Good Afternoon! It is good to stand here with you this afternoon in this important rally on behalf of the working people of Kentucky. I am here because this past fall the Kentucky Council of Churches with its 11 member denominations who have nearly 3000 congregations across the state, adopted unanimously a position paper in support of raising the minimum wage, and we have joined part of a national nonpartisan interfaith and community initiative called "Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign."
OK--I'm done with my brief intro….now for the fun part. Every time I use the phrase "Let Justice Roll" will you shout back: "Raise the Wage?" Let's try it: Let Justice Roll…. "Raise the Wage!" Try again, louder this time…make them hear you inside…."Let Justice Roll!"
"Raise the Wage!" So listen up--and every time I use that phrase, I'll be waiting for your returning shout!
Let me tell you another reason why I'm here today with you: I'm tired of people using religion to divide us. The word "religion" means to bind together again. It can be used to bind burdens on people, or it can be used to bind up wounds in society and in lives, to create community and a sense of our commonality with one another. So I'm here today to say NO to religion that oppresses and excludes some of God's children in order for others to engage in self-righteous claims of some kind of supposed superiority. I'm tired of religion that searches sacred texts to find justification for violence against fellow human beings. I'm here because the core principles of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam alike call for us to do to others what you would have them do to you. I'm here because Judaism and Christianity and Islam all say YES to economic justice, to caring for the poor. I'm here because as a Christian I know that there are thousands of verses in the Bible that remind us to work to change the status of the impoverished and exploited, that command us to stand for justice, as Amos said: To Let Justice Roll…. (RAISE THE WAGE?) down like waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream."
I'm here because, as a Christian who reads scripture daily, I know that one out of every 15 verses in the NT is about the poor or the subject of money. I'm here because when I read the Gospels I can see for myself that Jesus has next to nothing to say about sex, but that in the first 3 Gospels one out of every ten verses has something to say about money and the poor, and that in the Gospel of Luke it is one out of every 7 verses. It's high time that people stopped talking about posting the 10 Commandments and started paying attention to the teachings and way of Jesus and the prophets. Paying poverty wages is a form of theft, both from the worker and from taxpayers. It violates the commandment: Thou Shalt Not Steal! Let Justice Roll! (…Raise the Wage)
Wages are a bedrock moral issue. Wages are a matter of FAMILY VALUES! The minimum wage is where society draws the line: This low and no lower! Let Justice Roll….
Our bottom line is this: A job should help you get out of poverty not keep you in it. Let Justice Roll….
The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. A low minimum wage means that taxpayers are subsidizing the huge profits that corporations are making by underpaying employees. We subsidize big business by helping our neighbors who earn poverty wages with our tax-payer support of food stamps, section 8 housing, the Federal earned income tax credit (would that we had a state earned income tax credit), and I help my neighbors who are poor gladly, but I resent, I resent subsidizing those businesses that will not pay a fair and living wage. Let Justice Roll….
Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s, and the minimum wage is worth less now than in the 1950s. Let Justice Roll!
So let justice roll….(Raise the Wage)…Let Kentucky lead the nation in our vision that business and society thrive when people are payed a just and living wage, but that they shrivel and become decadent, decaying economies, when our neighbors are consigned to the dust heap of hopelessness, of never-ending cycles of debt and dead-ends. If Congress can give itself 8 pay raises since 1997 while giving none to minimum wage workers, it is time for us to exercise states' rights, and get ahead of our so-called leaders in Congress, and show them the right way. Let Justice Roll! Let Justice roll down like the waters, and righteousness like an overflowing stream. Thank you.
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