Taking faith into the legislature: A politician's story

Churches are good at food drives, but not as good at food justice, claims Kathy Webb, a cradle United Methodist who has worked in Arkansas politics for decades. Kathy shares how her faith integrates with social justice as a passionate advocate who engages with her community, city boards, commissions and church to tackle pressing issues such as housing, healthcare access, voting rights and criminal justice reform. And discover how, as Jesus commanded, when we love our neighbors, we can all contribute to a more just and equitable society.

Guest: Kathy Webb

• Learn more about Webb's story.
• She is a member of First United Methodist Church, Little Rock.
• Webb has been inducted into the Arkansas Women's Hall of Fame.
• Get Loud Arkansas! is an organization dedicated to registering and mobilizing voters in Arkansas.

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This episode posted on March 7, 2025.

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Transcript

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Prologue

Churches are good at food drives, but not as good at food justice claims. Kathy Webb, a cradle United Methodist who has worked in Arkansas politics for decades. Kathy shares how her faith integrates with social justice as a passionate advocate who engages with her community, city boards, commissions, and church to tackle pressing issues such as housing, healthcare, access, voting rights, and criminal justice reform, and discover how, as Jesus commanded, when we love our neighbors, we can all contribute to a more just and equitable society. 

Crystal Caviness, host: Hi, my name is Crystal Caviness, your host, and I'm here today with Kathy Webb. Kathy, thank you for being a guest on "Get Your Spirit in Shape."

Kathy Webb, guest: Thank you for having me, Crystal.

Crystal: You're welcome. We've talked a little bit before we started recording about the conversation today and I'm so eager to jump in. But before we do that, can you share just a little bit about yourself?

Kathy: I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. I am a PK and I would guess your listeners know what a PK is, a cradle Methodist. I did my best growing up to live up to that stereotype of PKS being the worst kids in the church, but I'm very grateful that my mom and dad lived a long good life and I was able to appreciate that upbringing as I became an adult in a way I didn't as a kid. I've been in politics for a long time. I've worked in social justice for decades, but in the last 15 years I've served in the Arkansas legislature as the first open L-G-B-T-Q person elected to office in Arkansas and I currently serve on the Little Rock City Council. I'm in my 10th year, just started my 11th year on the Little Rock City Council. So I am a member of First United Methodist Church in downtown Little Rock.

Crystal: As I learned more about you, you have certainly turned that PK child reputation around. You have done so much with your community and for your community in your career, and we're going to talk about some of that today. And one of your roles has been vice Mayor, is that correct? Little rock's? Correct. And you've just started a new term with that or just ended a term?

Kathy: I just ended the term as vice mayor. I continue in my role as representative of my ward area. The Little Rock City Council has 10 members plus the mayor and I am one of those 10.

Crystal: I just appreciate your work in public office really as a civil servant. That's not easy work. And I know that I've asked previous guests who are in public positions kind of how they take their faith into their work because sometimes people think our faith is in a little box that comes over here and then we've got government and politics and things that are all over here. But from what I've learned about you, your faith is you don't keep those segmented at all. Can you talk a little bit about really how you approach that and how that's been, how you have approached that through the years?

Kathy: I think one of the things that I always appreciated about being a United Methodist and I always appreciate about my dad and my church is that we heard on Sunday what we were supposed to go out and do during the week, what we were called to do. And I grew up around a number of United Methodist pastors who preached in that way. And so that's always been part of my belief system. And we were called to go out and do justice. We were called to go out and feed the hungry. We were called to go out and visit the sick and welcome the immigrant and all of those things. And so I take all of that very seriously. At the same time, I acknowledge that there are people of other faiths and there are people who profess not to have a faith who do good things in the community as well. So while the decisions I make are based on my experiences of which faith is a big part, also strongly believe in the separation of church and state. And I believe that I'm frankly scared of a path that we're going down or that many of us feel like we're going down now with a very harsh Christian theocracy, which is not at all the faith that I grew up with or was taught to. That's such a part of my life.

Crystal: I appreciate that you used the word justice when you were talking about what you were learning in church on Sundays or on Wednesdays or whenever that was in that being United Methodist. We have such a strong mandate to go out and be in the world with a social justice lens with looking for doing that kind of work. And I heard a pastor say recently that another word for politics is justice And Jesus talked about justice a lot. And when I heard that I was like, I just really want to talk about that because you do hear people say, I mean there are pastors who get criticized for talking about what people think are politics when they're really talking. In my opinion, they're talking about feeding our neighbors and housing our neighbors and welcoming our neighbors. So when you hear that, how do you feel about that? What's your response to that kind of comment?

Kathy: I would strongly disagree with that. And I have a friend of my dad's who was one of my role models growing up because he lived out justice in the world and from the pulpit. And I heard him preach a sermon years ago and he said, we are very good in the church at having food drives. We are not good with food justice. And I really, I thought about that a lot and it is important that we have those food drives. I don't want to have an infinite number of food drives and not do anything to change, try to change the situation that we find ourselves in that so many are in. And if when I looked at the social principles or at resolutions or things that we have passed, it doesn't say food insecurity. It says food justice. So I think from my perspective, I would be falling short if I didn't go out and try to change policy that would alleviate poverty, that would alleviate hunger. I'm still going to try to go out and get food for people to eat, but I've got to work to change that policy because that is justice. It's not political and I've never forgotten when Ben Jordan preached that sermon. So I think it speaks directly to what you're saying.

Crystal: I can imagine that people are hearing you talk and they're thinking, well yes, you're in a position where you can really impact laws and what's happening in Little Rock or even in the state of Arkansas, and I want you to share in just a minute about what just happened in the state of Arkansas. But I believe that we all can take a stand in this or at least have some action in this. What can I do? I'm not an elected official. What can I do?

Kathy: And I think there's something for everybody to do. We have to sit down and have conversations to find out what people's specific interests are. And I'll give you another example of what recently did that would perhaps offer you an opportunity. Matthew Desmond was in Little Rock recently. He is the author of two amazing books, one called Evicted the Other Which one A Pulitzer, the Other Poverty by America. And our Church read those. We were reading about the housing crisis and another, a number of other issues facing us. And a few weeks ago there was a special Sunday school class to discuss what individuals could do to make an impact. We have a community cafe where people who are unsheltered come and get warm and get snacks and we try to provide service, but then to take that next step to change policy, whatever community people live in, most often there are city boards and commissions that are affiliated with local government. We have a housing commission and the city of Little Rock, we have a planning commission that deals with zoning issues. And we talked about those as opportunities for people to serve because you can look at those issues from a social justice lens. And so those are just two small examples of how someone could be engaged. And it's very consistent with the justice work that we talk about on Sunday morning

Crystal: And it has a direct impact to the community where we live.

Kathy: Yeah, so it's not just hunger, it's hunger, it's housing, it's healthcare access to healthcare, access to voting, corrections and reformation of criminal justice. In my opinion, it's all the issues that we can look at through that lens and find our own place in which to plug in.

Crystal: And it's childcare and its education. Which leads me to have you ask you about something that you've been a part of, some work you've been a part of that affects school children in Arkansas.

Kathy:And I've been very privileged to serve as the CEO of the Statewide Hunger Relief Organization for a number of years. I retired from that position almost a year ago, but was fortunate to be retained to work on a bill that would provide universal breakfast for all Arkansas public school children. And I think working with a lot of my colleagues I've worked with for a long time, working with the legislature and working the governor who supported this bill last week, it passed the Arkansas House. It started in the Senate, passed there, passed the Arkansas House on Thursday and will be signed into law by the governor later this week. Which means every school, public school child in Arkansas will have the opportunity to have a breakfast at no cost. And we know that impacts their ability to learn. It impacts their ability to concentrate. It eliminates the stigma. And stigma is used a lot in the Methodist Church and the social principles and in resolutions talking about what we're called to do. I see the word stigma in there that we have to eliminate that word and universal breakfast eliminates stigma that children feel when they have to go take a free breakfast. This is going to be transformative. While there were a lot of people from a lot of faith traditions who worked on this, I'm proud to say that one of my main colleagues is also a member of First United Methodist Church.

Crystal: That's wonderful. And it is, you use the correct word, Kathy. It's transformative for children to not have to wonder if they're going to have breakfast or go to school and be hungry until lunchtime and de-stigmatize. That is huge for kids. Just one more barrier that you're taking down.

Kathy: We're really proud of the Arkansas legislature and the governor for coming together, not getting caught up in political squabbles and saying this is the right thing to do for the children of Arkansas. We're number one in food insecurity. And people came together across party lines to make this happen.

Crystal: And you were sharing that Arkansas is now one of just what, a half a dozen states that have this?

Kathy: Yeah, they're I think seven or eight who have both breakfast and lunch and we now become the second state to have universal breakfast. So it's a big step.

Crystal: It is. Well, and you said it took about 10 years.

Kathy: At least.  And we've made some incremental gains along the way. Two years ago we eliminated the reduced price copay, which was very important for families. And that was a justice issue and that was transformative for a lot of families who had two or three kids and couldn't afford that copay every day, even though the copay was only 30 cents. You add that up and you multiply it and that savings for the family will be able to help them do other things, things. It's very important.

Crystal: It seems almost just saying that it took 10 years for something like breakfast for every child to be written into law, that just seems like why, but it did, and you guys stuck with the work. So I think there's, the message there is that this can be long-term work and it takes a lot of energy. Tell me about how do you maintain your optimism and your energy through a process like that?

Kathy: I've always been optimistic and I've always been determined. I started fighting against what I thought was wrong when I was a child and when I was in the sixth grade. And I've always been grateful that my parents were supportive and encouraged me to stand up for what I believed in. And there's just, I think it's part of my DNA to continue to be hopeful and we always celebrate the small wins and we keep the prize, keep the goal in mind. It's about the goal. It's not about me as an individual or somebody else, it's an individual. And that we're able to just stay focused on that, I think is, it's just kind of part of what I learned growing up.

Crystal: It seems that First United Methodist in Little Rock is a very active church, active in the community with outreach and you also outside of the church. My understanding is that you started, you founded the Chicago area affiliate of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Organization, which raises funds for breast cancer research. As I hear you talk about your life and just really across the decades what you've done, I can tell you just have a real servant's heart. You just serve. There's this fight or spirit in you. I can hear that. And you said you've been that way since a little girl, but it's paired with this servant's heart. How did you find yourself in those spaces where you were like, there's a gap here. I need to do something?

Kathy: The Komen story is kind of interesting because when the Susan G. Komen Foundation started, I lived in Washington DC and right before the first race in Washington, a good friend of mine was diagnosed with breast cancer. And so she asked all of us to come to the race that first year. And then every year thereafter, we joined her to celebrate her recovery. When I decided to move to Chicago, I promised her I would participate in the race in Chicago. So I called the Komen Foundation when I got to Chicago, headquartered in Dallas, and they said, there's not one there. Would you be interested in starting one? And I said, well, I'm an organizer, so sure. So it was to keep a promise to a friend. And recently Chicago had their 20th anniversary and I was invited to go back and participate in that event. And then fast forward about 13 years ago, to be exact, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

And so I was prepared. I knew a lot about it, I'd been involved in it. And when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was able to have a village to help me. Yet I saw people at the same time who were going to chemo then going to a food pantry to get whatever food they got that day. And one of my coworkers met a woman who went straight from chemo to the food pantry. She had no heat, she had no food, she had no insurance. She was very similar in age to me. We both were hard workers. We were both bald at the time. But my life was very different because I had insurance, I had a village, I had heat, and we were able to transfer a lot of my resources from the community to her and at the same time work on some better policies to get the hospital to change a couple of things.

We got the hospital to start a food pantry and we were able to do some things like that. So it's, I'm going to always try to find an answer or a way to do good things to, I don't know if John Wesley really said that or not. There's a lot of debate about that. But I think that some of it stems from a plaque that my mother had in her bathroom for many years. Shed a plaque that said, what you are is God's gift to you. What you become is your gift to God. And for a number of years, I was really distraught about my life when I had to come to terms with the fact that I was a lesbian, which was not well-received in many places. And at the time when I was growing up, even though I had a supportive family and society at large, there was a very different opinion of that. And so I was, why do I have to be like this until I finally first accepted myself and then realized because of that and the struggle I had, I could use that to do good. And so I don't think you have to have that perspective of something in your life that makes you want to serve in that way. But I think at least for me, it helped me with my focus on different communities, particularly those communities that have been marginalized in one way or another.

Crystal: Sounds like it definitely gave you a lens and an empathy. For some other, for marginalized communities too. And I really appreciated, Kathy, of how when you were going through your own breast cancer recovery treatment and recovery, you saw a need there. You saw someone else, and your friends were like problem solvers. It's like, there's a problem here. How do we solve this? And so nobody would have said, if you had just said this really hard time for me, I just can't do one more thing. That would've been understandable. But you had this outward focus and which I just appreciate that you use that to help even more than one person. It grew to something even larger. So thank you for that work and that it's an attitude, really just the spirit of who can I help? I like that you called yourself an organizer, that you recognize your gifts and you were able to just jump in and make something happen. And maybe that's what we all need to be doing too, is opening our eyes a little more to saying what's around us? What's immediately around us that we can find a place to plug into or to help and improve.

Kathy: Sometimes we sell ourselves short with our skills. There are a lot of skills. I don't have a lot of things I'm not very good at, but connecting the dots is something that I always encourage my coworkers to do and to try to envision what happens when you connect the dots, because all of these things are related. When I was in the hospital during the cancer treatment, the social worker comes in and they say, do you have a place to go when you leave here? Yes. Do you have somebody who can help you at your house? Yes. And then they ask one or two questions, and I said, aren't you going to ask me if I have any food to eat at my house? And she said, no, that's not on our list of questions. I'm like, well, can you call in the chief social worker because it should be on your list of questions because that has a real impact on people when they're going through cancer. And so we had a very good discussion about that. And I think they now ask if you have food when you get released.

Crystal: Yeah, that would definitely, going home and not having the nutrition, just the basic needs that that would be required for you to help in your healing would definitely be impactful on how you heal through that process. So sounds like just, and also some common sense here. Well, as we kind of finish up today, Kathy, is there anything you wanted to talk about that we haven't yet talked about?

Kathy: I think it's important that we acknowledge the difficulty we've had in the church in the last few years, but I think being a Methodist, the United Methodist is also in my DNA, and I'm very grateful to the pastors and the congregation at First United Methodist Church because we are a reconciling congregation. And I am always grateful that I felt so much love. I was the lay leader at our church. I've been on many boards, and I was very hurt like many people because of the struggle that we had to go through and that we were a lot later than our brothers and sisters in the Episcopal Church and Presbyterian Church. But being a Methodist as part of who I am as well, and I'm hopeful that we have put the biggest part of that discussion behind us. I'm hopeful.

Crystal: I'm hopeful too, because then we can use that energy to talk about how we can welcome our neighbors, how we can provide some basic needs, which I really believe Jesus, that was the main teaching to love God and to love our neighbors.

Kathy: Exactly.

Crystal: Yeah. Well, the last question I'm going to ask you, Kathy, is the one that we ask all of our guests on “Get Your Spirit in Shape” and that's how do you keep your own spirit in shape?

Kathy: Well, and sometimes being an elected official, that can be difficult because it just can be. And so I think a multitude of things. I like to go to church on Sunday and be reminded of what we're called to do in the world. I'm privileged to be in a recovery program and I go to meetings there and get tips on how to practice principles in all of my affairs. And when I had cancer, I started doing some meditation to have that quiet time. I'm not very good at quiet and sitting. I'm better at doing. And so those are things, but I do, I have great friends and great family. I love to go to Chicago and get away. I used to live there. I love to read, play with my pets, hang out with my friends, but I've got that three leg stool with recovery, church and meditation, and I need all of those to help me stay in balance.

Crystal: I love that. That is such a, that's a really great plan that it's not a single, it is going to take multiple things and something you said typically, we just kind of wind up the conversation here, but something you said really sparked another question for me. And what is the challenge for you in the political arena as a person of faith? Where are those tensions? Where do you find them most often?

Kathy: I think one of the things that happens to people when you go to the capital and everybody wants something from you, but they're telling you how special you are and how smart you are and all of those kind of things, which is not true. And I always loved being able to go home to my dog and to my cats who didn't care that everybody had been telling me how wonderful I was because they wanted their dinner and to clean the litter box, and that was very grounding. So that's not exactly my faith, but it's still, you have to have things that ground you, and it can be your faith, it can be your cat who couldn't care less about what your job is, but I've got that plaque that my mother had on the wall now in my bathroom. I try to remember that and I do hope that my parents would be proud of what I'm doing and that I'm making decisions that are based on the principles and the beliefs that they taught me.

Crystal: What's next?

Kathy: I'm working on some voter registration projects and to expand access to voting. So more people feel like they have a voice in what is happening. And we have very low voter registration. We have very low voter turnout in Arkansas. Therefore, decisions are being made that impact people's daily lives and they're not part of the decision making process. So that's my current and new project.

Crystal: And very important for sure. Thank you. Well, thank you, Kathy for being a guest on “Get Your Spirit in Shape.” I am so grateful that you and others are doing this work, and it's actually really inspiring that we can go out and find that place where we also can make a difference. So thank you for what you're doing, and you're definitely, as the plaque said, what you're doing is your gift to God. I see that for sure.

Kathy: Thank you.

Epilogue

That was Kathy Webb, a cradle United Methodist who has spent a career in Arkansas politics discussing her social justice work in her community, state, and church. To learn more, go to umc.org/podcast and look for this episode where you'll find helpful links and a transcript of our conversation. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at a special email address just for :”Get Your Spirit in Shape” listeners, gysis@umcom.org. If you enjoyed today's episode, we invite you to leave a review on the platform where you get your podcast. Thank you for being a “Get Your Spirit in Shape” listener. I'm Crystal Caviness and I look forward to the next time that we're together.