section_path: Career/Episcopacy/Advocacy and initiatives
section_name: Advocacy and initiatives
paragraph_text: Advocacy and initiatives
  
  Budde oversaw the 2017 removal of the Washington National Cathedral 's stained-glass panes honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In place of the old windows (donated in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy), new windows depicting the struggle for African Americans' civil rights (entitled Now and Forever and executed by Kerry James Marshall) were installed in 2023. In October 2018, Budde and Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, presided over the interment service of the ashes of Matthew Shepard, a gay man murdered in 1998. Shepard's parents had hesitated for years to bury Shepard's remains out of fear that anti-gay activists would vandalize the site, but due to the support of Budde and Robinson, they felt his remains would be safe at the National Cathedral.
  
  In June 2020, amid the George Floyd protests in Washington, DC, Budde criticized the use of police and National Guard to forcibly clear protestors from Lafayette Square ahead of President Donald Trump's pose for a photo op in front of St. John's Church, enabling its use "as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus." In August, Budde offered the benediction at the closing of the second night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. In her prayer, Budde asked God for the "grace to do something big for something good" (quoting William Sloane Coffin). When convention organizers suggested she deliver the benediction from in front of St. John's Church, she declined, saying the idea was "wildly inappropriate."
  
  In September 2024, Budde was one of about 200 Christian leaders and scholars to sign an open letter calling for the preservation of pluralist democracy, and opposition to authoritarian rule, citing it as an imperative of the Christian faith. The statement described democracy's balances and constitutional protections as indispensable means to rein in "human tendencies to dominate, demean, and exploit" and thus fulfill Christian principles (such as the call to be peacemakers, the belief that humans are created in God's image, and the injunction to love one's enemy). Budde told Religion News Service that she believed that addressing wealth disparities, preserving religious pluralism, and serving as peacemakers are part of Christian responsibility.
  
  Budde oversaw the 2017 removal of the Washington National Cathedral 's stained-glass panes honoring Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. In place of the old windows (donated in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy), new windows depicting the struggle for African Americans' civil rights (entitled Now and Forever and executed by Kerry James Marshall) were installed in 2023. In October 2018, Budde and Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, presided over the interment service of the ashes of Matthew Shepard, a gay man murdered in 1998. Shepard's parents had hesitated for years to bury Shepard's remains out of fear that anti-gay activists would vandalize the site, but due to the support of Budde and Robinson, they felt his remains would be safe at the National Cathedral.
  
  In June 2020, amid the George Floyd protests in Washington, DC, Budde criticized the use of police and National Guard to forcibly clear protestors from Lafayette Square ahead of President Donald Trump's pose for a photo op in front of St. John's Church, enabling its use "as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus." In August, Budde offered the benediction at the closing of the second night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention. In her prayer, Budde asked God for the "grace to do something big for something good" (quoting William Sloane Coffin). When convention organizers suggested she deliver the benediction from in front of St. John's Church, she declined, saying the idea was "wildly inappropriate."
  
  In September 2024, Budde was one of about 200 Christian leaders and scholars to sign an open letter calling for the preservation of pluralist democracy, and opposition to authoritarian rule, citing it as an imperative of the Christian faith. The statement described democracy's balances and constitutional protections as indispensable means to rein in "human tendencies to dominate, demean, and exploit" and thus fulfill Christian principles (such as the call to be peacemakers, the belief that humans are created in God's image, and the injunction to love one's enemy). Budde told Religion News Service that she believed that addressing wealth disparities, preserving religious pluralism, and serving as peacemakers are part of Christian responsibility.