Clergy Sign Letter Opposing Prop. 187

Seventy-six Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Islamic clergy in the San Fernando Valley denounced Proposition 187 in a brief statement opposing the state ballot initiative as “an ineffective way to deal with the genuine problem of illegal immigration.

“It is an affront to the unity of humankind which all our traditions teach,” said the statement, circulated primarily by the Revs. Charlotte Shivvers, minister of the Sepulveda Unitarian Universalist Society, and Jeffrey Utter, pastor of Chatsworth Congregational Church.

Among those signing the statement as individuals, not as representatives of their churches, were the Rev. Brandon Cho, the Chatsworth-based district superintendent for the United Methodist Church; Jan Diwan, the worship leader of the Islamic Center of Northridge; Auxiliary Bishop Armando X. Ochoa, of the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese; the Rev. Robert Fernandez, a Panorama City-based regional executive for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); the Rev. Joon Nam Lee, Valley Korean Baptist Church of North Hills; the Rev. William Broadus, Calvary Baptist Church of Pacoima, and the Rev. Balint Nagy, Grace Hungarian Reformed Church of Reseda.