{"id":332367,"date":"2026-07-07T22:03:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332367\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T22:03:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T22:03:11","slug":"central-florida-faith-leaders-address-voting-rights-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/332367\/","title":{"rendered":"Central Florida faith leaders address voting rights concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tFaith leaders from across Central Florida gathered this morning at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office to share a message about democracy ahead of the midterm elections.  The leaders, representing different religious backgrounds, read a letter signed by more than 2,000 clergy members across the United States. They expressed concerns about recent executive orders on mail-in voting, Supreme Court decisions regarding congressional district maps, and threats to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement at polling places.  They said these actions hinder the rights of people of color.  &#8220;Before party platforms and election cycles, our faith traditions teach us that every person matters,&#8221; said Bishop William Cavins, of the Abiding Presence Faith Community.  Reverend Margalie Belizaire, a Unitarian Universalist minister, said, &#8220;It is not unpatriotic or un-American to see America as both the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. It is our duty to see what is happening and speak up against it.&#8221;  The clergy members urged Florida&#8217;s elected officials to join them in opposing the recent government actions.\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tORANGE COUNTY, Fla. \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Faith leaders from across Central Florida gathered this morning at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office to share a message about democracy ahead of the midterm elections.  <\/p>\n<p>The leaders, representing different religious backgrounds, read a letter signed by more than 2,000 clergy members across the United States. They expressed concerns about recent executive orders on mail-in voting, Supreme Court decisions regarding congressional district maps, and threats to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement at polling places.  <\/p>\n<p>They said these actions hinder the rights of people of color.  <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Before party platforms and election cycles, our faith traditions teach us that every person matters,&#8221; said Bishop William Cavins, of the Abiding Presence Faith Community.  <\/p>\n<p>Reverend Margalie Belizaire, a Unitarian Universalist minister, said, &#8220;It is not unpatriotic or un-American to see America as both the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful. It is our duty to see what is happening and speak up against it.&#8221;  <\/p>\n<p>The clergy members urged Florida&#8217;s elected officials to join them in opposing the recent government actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faith leaders from across Central Florida gathered this morning at the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[137109,137111,16780,110002,49843,83425,28,30,29,1841,93745,22437,137113,992,23600,137112,28468,137110],"class_list":["post-332367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-central-florida-faith-leader","tag-clergy-member","tag-color","tag-congressional-district-map","tag-customs-enforcement","tag-elections-office","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-immigration","tag-mail-in-voting","tag-midterm","tag-party-platform","tag-people","tag-polling-place","tag-recent-executive-order","tag-supreme-court-decision","tag-voting-right-concern"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}