Thank you to acting Board Chair Dr. McDonald and Board of Managers for hearing us today.

Dallas Area Interfaith is here today because it is important for this committee to know of our organization's commitment to this process and to our own engagement in an area so vital to the interests of all of Dallas County citizens.

It is equally important for you to know that our engagement is not driven by personalities or the popularity of any particular issue. We are here because Parkland, its future and the future of health care is critical to us, to our families and to the life of this city and county.

We are here because our last appearance was misunderstood. Later conversations that suggested that there might be the need for sheriffs and bailiffs to maintain order are puzzling at best and insulting at worst. We, along with the Dallas West Interdenominational Ministers Alliance, take exception to the idea that we should be considered some potentially violent group.

Far from needing to be protected from us, we are the spiritual guardians of this city!

I have been a pastor in Dallas for more than twenty years, Rev. M.L. Curry, has been at his church longer than that. We, along with the other pastors in the Dallas West IMA, and the clergy who are leaders in DAI, are the ones who come to Parkland to pray for the sick. To comfort the families of the dying, to celebrate the birth of the children that the former board members and some county commissioners consider to be part of Parkland’s problem. We help the doctors break bad news to broken families, and help those same families make near unthinkable choices about terminating life support. We are the ones that this hospital’s chaplains call to inform us of admissions, death and critical turns in the conditions of our members.

We also minister to those who have found jobs and careers at Parkland. Like me, many of us have counseled members of our congregations who have lost jobs because of the layoffs here. The very idea that we are a threat to anyone’s safety is an affront to us, our congregations and the organizations we serve.

We are not only here as pastors, we are here as those who have benefited from Parkland's Health Care System. Several years ago, I was a patient at Parkland. Without the benefit of health insurance and with the kindness and professionalism of doctors and staff who nursed and nurtured me back to health before and after my operation, I know first hand the kind of care this hospital provides at its best. My children have been cared for here and my granddaughter was born here. I am among those who have a vested interest in the future of this hospital.

But we are also here as citizens. We are here as citizens who understand that if Parkland is not available to provide affordable, accessible health care to our fellow citizens, we all suffer. And we understand, as citizens, that the backs upon which the budget of Parkland is threatened to be balanced could very easily be ours, or someone about whom we care or for whom we are responsible: some church member, or neighbor, some coworker or some relative. Parkland provides jobs and careers as well as health care. Parkland's situation is not theoretical or conceptual to us, it is deeply personal.

As I stated before, I am a pastor and preacher by trade. We are given to thinking of issues in terms that are broad, theological and sometimes philosophical. Often we are branded as impractical because our evaluations and analysis seem otherworldly. But there is something practical about them when it comes to Parkland, because this hospital represents something that we as citizens, as human beings, owe one another. County hospitals are reminders that there is a common sense that a society needs to provide something for those who cannot take care of themselves. And while there are political and economic realities that must be dealt with, we elect people to represent us and work with us to grapple with those hard, complex choices and have the courage to deal with them in ways which preserve that primary commitment and moral compact that a sophisticated society always recognizes as an overarching responsibility. When the great verities of social contract and human values are reduced to bottom lines and charts and graphs, we can lose the sense of those things which cost and those things that have value.

Parkland, in a real sense doesn’t provide charity. It ensures justice and in doing so, it ensures that all of us will live confident in a measure of care that serves our dignity and humanity. That which is owed in justice should never be paid, or thought of in terms of charity. We are here today, and we will keep coming back to ensure that this truth remains as much a consideration in Parkland's future as its bottom line.