Voting, Patriarchy, and Christianity's Complicity in Systemic Sin

This is Father Jared Cramer from St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven, Michigan, here with today’s edition of Christian Mythbusters, a regular segment I offer to counter some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. Speaking of playing whackamole with attacks on marginalized groups, we got a new one out of left field this past week. Republicans in the House of Representatives have reintroduced the SAVE Act, legislation originally drafted last year that purports to “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility,” hence the acronym “SAVE.” What it actually does is mandate that Americans show proof of citizenship when they are registering to vote. While that might seem reasonable, the way in which the act requires this proof to be demonstrated is through providing either a passport or a birth certificate with matching photo ID. If you still haven’t caught the difficulty here, let’s drill in a bit further. About a half of all Americans do not have a passports, so they will have to use the alternative option. The problem there is that anyone who has changed their name since birth (say, for example, a woman who got married) would not be able to provide sufficient documentation because their birth certificate name does not match the name on their photo ID. The bill does not mention a marriage certificate or name change document. While the law does require states to establish a process for additional documentation, but that would now vary state to state and who knows what would be determined to be acceptable. About one in ten Americans do not have ready access to documents to prove their citizenship. What do you think they will do under this bill? They probably just won’t bother registering to vote. Repeated studies have shown that cases of non-citizens voting are extremely rare and that laws like this tend to disproportionately impact minorities—not to mention that now every time a married woman wants to register to vote, she will have to dig out her birth certificate and her marriage license (and that’s assuming that would even be enough). And do you want to guess how this will be used in some states to keep trans people from voting, because their names also won’t match their birth certificate? This is not about safeguarding elections. This is about keeping women, minorities, the poor, and marginalized groups away from the polls by any means necessary. So, why, you may ask, am I going on and on about this act in an episode of Christian Mythbusters. After all, this series is about countering some common misconceptions about the Christian faith. I’m glad you asked. This bill is a perfect example of the blindness of patriarchy and the burdens of not having wealth and privilege. And, much to my dismay, Christianity has far too often been a pillar of patriarchy instead of the tool used to dismantle it. Christianity has far too often been used to protect those with wealth and privilege instead of being a driving force of Good News for the poor and suffering. I’m not surprised that a bunch of wealthy men with privilege, all of whom probably have passports, don’t think this sort of legislation is a burden. They don’t know what it’s like to live in a world were you have to change your name or where you barely have resources to put food on the table much less keep a lock box to organize things like a birth certificate and marriage license. And so it is essential that Christians are the first to speak up on issues like this. Followers of Jesus should be the voice of the voiceless, the first to respond when systems seek to push whole groups of people to the side. Stay tuned, next week I’ll tell you why. Thanks for being with me. To find out more about my parish, you can go to sjegh.com. Until next time, remember, protest like Jesus, love recklessly, and live your faith out in a community that accepts you but also challenges you to be better tomorrow than you are today.