Faith groups target poverty
Plan to lobby DNC delegates
By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff | June 16, 2004
FROM:
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/conventions/articles/2004/06/16/faith_groups_target_poverty_plan_to_lobby_dnc_delegates/Saying that both major political parties are paying insufficient attention to the poor, a broad spectrum of religious groups in Massachusetts is planning to lobby delegates to the Democratic National Convention to urge policy makers to focus on eradicating poverty and hunger.
"Democrats have had a longstanding and significant commitment to issues of poverty and hunger and housing, yet we're always fighting over dollars -- there never seem to be enough -- so we're hoping to make a little bit of noise," said the Rev. Nancy S. Taylor, president of the Massachusetts conference of the United Church of Christ. "We want the delegates to understand that the religious voting community cares about these issues, and we hope those who are elected to serve us care as much."
The Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups, along with several advocacy organizations, also are planning to hold voter registration drives to sign up low-income people to vote in the Nov. 2 election.
The efforts to draw attention to poverty issues are being sponsored by the National Council of Churches and the Center for Community Change, which also are planning to target delegates to the Republican National Convention in New York. Yesterday, the groups launched what they said would be a multicity campaign to call public attention to poverty and to register low-income voters.
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