Waddie Deddeh was born and raised in Baghdad, Iraq. As a youth, a Seventh-day Adventist family made a profound impression on him because they closed their large department store on Sabbath. In 1953, Deddeh became an American citizen. By 1978, he chaired the California Assembly Committee on Public Employees and Retirement. At that time, the Church State Council was pressing for a conscience clause to protect the rights of Adventists to refuse, on religious grounds, to join labor unions.

For five years, the Church State Council had been stymied by organized labor in their efforts to pass conscience clauses. Finally, Chairman Deddah called in the chief labor lobbyist. “We’re both Catholics,” Deddah said, “and we have conscientious objections to having our tax dollars fund abortions. Well these Adventists have conscientious objections to having their money fund collective bargaining. From now on, no bill will get through this committee that doesn’t have a conscience clause.”

Publicly, Chairman Deddah expressed how this Adventist family had influenced him to believe that freedom of conscience and the relationship between a person and their Maker should be given the highest regard. When the bill had passed, Chairman Deddah wrote to Claude Morgan, Vice President of the Church State Council to express his appreciation for the large number of letters he had received from church members thanking him for championing religious freedom. He told Claude that he wished he could answer every letter, but there were just too many!

The witness of this Adventist family in Baghdad dates back to the 1940s, but their influence is still felt today in California, where Seventh-day Adventists enjoy the right to refuse to join labor unions, in no small measure because of the faithful witness of this Iraqi family. Your faithful witness today may not change the world, but then again, it might.