Friend: “If America is to survive another 250 years, we must recommit ourselves and our nation to that founding American ideal: the separation of church and state.” That’s what I told the packed audience earlier this month at the “Religious Liberty for All” event that AU sponsored with our allies at Center for American Progress, Interfaith Alliance, and the American Humanist Association.
Nearly 1,200 people watched virtually and in person. If you missed it, you can catch the full program on YouTube.
Christian Nationalists are trying to push our country away from the basic American principle that religious freedom belongs to us all, so long as we don’t harm others, and toward an Orwellian version of religious freedom that belongs only to a select few, at the expense of everyone else. Our “Religious Liberty for All” event and the accompanying report, which contains entries about true religious freedom written by Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, humanists, and agnostics, rebutted that harmful narrative
The event was a preemptive response to President Trump’s biased Religious Liberty Commission and the report it plans to issue soon. (We’re suing to stop that report and the commission, and as I write to you, we’re waiting for the judge to issue an opinion.)
Sadly, it’s not just the Trump administration that pushes this narrative, but also our Supreme Court. They did so again this month. On June 23, in a 6-3 decision that split along ideological lines, the ultra-conservative justices said that Damon Landor, a devout Rastafarian and Black man, could not sue the prison officials who cruelly and unlawfully shaved off his dreadlocks.
Damon was transferred to a new prison with three weeks left on his sentence. Worried about prison officials trampling his religious freedom, he brought a paper copy of a court decision that clearly stated Rastafarians have a religious freedom right to keep their dreadlocks when incarcerated. The guards literally threw the opinion in the trash and shaved his head.
The court’s opinion endangers the religious freedom of incarcerated people, who are particularly vulnerable to abuse and having unnecessary burdens placed on their religious exercise. As I told CNN and other media outlets, once again we see a court that will bend over backward for the religious freedom of Christians, but allows the government to trample the religious freedom of religious minorities. It’s hard to imagine this same case being decided the same way if Damon Landor were a white, mainstream Christian.
Between the Trump administration and the court, those in power in Washington, D.C., are getting religious freedom wrong. So I wrote a short op-ed along with 14 other leaders and experts about precisely that: “Too many in power reject a foundational American principle: Religion and freedom of belief thrive only when church and state are separate.”
The Progressive Magazine also just published an Independence Day-themed op-ed I wrote about how a government of, by, and for the people is dependent on separating religion and government. It concludes: “If we use this Independence Day to recommit to church-state separation, we can safeguard the American experiment for the next 250 years and beyond.” I hope you’ll consider reading and sharing it with your family, friends, and followers. We need to spread the word: Religious liberty is for everyone. And religious liberty exists only when we separate church and state.
With hope and determination, |
Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO |
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We can’t predict the next threat to religious freedom. But we can be ready for it. |
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This is a selection of just a few of AU's recent media appearances. |
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Find additional details and a full list of events here.
May 1-3, 2027 (Virtual & In Person): The Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF) is a collaborative conference that will unify supporters, activists, organizers, policy and legal experts, academics, political and religious leaders, and committed people of faith and of no religion to fight for religious freedom. Learn more.
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