​Religious and civil liberties are in grave danger in the state of Ohio. As people of conscience and people of faith, we cannot stay silent in the face of the worst existential threat to First Amendment freedoms in our state’s history.

Our legislature has introduced bills designed to discourage public witness, protest and dissent. Laws that would criminalize churches and nonprofits that engage in public witness have been proposed alongside restrictions that will make it harder to vote.

In the midst of a once-in-a-generation pandemic, while our state strains under decades of underinvestment in social programs, infrastructure and essential worker protections, the Ohio Legislature spent its time targeting speech conservative lawmakers do not like. Legislators are promoting a crackdown on voices that speak truth to power, aspiring to stifle any people-driven effort to hold Ohio’s public servants accountable.

This portfolio of anti-democracy bills betrays a very clear racial bias. Limiting voter rights, stifling dissent, criminalizing protest, and punishing faith communities that participate in public witness of their moral convictions will disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities, and organizations.

We declare that Ohio will never bow to totalitarian pressures that seek to disenfranchise voters and eliminate morally-motivated dissent.

God has a burning desire for justice. Some say that the burning bush described in the book of Exodus is actually representative of this divine yearning, the burning that is in the heart of God for justice for all of God's people. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King understood this when he wrote "It is God's desire for justice that makes the struggle for justice and freedom holy ground." We are standing on holy ground and we are burning for justice. We will not be silent, because the fire of commitment within us will not let us.