OPINION:
A group of community ministers in Georgia is calling for boycotts against Home Depot and other yet unnamed vital businesses unless these companies condemn the newly passed state of Georgia voting rights bill, known as the Election Integrity Act.
This group, led by Rev. Reginald Jackson and representing many African Methodist Episcopalian Churches, misportrays this well-considered piece of legislation brought to fruition by sincere people hoping that everyone gets their legitimate opportunity to vote.
Calling themselves a group of faith leaders and issuing a “warning shot” against businesses unwilling to denounce what is a good-willed piece of voting legislation, the group claims the goal of the Election Integrity Act is to deny minorities the right to vote. This is not true. It is unbecoming and unworthy of leaders of faith to engage in such falsehoods and inaccurate hyperbole and accuse sincere people of wanting to enact Jim Crow-type laws when just the opposite is true.
Most reasonable people do not subscribe to the vile notion of America being systemically racist, which is the pre-supposition of these ministers and makes them automatically indict any piece of legislation passed by a non-Black majority. In America today, virtually everyone desires that all Americans have their right to vote secured. Home Depot, as with many fair-minded company directors, has rightfully called for voting guidelines to be “accessible, fair, and secure.”
“Fair” means allowing all legitimate voters a right and possibility to vote. It does not mean guaranteeing the desired outcome and victory this particular group desires. Fair does not mean always getting your way and what you want. “Accessible” does not mean on-going and never-ending election seasons until the leftwing candidate can accumulate enough votes to declare victory.
“Secure” does not mean voting tabulations under the eyes of Democrat machines and poll watchers only. In fact, choreographing election laws to tilt and rig election outcomes is not moral. Support for civil rights does not mean structuring voting in a biased way that ends up denying others their civil right of having their vote count.
The group says they are making these threats because “democracy means the right to vote”. Indeed it does. But procedures that allow illegals to vote; that do not require the basic, common sense identification procedures embedded in all of American civic life; that do not allow for checking and matching names and residences when needed; or suddenly halt vote counting when the Democratic candidate is behind, as well as allowing unethical ballot harvesting and dead voters is not democracy in action, rather one-party rule in action.
Georgia’s Act, as well as the other states following its example, intends to clean the slate of these unfair practices. It is not democracy when someone’s illegal vote is pre-planned and allowed to cancel out and nullify the vote of citizens trying to exercise their constitutional right. Nor is it moral to exploit the noble concept of civil rights to fix an election’s outcome and pre-determine victory for liberal/left candidates. It is unfair, immoral and dishonest.
One of the organizers of the boycott is Jamal Bryant, who has called Louis Farrakhan, one of the world’s most outspoken anti-Semites, “one of the greatest leaders of our people”. No doubt, many among these leaders of faith have a lot to gain from Democrat victories.
This practice of bullying well-meaning people and intimidating companies into submission and forcing them to relinquish their basic rights if they wish to keep their reputation, livelihood and even safety is reprehensible. Knowingly or unknowingly, these faith leaders are engaged not in an act of faith but politics, power politics from a Democratic Party willing to besmirch all state legislators and upstanding businesses in order to guarantee permanent victory for their Party. Voting is only fair and equitable if there is, as the law states, Integrity.
• Rabbi Aryeh Spero is president of Caucus for America and author of “Push Back: The Battle to Save America’s Judeo-Christian Heritage.”
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