Anti-Semitism and religious liberty

The new admin­is­tra­tion recent­ly sug­gest­ed that for­eign nation­als who utter anti-Semitic com­ments should be deported.

If for­eign nation­als can be sin­gled out for their com­ments such as these (dis­gust­ing as they may be), will the next step be to per­se­cute any­one, regard­less of their cit­i­zen­ship sta­tus, for mak­ing such utter­ances?  And does speak­ing out against the poli­cies of the Israeli gov­ern­ment (such as its geno­ci­dal attacks in Gaza and unpro­voked attacks into the West Bank) sud­den­ly become anti-Semitic?

There is a move­ment under­way to “pro­tect” reli­gious free­dom, but it appears that only cer­tain reli­gions are sus­cep­ti­ble to this protection.

President Trump has signed an Executive Order estab­lish­ing the White House Faith Office, whose pre­sump­tive pur­pose would include “defend­ing reli­gious lib­er­ty.” The office will also be tasked with help­ing faith-based orga­ni­za­tions pro­cure gov­ern­ment grants and “root out anti-Christian bias.”

To those who con­sis­tent­ly lament the intru­sion of gov­ern­ment into reli­gious lib­er­ties (such as requir­ing church­es to cur­tail ser­vices dur­ing the Covid epi­dem­ic), how is it pos­si­ble to so eas­i­ly assume the very oppo­site stance in sup­port­ing gov­ern­ment efforts on behalf of secur­ing funds (pro­vid­ed by the American pub­lic through tax­es) for reli­gious purposes?

Why is it not evi­dent that, once the gov­ern­ment pro­vides fund­ing for reli­gious pur­pos­es, that same gov­ern­ment will secure the rights to estab­lish cri­te­ria for that reli­gion to operate?

And why was the term “anti-Christian” used?  If the goal is to cur­tail anti-reli­gious bias, shouldn’t that goal include all reli­gions, not just the Christian ones?

There seems to be dou­ble-speak going on here.

Rachel Laser, President and CEO of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, com­ment­ed: “Rather than pro­tect­ing reli­gious beliefs, this task force will mis­use reli­gious free­dom to jus­ti­fy big­otry, dis­crim­i­na­tion, and the sub­ver­sion of our civ­il rights laws.”  Some of the com­ments made dur­ing the estab­lish­ment of this office bear out the fears expressed in this statement.

How like­ly is it that this effort to “pro­tect reli­gious free­dom” will be effec­tive in halt­ing the con­stant attacks on syn­a­gogues, which are rou­tine­ly cov­ered with Nazi graf­fi­ti (Philadelphia in October 2024; Minneapolis, December 2024) bombed, or hav­ing their gath­er­ers gunned down dur­ing ser­vices (Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, when 11 wor­shipers were killed and six wounded).

Though the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state is not cod­i­fied with­in the Constitution, it is a well-estab­lished and sacro­sanct tenet espoused by Thomas Jefferson in his let­ter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802 and upheld through the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. That sep­a­ra­tion can­not be main­tained when a gov­ern­ment agency is pur­posed to help­ing reli­gious orga­ni­za­tions secure gov­ern­ment funding.

The state of Rhode Island was found­ed because of the absence of the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state when Roger Williams fled the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1636 because of his espousal of that sep­a­ra­tion in a state that rou­tine­ly used gov­ern­men­tal largesse in sup­port of the church.

Kelly Shackelford, head of First Liberty Institute, a con­ser­v­a­tive Christian legal orga­ni­za­tion, said: “All Americans should be free to exer­cise their faith with­out gov­ern­ment intru­sion in school, in the mil­i­tary, in the work­place, and in the pub­lic square.”

How is that free­dom from intru­sion main­tained if the gov­ern­ment is fund­ing reli­gious pur­pos­es?  And does Ms. Shackelford sug­gest that there is intru­sion, gov­ern­ment or oth­er­wise, into the reli­gious prac­tices of the pub­lic in these insti­tu­tions?  Is she as mor­ti­fied about all the prayers open­ing gov­ern­men­tal meet­ings as she pur­ports to be by the intru­sion into reli­gious liberties?

Most impor­tant­ly, is she sug­gest­ing that Americans are not free to exer­cise their faith?  If so, how?

Religious free­dom must be guar­an­teed to all reli­gions, or it can­not be guar­an­teed to any because war­ranties of free­dom are only as strong as the desire to see them applied to everyone.

History is replete with instances in which the refusal to com­ply with cer­tain reli­gions could be a death sen­tence, whether it exist­ed in the peri­od of the Inquisition or, today, in Talibanic areas.

Religions in America are not suf­fer­ing intru­sions into their lib­er­ty.  Rather it is the zeal­ous reli­gious enti­ties that are con­stant­ly try­ing to assert their con­trol through legal attempts that sub­vert the law and the Constitution, such as claim­ing tax-free sta­tus while engag­ing in polit­i­cal activ­i­ties or for-prof­it activ­i­ties out­side their stat­ed pur­pose of min­is­ter­ing to their con­stituents, as Answers in Genesis does through manip­u­la­tion of the tax codes to secure emol­u­ments of local and state gov­ern­ment funding.

The lauda­to­ry goal of secur­ing reli­gious free­dom is best accom­plished by guar­an­tee­ing the rights of indi­vid­u­als to wor­ship as they see fit and mak­ing sure that government—at all levels—maintains its dis­tance by not extend­ing rights to any reli­gion at the expense of any oth­er, or of none at all.