Black church leaders call out Hillary Clinton on abortion and religious freedom

Twenty-five African-American church leaders and activists have written a letter to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton regarding how she will address issues such as abortion and religious freedom if she is elected president.

The letter was delivered to the Clinton campaign headquarters in Brooklyn on Monday, according to The Christian Post.

The church leaders voiced out their concerns for Clinton's staunch support for abortion and cited her 2015 speech at the National Organization of Women where she said that "deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed."

"For political leaders to call for changes in citizens' beliefs is reminiscent of totalitarianism. In our view, such a proposal constitutes a denial of our religious freedom," the religious leaders argued.

"For the same reasons that we as black Christian leaders oppose racism, unjust wars, capital punishment and euthanasia, we oppose the violent denial of life to the unborn through abortion. It is our view that human life is a gift of God that we are called upon to protect, nurture and sustain, because we are created in God's image," they continued.

The church leaders decried the normalization of "immoral sexual behavior" and claimed that there is a well-financed war being waged by the gay and lesbian community against people of faith.

The signatories of the letter also asserted that there are efforts by members of the Democratic party to criminalize certain bibilical texts as hate speech.

They also asked Clinton how she plans to address the issue of the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Apart from abortion and religious freedom, the church leaders also voiced out their concerns regarding education, employment and violence in the African-American community, including the killing of innocent unarmed black men by police officers.

The religious leaders asked Clinton to schedule a meeting to clarify her position on the said issues in the event that she wins the presidency.

The signatories of the letter include Rev. Dr. Jamal H. Bryant of the African Methodist Episcopal church in Baltimore, Rev. Vernard Coulter of Missionary Baptist Church in Boston, Bishop Tyrone L Butler from the Church of God in Christ in New York and Rev. Dr. Alonzo Johnson of Church from the Church of God in Christ in Columbia.

The letter was initiated by Dr. Jacqueline C. Rivers of the Seymour Institute in Boston.