If you were out downtown this morning, you might've spotted that crowd in the photo above, marching down Main carrying a cross and signs. Every now and then, they stopped to catch attention from construction workers and dog-walkers, and to preach about something they said has been missing from any and all budget-slashing debates: morals.
It was the Dallas Area Christian Progressive Alliance's sixth annual Good Friday Walk, and about 40 members of the group turned up for an especially poignant one this year, with so many social services facing the axe in Washington, Austin and in our own City Hall.
"The hope of Easter, of course, is that God does God's best work creating out of chaos," Cathedral of Hope Senior Pastor Jo Hudson told the crowd during a stop at Main Street Garden. "God does God's best work in graveyards." She said it's time for people in power to start evening out our ever-widening wealth gap, and time for religious groups to quit spending big and picking fights. "We can't any longer demonize individuals or political groups," she said.
While they marched from First Presbyterian Church of Dallas to 511 Akard -- dangerously close to the future home of the Bellagio-style First Baptist fountain -- the group carried signs with slogans like, "Serve People Not Corporations," and "Military $$ vs human need."
"We're marching to call our leaders in government to recognize that budgets are moral documents," Hudson told Unfair Park along the way, to tell lawmakers that "cutting programs for the elderly, the poor, the disabled and children are immoral."
