Religious Discrimination in America: Alive and Well in 2016
Mark Schickman*
January 5, 2016
Freedom of religion holds a unique place in the constellation of Constitutional
protections. Our Constitution embodies the importance of equality in broad general
terms, but religious adherents are the only protected class expressly mentioned for
protection. This is understandable, as our nation was formed in a large part out of
the quest to flee religious persecution, founded by those escaping religious abuse.
Different from other protected classes, religious identity is often thought to be
mutable, changeable by act of will. But our framers recognized the special danger
of coercion given the 1000 years of brutal demands for European Jews,
Protestants, Muslims, Catholics and others to abandon their religious beliefs on
pain of death, a mutation of belief impossible for the religious faithful, and
outrageous for anyone to demand of another. The words emblazoned on the
Jefferson Memorial sum up the constitutional view of coercion and discrimination
based upon religious belief:
"Almighty God hath created the mind free. …...No man shall be compelled
to frequent or support religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer
on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to
profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.."
-Excerpted from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, drafted in 1777.
Freedom of religion is nothing less than freedom of thought, the freedom upon
which so many of our other protections are based. Though it is on one level
illogical that human history has featured so much discrimination, abuse, torture and
bloodshed over differences in religious belief, history’s brutal lesson is clear.
Thankfully, America’s founding principles have made our country a haven for free
religious expression. But even here, the dark specter of religious discrimination
surfaces from time to time. Today, it is in a call to ban admission to our shores all
adherents of the Muslim faith -- the second most populous religion on earth, if a
minority in our nation. It is hard to imagine a suggestion more out of sync with our
constitutional values, more deaf to history, more anathema to what America is.
History painfully teaches us the great price paid when religious bigotry goes
unchecked. In the 1930s, it was Father Coughlin preaching hate to a nationwide
radio audience of 30 million people, spewing venom towards Jews and praise for
Nazis. An America whose fears were fanned by such hate speech closed its borders
to Jews seeking refuge from murderous attack, leaving millions to their deadly
fate.
Today, more millions are fleeing the deadly grasp of ISIS and other violent
extremists, many Muslim families among those refugees. The calls to close our
borders to those terrified victims on the basis of their religion is an affront to our
principles of religious liberty, and to our character as a nation of immigrants.
Today’s depiction of Islam as an inherently evil religion is no different from the
denigration of European Jews, Protestants and Catholics during the centuries
preceding America’s birth; whatever supposed logic is articulated for today’s
xenophobia, bigots in every age have found a faux rationale for their prejudice. In
every generation, the moment arises when freedom-loving people must stand up
against religious hate. This is such a moment.
It is precisely the brand of invidious discrimination that our nation was born to
prevent, and which this ABA/CRJS Religious Freedom Committee was born to
oppose. It is the American thing to do.
* Immediate Past Chair of the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice and founder of the
CRSJ Religious Freedom Committee.