Letter: Faith leaders meet with candidates for governor

Published: 09-09-2024 8:51 AM

Letter to the Editors

This summer the clergy caucus of the Granite State Organizing Project met with all five of the candidates for governor. The clergy caucus is made up of faith leaders from all over New Hampshire. We believe that voices of faith have been underrepresented or misrepresented in our state. We asked each candidate a question about six areas: minimum wage, education, childcare, racism, housing, and immigration.

For this group of faith leaders these are areas that we deal with regularly in our ministries. We have people in our office that can’t afford housing. We see people in our offices that can’t afford gas for their cars to get to medical appointments. We see people that are working but not making enough money to support their families. Many of our congregations run day care centers, and we see the struggle to find well trained staff. We see the struggle of working people to pay for good childcare. We see the new Americans who are checking in at the ICE office every month and we see the fear that they will separate from their families. We see the new Americans who want to work but can’t because of the current immigration laws. We see the young people in our congregations that need a good education.

This was our opportunity to ask questions of the candidates that we often don’t get from campaigns. If you watch the ads for the candidates, you will see that many of them are not about real issues that are of concern to the people that come to our houses of faith looking for help. Most of the ads are simply attack ads, trying to drag down your opponent. Or they are ads that are trying to make us afraid of each other, trying to make us dislike one another.

What was refreshing about our meetings with the candidates was that they were real dialogues about the issues that people really care about. We didn’t have the normal stump speeches from these candidates, we heard from them what they really cared about. We were able to talk about the things that people of faith really care about. We care that our neighbors are treated with respect. We want our elected officials to use the best parts of their faith to have policies that help the people that come to our houses of worship.

I was very thankful that all five candidates agreed to meet with us, and that all five answered the questions with thoughtfulness. I didn’t agree with much of what the candidates had to say about several issues, but I thought the exchange of ideas was a wonderful departure for what we usually get in our current political climate. We were glad that every candidate agreed to continue the conversation with us if they are elected governor. This was the main reason we held these discussions.

Our current governor in the all the years he has been governor has refused to meet with the clergy caucus. We as people of faith have a slightly different way of looking at the world. We are not politicians. We are people that deeply care about how all people are treated. We care when we see our neighbors being hurt by public policy. We hope that going forward this will at least be part of the conversation regardless of who is governor.

Rev. Jonathan Hopkins

Concord

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