This Saturday, just blocks away from Rep. Gabe Evans’ (R-Fort Lupton) newly-opened CD8 campaign “battlestation,” the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR) held a campaign launch to mobilize Latines in Colorado to turn out to vote and enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution.
“Today we’re launching ‘Abortion Access for All,’ our persuasion campaign to ensure that our community votes yes [on Proposed Initiative 89] to enshrine abortion in the [state] Constitution and on Nov. 5, and to ensure that no matter what insurance you have, including Medicaid, that you can access an abortion in your home state and in the community where you live,” said Dusti Gurule, President and CEO of COLOR Action Fund. “Community is at the core of who we are and why we do what we do at COLOR Action Fund. Reproductive justice is a critical framework for democracy, and when I say democracy, I mean that everyone who lives, resides, is a resident in this country, has a voice in that democracy.”
Prop 89 would not only change the Colorado Constitution to recognize the right to abortion, it would also allow abortion to be covered under public service health insurance plans for Colorado state and local government employees and enrollees in state and local governmental insurance programs.
“It was a dream — a dream as in something that you hope for and you wish — to effectively repeal Colorado’s Hyde Amendment,” said Rep. Lorena Garcia (D-Denver). “We are able to do that now. We have built a movement. We have educated the masses, and we have demonstrated the will of the people that we do not want restrictions on our bodies.”
The event, held at Northglenn United Church of Christ, marked the launch of COLOR’s efforts at “faith-aware” political organizing.
“During our campaign, ‘Abortion Access for All,’ we will be partnering with church leaders of various faiths and denominations to educate and empower our community to speak to how their cultural religious values are entryways to reproductive justice, not obstacles,” said Isabela Rosales, a graduate of Denver’s Iliff School of Theology and COLOR’s faith-aware community organizer. “COLOR Action Fund embraces this faith-aware lens because it is a culturally sensitive approach through which ballot measure organizing can be done, and this sensitivity recognizes that religious traditions and diverse faith frameworks play key roles in our community formation. Therefore, moving forward, we welcome questions and dialog on the intersection of religion and reproductive justice and our communities, in this campaign and beyond.”
Since the 1970s, conservative political activists have had tremendous success using abortion as an issue to galvanize churches and denominations into voting for Republican candidates and making “Christian” and “conservative” nearly synonymous. Rosales wants to change that.
“That side, that extreme religious right, they are loud,” said Rosales. “They’re very loud, but they’re not the majority. Statistically — and these statistics are coming from our collaboration with national organizations like Catholics for Choice — people who identify as religious, specifically Catholic, over 50% of them are pro-abortion. Yes, that other side is very dominant in the dialog, but it’s because they’re loud, not because they’re more. That’s why it’s really important to destigmatize the relationship between our cultural religious identities and our [pro-abortion] values.”
While many Christian denominations, such as the Catholic Church — whose Archbishop of the Denver Diocese, Samuel Aquila, has opposed Prop 89 — maintain traditional, conservative stances on abortion, many moderate denominations, such as the United Church of Christ, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), have taken progressive stances on LGBTQ issues and abortion.
“I’m not going to ultra-conservative churches and forcing my values on people where no dialog can occur,” says Rosales. “Instead, I’m working within community, and within community often there hasn’t ever been a space for people to engage their cultural religious values and their social justice-oriented values for abortion access.”
Rosales hopes to bring more faith leaders into progressive politics in Colorado. “I think it’s just about elevating and destigmatizing, continuing to do that,” she said. ”Something that I said when I first started working in Colorado is, ‘Where are the MLKs [Martin Luther King, Jr.]? You know, these big scholars, activists, pastors. It kind of seems like that is missing from this movement, and I want to cultivate that.”
Annie Gonzalez, actress from the Netflix drama “Gentefied” and a pro-abortion advocate, also spoke to the connection between faith and activism.
“Jesus was friends with everybody,” said Gonzalez. “Jesus was friends with the saints. Jesus was friends with the sinners. Jesus was friends because he understood that we are one decision away from becoming the person that we either most despise or the person that we most revere. Everything is choice. Sometimes we are born into circumstances that we didn’t earn. Sometimes we’re born into circumstances that we didn’t choose. I could be easily sitting up in my little nice house in East L.A. living, ‘I know I’m going to be good,’ but that’s not what community is. If my sister, if my brother does not feel safe, then I am not safe.”
