Editor’s Note: The following appeared in the May/June issue of Nurturing Faith Journal.
I park in the Capitol visitor’s parking garage and walk toward the south steps. On the way, I snap a selfie with my coffee for my church’s social media page, the towering pink dome in the background. I dig out my rainbow stole – the one with buttons attached proclaiming, “Y’all Means ALL,” “Black Lives are Sacred,” and “Protect Trans Kids.”
I unfurl the stole and throw it over my shoulders as I arrive at the rally for Black maternal health–or the protest against gun violence, march for reproductive justice, or legislative hearing about discriminatory laws harming queer and trans communities.
I offer a prayer, hold a sign, or stand with other clergy in the background, showing support for those who are speaking, the ones most impacted.
When it’s over, I take off the stole and fold it neatly in my purse. I put on my red lipstick, pearls, and blazer and pull up the list of conservative legislators I am tasked with visiting that day. I walk into the office of a rural West Texas representative and almost immediately start raking up kinfolk.
I’m here to thank the representative and encourage him to continue his fierce support for public education in Texas. I tell the woman running his office the same and let her know that, while I may be a big city pastor, I grew up in West Texas and still have family in her district. It turns out she used to babysit my cousins. We snap a selfie to send to my aunt, and I ask her to thank the representative again.
Or, I walk into a less friendly office, where even without the rainbow stole, the combination of my gender and vocation clearly set off the young male assistant’s raging feminist-liberal alarm bells. I’m not given the time of day, but now I know to send my retired Baptist pastor father next time. Noted.
Wash, rinse, and repeat weekly throughout the biennial Texas legislative session. For better or worse, as a pastor in Texas’ capital city of Austin, I get a front-row seat to see how the sausage is made. If I have learned anything, it is this: While casting your vote is important, the real work happens in the years between trips to the ballot box.
Change-making advocacy extends beyond election years. In my experience, it falls into two distinct but equally important forms: public witness and strategic change. The swap between my rainbow stole and my strand of pearls exemplifies the delicate dance between the two. (You’ll have to find your own appropriate accessories.)
Public Witness
Public witness includes showing up to protests, marches, rallies, and hearings to support the causes and people your faith compels you to support.
Being present in my rainbow stole is one way I can provide an embodied witness to the inclusive and expansive grace of God, a picture of another way to be Christian. In a state like Texas, where 140 discriminatory bills targeting the LGBTQIA+ community were filed last session alone, this work can seem futile.
The difficult reality is that our public witness often does not lead to meaningful policy change in the short term.
Despite the incredible work of so many advocacy organizations and grassroots movements in our state last year, I watched families of transgender kids flee the state that is no longer safe for them. I heard from women who had to gain access to reproductive care in another state and whose lives have been put at risk in our home state because our leaders do not recognize women’s autonomy over their own bodies.
I watched as desperate families were turned away from our border, children pushed back into a river laced with razor wire. If the only goal of our public witness is policy change, we are destined for disappointment and burnout. However, policy is not our only avenue for impact.
For some, public witness is a prophetic act–a voice speaking truth to power, often unheard, unheeded, ignored in the moment, but recognized and vindicated in the long term. To sustain that kind of prophetic work, it is important to recognize that underneath the urgency of our moral demands, public witness requires patience and commitment for the long haul.
We can trust and hope that our prophetic action is moving the needle in the direction of justice, however subtly.
For me, even more than the prophetic, public witness is about pastoral care.
Whether or not anyone in power hears or heeds our message, the people in our pews and communities do. I engage in public witness so that queer kids in Austin know there are pastors who support them. I engage in public witness so that the women in my congregation know I see them as full human beings, powerful, trustworthy, and capable of moral making. I engage in public witness as one form of care for all those who feel abandoned by religious leaders and institutions.
Whether political change is on the table or not, public witness through protest, prayer, speaking out, and showing up has the important pastoral impact of letting our neighbors know they aren’t alone. Providing solidarity, hope, and safe communities for one another is a crucial part of our advocacy efforts that has an immediate impact, whether we see it reflected in policy and elections or not.
Strategic Change
The second kind of advocacy, as I see it, is less about taking a public stand and more about enacting strategic change.
This kind of work requires us to get off our moral high horse and get our hands dirty in the muck of government. It demands us to be realistic about what we can do with what we’ve got. When I put on my lipstick, pearls, and West Texas drawl, the signals I’m sending may change, but my justice-driven priorities remain the same.
In this form of advocacy, I ask, where can I get a win? What can I compromise? Whose interests are aligned with mine? What coalition can I build?
The greatest political impact I had in this last legislative session was in the fight to save public education. This may seem like an issue unrelated to the public witness efforts I described above, but it is intricately intertwined.
Public education is especially important for queer, trans, impoverished, undocumented, black and brown, disabled, and neurodivergent kids who would not be accepted in many private religious schools–schools that can choose to exclude applicants based on religion, culture, and perceived contribution to their community, not to mention wealth, or lack thereof.
Injustice in our world is all connected. The best thing I could do for the queer community, the most impact I could have against racism and segregation, and the clearest way I could support the 20% of Texas kids who live in poverty, was supporting public education and fighting against proponents of school vouchers.
This meant sending thank-you notes to lawmakers that I disagree with on almost everything else. It meant sitting in tedious meetings comparing notes and counting votes. It meant strategizing about whose voice needed to be centered in which conversation to have the most impact.
It meant biting my tongue when legislative staffers made sexist comments and assumptions.
It also meant finding common ground with people I once thought of as opponents. Even if our priorities were not identical, they were aligned for the good of all Texas children.
In a world filled with so much polarization, it was truly beautiful to find ways to work together across differences. Some of my favorite moments were working side by side with those from the BGCT’s Christian Life Commission and CBF’s Fellowship Southwest as a flaming liberal Alliance of Baptists lady pastor.
And guess what? We actually won.
Compromise, calculation, and coalition building are not always comfortable. I feel much better when I’m holding a sign, taking a stand, and speaking truth to power–all important activities. However, willingness to engage in strategic change is effective in a different way. It had a major impact in Texas, where our work led to a hard NO to vouchers despite the governor’s bullying and multiple attempts to push them through.
This was an intersectional win for so many beloved children of God.
The Long Game
Elections are decided in a day, and we live with the results for years. Whether we are disappointed or pleased by the outcome, it can be tempting to think we have done all we can until the next round.
The reality, though, is that the work of governing happens between election cycles. You can have an impact on that work and in your community beyond election years, no matter who is in office or where you live.
Regardless of what happens this November, I hope you will claim your voice and strategic power in your communities in the days and months after. Lift up your voice in public witness, even if it doesn’t change policy.
Politicians are not the only ones watching.
You can care for your community by showing up and speaking out – whether at your state capitol, city hall, church prayer group, or social media platform. Public witness is not just about getting our people in office, but about sustaining our communities regardless of election outcomes.
Speak the truth God has given you, then be flexible enough to come back down to earth and work for strategic change. This might mean loosening your grip on the moral high ground and building relationships with those with whom you disagree. See what common ground might emerge. See what movement you can create by approaching issues you care about from a different angle.
Follow the lead of trusted organizations like Pastors for Texas Children, the Poor People’s Campaign, or the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. Watch for action alerts and follow through on them. A call or letter to your representative at a crucial moment can make a difference in how they vote on a bill that impacts you and your neighbors.
Knowing the difference between public witness and strategic change can help us figure out how and when to engage for the greatest impact. And that will be different for each of us. You can’t do everything, and you certainly can’t do everything all at once. Pick your priorities, do what you can with what you have, and know your goals in each interaction – when to wear rainbows and when to wear pearls.
