forward is love and compassion for our neighbors, that’s very clear.
“We can help direct resources, and we’re great at taking care of people through mutual aid. We know how to feed people. We can provide sanctuary. So, if you are not involved, the time is now.”