Refugees Welcome, Except in SC

The South Carolina State legislature is treading dangerous waters with a bill they are currently debating that would create a public registry of refugees as well as tie the hands of individuals and non-profits who feel called to help them. There are many things wrong with this bill, from its openly unconstitutional desire to register and track people who are legally abiding in the United States to its disruption of all public funds that may go to organizations that would help with refugee resettlement, even if that money is not directed at refugee resettlement but other services.

What is most disturbing, however, is this bill’s attempt to curtail religious freedom.  In its first form, this bill forbade non-profit organizations (churches, synagogues, and mosques included) from providing assistance to refugees in the state. It has since then been changed to provide for civil liability for those organizations if the person they help then does something wrong. This is simply a veiled attempt to make for the same outcome: to scare churches and other non-profits away from helping the most vulnerable, displaced people of our world.

People of faith are called, by their faith, to minister to those who find themselves in need,

regardless of race, creed, or nationality. In my Christian faith I follow the teachings of Jesus when I’m told that I am to show hospitality to everyone, most of all to those the world rejects. Any attempt by the State of South Carolina to curtail my ability to do so is an infringement upon my first amendment rights of the free practice of my religion.

While I’m most certain that if this law is passed and signed by Governor Haley, it will eventually be struck down in the courts, I’m troubled that there is even the political will in our state to try to pass such a law in the first place. I understand that security is of high concern for many people, but to irrationally take our fears out on a population who has come to our state to escape such irrational persecution is troubling at best.

The Ku Klux Klan is already spreading hate-filled anti-refugee propaganda in Columbia. We don’t need our senators and legislators to add fuel to that fire by passing such a horrible law.