Earlier this spring, denominational officials had asked Presbyterians to hold off on making travel plans for Big Tent, which is scheduled for June 30-July 2 and will feature nine church-related conferences meeting concurrently.
That request was made because the Indiana legislature was considering legislation similar to a controversial immigration law passed in Arizona – that would have, for example, required police to police to ask for proof of citizenship or immigration status if they had a “reasonable suspicion” that someone they had detained was in the U.S. illegally.
If it had passed, that legislation would have conflicted with a 2010 General Assembly action, which instructed General Assembly agencies to “refrain from holding national meetings at hotels in those states where travel by immigrant Presbyterians or Presbyterians of color or Hispanic ancestry might subject them to harassment,” because of legislation similar to the Arizona immigration law.
As it turned out, the Indiana legislature passed a version of the bill that was sufficiently changed that PC(USA) officials say it won’t invoke the General Assembly prohibition.
“While the Indiana bill still contains objectionable language that we consider inhospitable and unjust toward immigrants, we are encouraged that the legislation in its final form falls short of the extreme measure of racial profiling,” Gradye Parsons, the PC(USA)’s stated clerk, said in news release issued by the Office of the General Assembly.
