NCC and a wide array of interfaith religious groups
urge employment of persons with disabilities

New York, September 23, 2011 -- The employment of persons with disabilities is a "central focus" of ecumenical and interfaith religious groups, and the National Council of Churches today urged advocates to renew their energies to support the right of all Americans to work.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, NCC general secretary, endorsed a statement of solidarity sponsored by the Interfaith Disability Advocacy Coalition (IDAC) calling on the religious community to support the employment of persons with disabilities.
 
Kinnamon said the Council's Justice and Advocacy Commission affirmed the statement during its March 2011 meeting in Washington. 
 
"During the meeting I shared my vision that advocacy of increased opportunities for persons with disabilities be a central focus of the church rather than a tangential or specialized ministry functioning along side others," Kinnamon said.
 
"As we have seen with IDAC this is a concern that is broader than any one religious tradition, around which people of many faiths and political convictions are able to gather and find unity and common purpose," Kinnamon said. "We know that unemployment and underemployment have a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities. Our nation has made great strides in becoming more open and accessible to people with a wide range of disabilities and health conditions since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990."
 
Signers of the Statement of Solidarity commit to increasing employment opportunities for people with disabilities. The Statement  is sponsored by IDAC, whose mission is to mobilize the religious community to speak out and take action on disability policy issues with Congress, the President and Administration, and society at-large.
 
"Americans of many faiths, from congregations, seminaries and religious organizations believe strongly that work brings dignity, self respect and responsibility and that lack of employment is demoralizing, socially isolating and wasteful of a person’s abilities," the statement declares. 

"Although the ADA provides important protections for workers with disabilities and has helped carve out a place for disability as part of overall efforts to improve workplace diversity, the rate of progress on employment for adults with disabilities in the United States has been disappointingly slow," the statement says. "The religious community must speak out decisively and take action so that people with disabilities can live out the American dream of having a productive life, contributing to the betterment of our society." 
 
The statement addresses issues of disability employment and the fact that two-thirds of Americans with disabilities who want to work are currently unemployed or underemployed. The Statement of Solidarity was initiated during National Disability Employment Awareness Month in October 2010, and will continue to draw support through October 2011. 

Since its founding in 1950, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA has been the leading force for shared ecumenical witness among Christians in the United States. The NCC's 37 member communions -- from a wide spectrum of Protestant, Anglican, Orthodox, Evangelical, historic African American and Living Peace churches -- include 45 million persons in more than 100,000 local congregations in communities across the nation.

NCC News contact:  Philip E. Jenks, 212-870-2228 (office), 646-853-4212 (cell), pjenks@ncccusa.org