To My Neighbors
To the Ones Who Still Believe in Neighbors
My brothers, my sisters, my neighbors.
I am not standing here as a politician or a scholar or someone with power.
I am standing here as a worker.
As a father... As a caretaker.... As a disabled man who has plowed fields, scrubbed floors, fed strangers, and prayed for a world that keeps trying to forget its own heart.
I am standing here as one of you.
And I am standing here because something sacred is being broken in our land.
Our government, both local and federal, keeps asking us to pay for our own oppression.
They take our taxes, our labor, our sweat, and they turn it into a weapon against the very people who built this country with their hands and their hope.
They tell us it is about faith.... But it is about fear.
They tell us it is about morality... But it is about power.
And they dare to invoke the name Jesus Christ while doing it.
But hear me.
Our Yeshua was not the mascot of an empire.
He was a Jew... A carpenter, A blue collar man with calloused hands and a heart big enough to hold the whole world.
He was not a weapon... He was a healer.
He was not a judge... He was a neighbor.
He built family not through bloodlines but through compassion.
Mary, and the apostles, the strangers he welcomed, the sinners he sat beside, the communities he broke bread with and fed.
He did not ask "What defines a woman?" or "What makes a man?".
He asked Who is your neighbor... And then he commanded us to love them.
But today, some leaders, not all but the ones who claim to speak for all, have twisted that command into something unrecognizable.
They legislate cruelty and call it righteousness.
They strip protections from our LGBTQ neighbors, our trans neighbors, our Black and Brown neighbors, our Jewish and Muslim neighbors, our women, our immigrants, our children.
And then they dare to call it holy.
They say they are defending faith.... But they are defending fear.
They say they are protecting families.... But they are tearing families apart.
And now, with Senate File 418, they are ripping gender identity out of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.
Protections that have existed since 2007.
Fast tracked through the legislature like discrimination is an emergency.
As if the emergency is the existence of trans Iowans.
As if the emergency is the existence of our neighbors.
As if the emergency is love.
They tell us separate accommodations are not inherently unequal.
As if we have not lived through the history that proves otherwise.
As if segregation ever protected anyone except the powerful.
And they expect us to pay for it.
To fund our own erasure.... To bankroll the oppression of our neighbors.
Taxation without representation is theft.
And when you silence a community's voice, strip their protections, and then demand their money, you are not governing... You are exploiting.
I am a man with disabilities.
I am a provider and a caretaker.
I am a teacher, a partner, a father.
I have lived the life these lawmakers pretend to defend.
And I will say this plainly.
This is not what Yeshua commands.
This is not what God, Allah, Elohim, Adonai, the Most High calls the children of Abraham to do.
We are commanded to protect the vulnerable, To lift the oppressed, To heal the broken and
To love our neighbor as ourselves.
Not to legislate them out of existence.
So today, I speak to the lawmakers who claim to act in God's name.
If you truly followed Yeshua, you would be washing feet, not stepping on necks.
You would be feeding the hungry, not starving their rights.
You would be welcoming the stranger, not building walls around your fear.
And I speak to the people gathered here.
The workers, the parents, the students, the elders, the believers, the doubters, the tired, the hopeful.
I speak to the soul of this community.
We are stronger than the fear they sell.
We are louder than the hate they preach.
We are more united than the lines they draw between us.
We are the neighbors.
We are the families.
We are the ones who break bread together.
And no law, no bill, no signature can erase the truth that we belong to one another.
So let this be our message.
We will not pay for our own oppression.
We will not fund the erasure of our neighbors.
We will not let fear masquerade as faith.
We will not let cruelty wear the mask of righteousness.
And we will not be silent.
Because Yeshua flipped the tables of the tax collectors, not the tables of the marginalized.
And if he walked into our Capitol today, he would flip a few more.
So stand tall.
Stand together.
Stand for your neighbors.
Stand for the ones they try to erase.
Stand for the children of Abraham, all of them.
Stand for the future that belongs to all of us, not just the powerful.
And let the ones in power hear this clearly.
Do not sign this hateful bill.
Do not force us to fund our own oppression.
Do not crucify our neighbors and call it faith.
We are here.... We are many... We are united.... And we will not go quietly.
Peace be upon you all.
JoshM
Joshua