‘It’s always appropriate for churches to have a
stance of humility,’ Hamilton-Poore says (Holly
Baxter)In a small, rainbow pocket of an industrial city deep within the Bible Belt, Hamilton-Poore and churches
like hers are clearly spreading hope. Elsewhere, Catholics and Protestant evangelicals have united to
celebrate the prospect of a permanent abortion ban in the state (“I’m very proud of our legislature,” said
anti-abortion clergy member Jim Pinto, who led protests outside women’s clinics, to AL.com not long after
it the ban was signed in.
“Right to life is the most fundamental right. Every life needs to be protected.” He posed for a photograph
outside a now-shut down reproductive healthcare clinic which was bombed in the 1980s. It’s clear that
divisions in the state aren’t drawn neatly along class lines, age lines or even religious lines. What’s less clear
is who will win the battle for the hearts and minds of everyday, church-going Alabamians – and who will
suffer the consequences of that fight.