Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith is among many Republicans in Washington D.C. right now arguing against the For the People Act, which if passed would be a historic piece of legislation for its sweeping reforms making it easier for people to vote.
Featured Video
Hide
The right-wing of Congress is currently trying to go in the opposite direction, rapidly passing state bills placing restrictions on voting and limiting the days and hours in which people can vote.
Advertisement
Hide
They have mostly tried to justify this by continuing to push the false narrative that voter fraud is at all a significant problem in the U.S. Hyde-Smith, however, went in a different direction when defending bans on allowing voting on Sundays.
She starts out by attempting to make the case that because the word “God” comes up a lot in the U.S. government, we’re all subject to the laws of her personal religion.
“This is a dollar bill. This says ‘the United States of America,’ ‘in God we trust,’” she says “Etched in stone in the U.S. Senate chamber is ‘in God we trust.’ When you swore in all these witnesses, the last thing you said to them in your instructions was ‘so help you God.’ In God’s word in Exodus 20:18, it says ‘remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.’”
Advertisement
Hide
This was in response to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, questioning why certain states such as Georgia wanted to restrict voting on Sundays. The irony of this was not lost on many Jewish Americans, who are painfully aware that while Hyde-Smith and other Republicans are using something out of their religion to attacking voting rights, the U.S. does not federally recognize any Jewish holy holidays.
Aside from going to church on Sundays, which most Christians consider to be the Sabbath day, they don’t tend to actually follow any of the rules laid out in the Bible about what you can and can’t do on that day. This is why many Christians have no qualms about working, catching up on chores, or driving on Sundays.
So it’s a little weird for a Christian to claim a quote about the Sabbath as an excuse to not let people vote on Sundays until perhaps you learn that it’s common for Black communities to organize trips from churches to the polls on this day.
Advertisement
Hide
“We gather in our churches on Sunday morning, you have morning worship and then after the service you get on the church buses, church vans, get in cars and people go to vote,” explained Bishop Reginald T. Jackson to NPR. “It’s a very effective way the Black church has of getting out our vote.”
Public outrage resulted in Georgia backing off a bit from their efforts to restrict voting on Sundays, but they are still working hard to make sure voters of color have a harder time making it to the polls.
*First Published: March 24, 2021, 2:02 pm
0 Comments