Faith-based groups show reform support

August 12, 2009  |  The Coloradoan - Fort Collins,CO  |  Link to article

Faith-based proponents of health-care reform kicked off a nationwide effort in Fort Collins on Tuesday with a rally at Library Park.

Metro Organizations for People, or MOP, the Denver branch of the PICO National Network, a community of faith-based organizations, led a rally of about 65 people in Library Park before heading to Rep. Betsy Markey's office to plead for immediate health-care reform.

The Fort Collins rally was the first of many planned across the United States over the next 40 days designed to get the attention of Congress.

The rally featured many out-of-towners, including Denver volunteers who are not residents of the 4th Congressional District, which Markey represents.

Led by clergy members, the rally built on basic faith-based principles to express the message of the need for health- care reform.

"All of our faith traditions believe in taking care of people to be best of our abilities," said the Rev. Lydia Ferrante-Roseberry of the Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellow-ship. "It's a moral and physical issue. People are suffering; and if the faith-based community is doing it right, they are dealing with this suffering."

Religious leaders of several denominations expressed the need for an affordable healthcare system that grants access to all people; they demanded that it become reality now.

"No recess for health-care reform," the group chanted.

Standing quietly next to the rally, about 10 members of the Tea Party of Northern Colorado held signs asking for government to stay out of the health-care system.

"Reform is what we believe in, but the question is, what type of reform?" said Ray Harvey, one of the organizers of the Tea Party who attended Tuesday's rally. "But when you look at U.S. health care, the more socialized it's become, the more expensive it's gotten. The solution is to deregulate and get government out of it so prices will go back down."

Activists held the rally at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday saying the country is in the 11th hour of need for health-care reform. Activists later marched to Markey's office to deliver a large hourglass to remind her of the immediate need for change.

"I can't just sit back anymore and be comfortable in my lifestyle and ignore those people without health care," said Peggy Christiansen, chaplain and director of the Geller Center for Spiritual Development at Colorado State University. "We have an amazing country and amazing resources, and there's just no reason we can't do better."

Andrew Crossley moved from the United Kingdom to Denver in early July and started volunteering for MOP. He attended Tuesday's rally because he said he has seen firsthand how a good health-care system can work.

"The (United) States lead the world in so many other things, but it's peculiar that the (United) States don't have health care for everyone," Crossley said. "I come from a country with socialized medicine, and it is the norm. I was involved in the system, and it works."