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religious freedom
Keep Church and State Separate to Preserve Reproductive Justice
The principle of the separation of church and state is not just a constitutional provision but a safeguard crucial to preserving the autonomy and well-being of diverse populations.
Dec 29, 2023
In the ongoing battle for reproductive justice, the intersection of religious beliefs and public policy casts a long shadow over the fundamental rights of individuals, particularly those in marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+ and non-binary individuals. That’s why the newly elected Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s remark that “the separation of church and state is a ‘misnomer’” is so chilling.
The principle of the separation of church and state is not just a constitutional provision but a safeguard crucial to preserving the autonomy and well-being of diverse populations, particularly in matters as personal as reproductive health.
Reproductive justice hinges on the right to make informed, personal decisions about one’s body, family, and future. However, the intrusion of religious ideologies into legislation poses a significant threat to this autonomy. The separation of church and state is not a mere abstraction; it is the cornerstone of protecting individual freedoms from the encroachment of religious doctrines that may not align with the diverse beliefs and circumstances of our society.
The separation of church and state provides the necessary framework to safeguard patients from being denied essential medications based on someone else’s religious beliefs.
The Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project (WRRAP), the largest independent abortion fund, works with marginalized communities, including LGBTQ+ and non-binary individuals, who often bear the disproportionate brunt of restrictive reproductive policies driven by religious ideologies. These communities face unique challenges, including limited access to affirming healthcare and discriminatory practices that compound the impact of religiously motivated policies. The separation of church and state becomes a crucial shield against the intersectional barriers faced by individuals at the crossroads of multiple marginalized identities.
The role of all healthcare providers is pivotal in upholding medical ethics and ensuring that patient care is driven by evidence-based practices rather than religious doctrine. Physicians take an oath to prioritize the well-being of their patients, and this commitment should transcend religious biases. When the separation of church and state is compromised, healthcare professionals face the ethical dilemma of navigating between religiously motivated policies and their duty to provide comprehensive, unbiased care.
In societies where religious beliefs infiltrate legislative decisions on reproductive rights, doctors find themselves torn between upholding their commitment to patient well-being and adhering to laws that may compromise patient health. WRRAP and other abortion funds have seen countless cases through the years even prior to the overturning of Roe. The separation of church and state becomes a protective shield for doctors, allowing them the professional autonomy to prioritize evidence-based medical care over religious doctrines.
The impact of religious influence extends beyond doctor-patient interactions to the realm of pharmacies, where pharmacists may encounter moral objections to dispensing certain medications. When religious beliefs seep into legislation, pharmacists may be compelled to prioritize personal convictions over the immediate healthcare needs of patients. This not only infringes on the principle of secular governance but also jeopardizes individuals’ timely access to reproductive healthcare.
WRRAP has heard of many cases in which a patient was denied access to medications like misoprostol, which are used to manage other conditions like autoimmune diseases and gastric ulcers, but, because this drug is also used for medication abortions and treatment for ectopic pregnancies, these prescriptions are denied or delayed by some pharmacists, infringing on and jeopardizing these individual’s healthcare needs.
A pharmacist must dispense medication according to professional and ethical standards, without discrimination. The separation of church and state provides the necessary framework to safeguard patients from being denied essential medications based on someone else’s religious beliefs. Access to contraceptives, emergency contraception, and other reproductive healthcare necessities should be determined by medical necessity, not by the religious tenets of those dispensing them, nor should a patient have to be asked by a provider to take a pregnancy test to confirm they are not pregnant.
As we navigate the landscape of reproductive justice, the separation of church and state stands as a protection against the erosion of individual autonomy. It is an assertion that decisions about reproductive healthcare should be guided by medical ethics, evidence-based practices, and the diverse beliefs of individuals, including those in the LGBTQ+ and non-binary communities, not by the doctrines of any particular faith.
To truly champion reproductive justice, we must fiercely defend the separation of church and state. It is a collective responsibility to ensure that policies respect the autonomy of every individual, irrespective of their background, beliefs, or socio-economic status. In strengthening this separation through advocacy in our communities and through the leaders we elect, we fortify the foundation of a just society—one that upholds the dignity and rights of all.
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Outraged by the FBI's Catholic Memo? Targeting Muslims Laid the Groundwork
Had conservative politicians stood up against government overreach when American Muslims were its victims, they could have prevented the government from even thinking about writing a memo focused on the Catholic community.
Aug 20, 2023
In one of the few relatively benign moments of Dave Chappelle's last appearance on Saturday Night Live, the comedian made an interesting observation: The complaints that some white Americans have made about law enforcement in recent years are complaints that African Americans have made about law enforcement for decades.
"Man, we can't trust the government," Chappelle said in his faux southern accent. "[Black people] have been on that. Man, we should dismantle the FBI. Word to Martin Luther King, bro. We've been on that."
Writing the jokes out doesn't do justice to the delivery, but you get the idea.
The memory of Chappelle's riff came to me last week, when conservative pundits and lawmakers railed against the FBI over an internal memorandum that proposed a strategy to address the purported threat of "radical traditional Catholic ideology."
The FBI memo says that followers of this ideology, abbreviated as RTC, are characterized by a rejection of reforms made during Vatican II, a "disdain for popes elected since then, particularly Popes Francis and John Paul II," and "adherence to antisemitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBT, and white supremacist ideology."
If you replace every instance of "church" and "radical traditional Catholic" in the FBI memo with "mosque" and "radical Islamic terrorist," the memo would read like the typical way the government has thought about and addressed the American Muslim community over the past 20 years.
To mitigate the threat of "RTCs," the memo advises, the FBI should engage in something called "tripwire," "source development," and outreach to "traditional Catholic parishes," among other things. The memo also identified conservative Catholic political stances, such as opposition to abortion, as potential triggers for acts of terrorism in the run-up to the 2024 election.
When the FBI memo first went public earlier this year, it sparked outrage among Catholics who felt it was inappropriate or even unconstitutional for the government to target the Catholic community in this way.
Conservative politicians and media personalities also latched onto the issue, exaggerating the content of the memo and using it as a new political cudgel in their ongoing feud with the bureau over its investigations of Donald Trump.
In response to such backlash, the FBI withdrew the memo and insisted it was the work of only one local field office. But a new report last week showed that multiple offices contributed to the memo and sparked renewed outrage.
As a Muslim civil rights attorney who has seen the injustices that can occur when law enforcement starts treating faith communities as suspect, I understand the concerns that Catholic voices have raised about the FBI memo.
Although every law enforcement agency has a duty to prevent and investigate crimes, the government has no business planting informants in churches, enlisting priests to help spy on community members, or equating acts of conservative piety with signs of extremism.
Even though I sympathize with some of the concerns raised about the FBI memo, I also cannot help but wonder: Where was the outrage when the federal government used identical thinking and tactics to target the Muslim community?
Indeed, if you replace every instance of "church" and "radical traditional Catholic" in the FBI memo with "mosque" and "radical Islamic terrorist," the memo would read like the typical way the government has thought about and addressed the American Muslim community over the past 20 years.
From New York to Los Angeles and cities in-between, federal and local law enforcement have used spies to infiltrate and monitor mosques.
Federal Countering Violent Extremism programs were used to build ties between law enforcement and Muslim community organizations, who would then be used to monitor, counter, and report signs of extremism.
Law enforcement training materials at the local and federal level have used explicitly anti-Muslim tropes. And only God knows how many internal memos have been dedicated to equating Islamic practices like growing a beard or praying regularly at a mosque with signs of extremism.
Yet some of the same voices who enthusiastically supported such dragnet policies when they were directed at Muslim Americans are now outraged that the government merely drafted a single memo focused on Catholic Americans.
When we allow law enforcement agencies to infiltrate, spy upon, entrap, and otherwise target one faith community, we open the door for law enforcement to do the same to other faith communities down the road.
This is why consistency is so important when it comes to opposing government overreach.
When we allow law enforcement agencies to infiltrate, spy upon, entrap, and otherwise target one faith community, we open the door for law enforcement to do the same to other faith communities down the road.
Had conservative politicians stood up against government overreach when American Muslims were its victims, they could have prevented the government from even thinking about writing a memo focused on the Catholic community.
Now, a naysayer might argue the FBI has good reason to worry about Muslims in a post-9/11 world but no reason to worry about Catholics, so it's perfectly fine to focus on mosques.
But this unprincipled stance would miss the point: Our nation's stated values and the text of the Constitution should forbid the government from singling out, spying on, or otherwise undermining faith communities from within.
Furthermore, if we accept that targeting a faith community is acceptable when a few of its members supposedly pose a threat, the FBI memo claims that it is monitoring hate groups and extremists who identify as Catholic and pose an active threat of violence. Essentially Timothy McVeigh all over again.
Even if this is true, it would not justify targeting Catholic institutions at-large to address such threats.
Law enforcement must follow real leads and track down real criminals, not go on fishing expeditions in churches, mosques, or other houses of worship. The rest of us must consistently oppose anti-religious bigotry under the guise of national security, regardless of what community is targeted.
The Patriot Act, warrantless bulk surveillance, the unconstitutional federal terror watchlist, sending informants into houses of worship—these government activities have predominantly impacted the Muslim community, but they could potentially threaten every community.
That's why our civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, opposes any attempts by federal law enforcement to focus on the Catholic American community just as strongly as we oppose targeting of the Muslim American community.
We can only hope that every American embraces this principled stance before their faith community shows up in a government memo.
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Why French Streets Are on Fire Again
The Nanterre killing, the banlieue riots, and the ongoing quest to demonize Islam are symptoms of the deep structural problems that the French government, mainstream media, and dominant culture have developed with "post-colonial" minorities.
Jul 06, 2023
Though history never repeats itself even as farce, it often seems to, as is currently the case in France.
Riots have spread since the police killing of a French teenager of North African descent in the banlieue of Nanterre, after he allegedly refused to comply with an order to stop his car. According to video evidence and witness testimony, an officer threatened to shoot the youth "in the head" before firing his gun when the car took off.
This feels like a replay of the 2005 deaths of two young teens chased by police in another Parisian banlieue, which led to weeks of nationwide riots and a state of emergency imposed by the government.
The Nanterre incident, in which one officer has been charged with voluntary homicide, also recalls the 2016 death in police custody of 24-year-old French African Adama Traore, who subsequently became a symbol of the brutality and racism of the French police—and more broadly of the French state—against ethnic minorities. His death launched a wave of protests and activism for racial justice.
Who could possibly claim with a straight face that the French state treats Islam and its practitioners the same as Christians or Jews?
In recent days, French citizens have again been subjected to a problem whose roots can be found in its colonial history: an obsessive fixation on the visibility not of "religion in the public space," as it is sometimes described, but of one religion only: Islam, whose practitioners are subjected to an ever-worsening differential and unequal treatment, securitization policies, and state persecution, in full violation of France's professed values and constitutional guarantees.
These guarantees include equality before the law, freedom of religion, and the principle of laïcité, which obligates the state to treat all religions on a strictly equal footing. But who could possibly claim with a straight face that the French state treats Islam and its practitioners the same as Christians or Jews?
Having previously banned "religious symbols" (read: Islamic ones) from public schools and burqas from public places, France is now in the midst of a new witch hunt against students wearing abayas in schools, on the grounds that they are "religious symbols" and thus fall under the 2004 law.
This has led to the usual hysterical accusations from the far right that these young girls are, if not "Islamist agents" seeking to topple the republic, at least "manipulated" by such groups, and that the Macron government is too soft on "Islamism."
Targeting Muslims
Competing for attention and headlines in the French news media, a new national debate around (and against) women's Islamic dress is again targeting "visible Muslims," vilified as threats, "Islamists," or "radicals." The media narrative is using the same old rhetoric (such as the need to "protect French laïcité" and to fight against "political Islam"), and it continues to have deleterious effects on Muslims.
Is the French Republic truly so weak that a few hundred school teens wearing long dresses, amid millions of other French students, somehow represent an existential threat to the nation—and if we don't tackle this issue, "the Islamists will win" and we will soon be living in an Islamic-State-style caliphate?
This new campaign is even more outrageous, given that the abaya has no specific religious meaning and is often a simple fashion choice allowing girls to distinguish themselves from their peers, perhaps out of rebellion against mainstream Western culture. Prominent French imams, highly respected theologians and the French Council of the Muslim Faith (the semi-official representative institution of Muslims in France) have made it clear that the abaya is not a religious sign but a cultural choice.
Instead of developing inclusive policies and encouraging an open culture more congruent with the dramatic societal transformations of France in the postwar era, the country is doing the opposite: excluding, stigmatising, vilifying, repressing, and discriminating against people and groups who only want to be treated equally.
At the same time, another recent "controversy" has focused on female football players, who have been protesting against the French Football Federation's ban on headscarves. They, too, have regularly been accused by the dominant media of being dangerous, subversive "Islamists" at war with the republic.
All these interrelated events—the Nanterre killing, the banlieue riots, and the ongoing quest to demonize Islam—are symptoms of the deep structural problems that the French government, mainstream media, and dominant culture have developed with "post-colonial" minorities in general, and in particular the largely disenfranchised and segregated populations in France's banlieues.
Instead of developing inclusive policies and encouraging an open culture more congruent with the dramatic societal transformations of France in the postwar era, the country is doing the opposite: excluding, stigmatising, vilifying, repressing, and discriminating against people and groups who only want to be treated equally. This includes the right not to get unjustifiably killed by police, and not to be summoned to choose between sport and education, or freedom of religion and conscience.
In particular, the government's response to the Nanterre killing and ensuing riots—zealously echoed by the mainstream media in their "analysis" of these events—has been at its essence repressive, aiming solely to "restore order." None of the root causes of the protests is being addressed.
Police Brutality
Most shockingly, the Macron government continues to refuse to recognize France's deep police brutality problem, the systemic racism that plagues its "security" forces, and institutional Islamophobia, however well documented these phenomena have been by scholars, activists, local associations, human rights groups, and inhabitants of marginalized neighbourhoods.
Last week, France was officially condemned twice in one day over police racism, brutality, and excessive force. The United Nations human rights office urged France to address "deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement." The same day, the International Trade Union Confederation severely condemned France for "police brutality," "blind arrests," and repeated violations of workers' rights.
Yet against all evidence—which includes the shocking declarations of France's own police forces, whose fascistic elements have openly threatened to violently turn against the government itself—Macron and his government are continuing to ignore and deny.
This suggests the Macron government is now so weak and powerless that its own police forces can openly and publicly threaten it with insurrection and violence, and get away with it.
On the U.N. condemnation, it merely declared that "any accusation of racism or systemic discrimination in the police force in France is totally unfounded," as it always does in such cases, which have become routine. This suggests the Macron government is now so weak and powerless that its own police forces can openly and publicly threaten it with insurrection and violence, and get away with it.
What we have here, in such systematic blindness, denial, and powerlessness, is not a repetition of history, but a country both unwilling and unable to even recognize, much less address, the root causes of recent events so that one day it may live up to its high ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity.
In the meantime, these have become increasingly vacuous words for Muslims and other minorities—and this is why the French streets are once again on fire.
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