Page 6
April 6, 2016
O PINION
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Rejecting a Religious Sanction for Bigotry
Turning back
the clock on
discrimination
M arc h. M orial
It was not so long
ago when one of
the most powerful
justifications wield-
ed in support of the
American practice of
segregation was reli-
gious belief. Segre-
gation and discrimination against
black citizens was enforced by
state-sanctioned Jim Crow laws
that legally separated blacks from
whites and made it illegal for indi-
viduals from either group to asso-
ciate with the other.
Schools were segregated.
Restaurants were segregated.
Blacks and whites could not le-
gally marry. And even water foun-
by
tains were designated by race.
Defenders of these race-based
policies employed a variety of ar-
guments to support the institution
of discrimination by the books,
including arguing that the fact
that God “separated the races
shows that he did not intend
for the races to mix,” as was
written by a lower court jus-
tice in a landmark civil rights
case that would later be over-
turned and end all state bans
on interracial marriage.
Today, religious freedom
bills are cropping up around the
nation that would turn back the
clock on American progress ver-
sus legal discrimination.
Cloaked under the mantle of
religious liberty, there are those
who want to invoke their consti-
tutional right to freedom of asso-
ciation and religion to deny other
citizens—those whose lives and
lifestyles they say are at odds
with their religious beliefs—em-
ployment, professional or private
services and the right to marry,
among other things.
The free exercise of religion
sits at the heart of our nation’s
founding. But we live in a democ-
racy, not a theocracy. We cannot
allow religious liberty to be trans-
formed into a tool of oppression
against any class of individuals or
citizens.
Following huge public outcry
and the threat of millions in lost
business in the state, Georgia
Gov. Nathan Deal has announced
that he will veto a religious free-
dom bill that was meant to protect
faith-based groups and individuals
from legal repercussions if they
refused to provide services or em-
ployment to people on the grounds
of avoiding the violation of their
religious beliefs.
In Kansas City, lawmakers are
looking at legislation that would
amend the Missouri constitution
to prohibit the government from
punishing individuals and busi-
nesses that refuse, on religious
grounds, to provide goods or ser-
vices for same-sex marriage cer-
emonies or celebrations of same-
sex couples.
As Missouri lawmakers con-
sider the law for a future vote, the
NCAA is considering bids from
other cities for their future sports
events—potentially costing the
city millions in revenue from lost
sporting events. But these states
are not outliers. Over 20 states
have passed some form of a reli-
gious freedom bill or poised to put
policies in place that violate our
country’s core principals of inclu-
sion and the freedom to live and
work free from discrimination.
In a democracy as diverse in
races, religions, ideologies and
orientations, collisions between
the rights of religion and the re-
sponsibilities of civil authority
are inevitable. Our country was
founded on the idea that people
should not be persecuted because
of their religious beliefs, but like
any other right, there are reason-
able limits to its free exercise.
As our nation’s first president ar-
ticulated, those who live under the
protection of the United States of
America must also “demean them-
selves as good citizens.” You can-
not invoke a special right to deny
another their rights as citizens.
Religious liberty, as valuable
and necessary as it is, cannot be
used to break the law, should not be
twisted to oppress a class of people,
and cannot be tolerated as a means
to freely discriminate in a nation
whose goal, since its founding, has
been to create a more perfect union
and establish justice.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.
Strong Nonviolent Voices and Witnesses to Change
The moment we
have waited for
M arian W right e delMan
Rev. C.T. Vivian, the
legendary civil rights
leader, believes young
people today are inherit-
ing the world at a unique
crossroads in history,
and that this is the mo-
ment humankind has
waited for.
A Presidential Medal of Free-
dom winner, leader in the South-
ern Christian Leadership Confer-
ence, a confidant of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., and a role model
for so many of us in the 1960s era
of civil rights activism and still,
Rev. Vivian has been and remains
an indispensable long-haul moral,
racial and economic justice war-
rior.
At 91 years young he has a
crystal clear message for today’s
young people and all of us. He is
convinced this is the generation
that will finally create new ways
of solving social problems to
make a new, better world that we
must build together with urgency
and persistence:
“The human drama of your time
will not be a military drama . . .
Even if they want it, it can’t hap-
pen, because we’ve come to the
point that violence cannot solve
human problems . . . We can’t live
in an atomic world and think like
we used to think in terms of how
by
wars were fought, in terms of how
men killed each other, because to-
day, if we decide to live like we
lived yesterday, none of us will
live at all,” he said.
Instead, Rev. Vivian
said, “we have to come
with a different under-
standing of our rela-
tionships to the world
around us, and that’s the
most important thing of
all . . . You can’t live
The task will be different than
before. We all dreamed of it. We
sat in church and talked about it.
We made songs about it. We talk-
ed about a new world coming.
We talked about all of that, right?
Now that it’s here, we’ve got to
make it real.”
1960s Civil Rights Movement
laid a foundation for the new
world as ordinary people tired of
injustice seized the moral high
ground and confronted the racial
young people can finish what his
generation began.
His words have a special mean-
ing and challenge today when
violence as a conflict resolution
strategy has become a daily threat
internally and externally in this
era of domestic and global ter-
rorism; relentless gun violence in
our nation driven by a powerful
gun lobby that saps the lives of
30,000 human beings every year
including thousands of innocent
1960s Civil Rights Movement laid a foundation
for the new world as ordinary people tired of injustice
seized the moral high ground and confronted the
racial violence surrounding them with controlled,
disciplined, nonviolent action which allowed America
to see there was another way to create change.
in yesterday’s world. And I want
you to be very thankful of that,
because you are forming the new
world to be and the old world has
no place in it.”
Rev. Vivian believes “if we are
wise, we will not allow any of us
to treat the rest of us as though we
were less than rather than more
than.”
“The central task” he said,
“will be to remove violence as
a means of solving social prob-
lems. When we really think of it
that way, then we are on our way.
violence surrounding them with
controlled, disciplined, nonviolent
action which allowed America to
see there was another way to cre-
ate change.
When C.T. Vivian was jailed
and beaten, he never wavered.
“Gandhi and the world he
lived in changed because he used
a different method and a differ-
ent means,” he said. “Dr. King
changed America because he used
a different understanding. He used
a different way to move.”
Rev. Vivian believes today’s
children; and out of control dem-
agogic political discourse which
encourages violence at home and
fuels anger around the world by
demonizing people who believe
and pray differently from many
of us.
What is it going to take for
enough of our political leaders
and citizens to stand up and reject
the old world view too often rid-
dled with intolerance and hatred?
When will a critical mass of cit-
izens and leaders come together
to build a new nation and world
fit and safe for all of our chil-
dren and confront those who fuel
racial and religious intolerance
within and without our borders?
And how many of us will stand
up and say no to the violence of
coarse and careless political, ra-
cial, gender, or any rhetoric in-
tended to demean another human
being and that teaches our chil-
dren we cannot disagree without
being disagreeable?
The Bulletin of Atomic Sci-
entists publishes a “Doomsday
Clock,” and earlier this year the
clock was set at 3 minutes to
midnight as tensions between the
U.S., Russia, North Korea and
other nations, particularly those
involved in conflicts in the Middle
East, remain high. In addition, a
landmark climate change agree-
ments has not yet evolved into the
fundamental changes needed to
ultimately arrest the problem and
mitigate additional conflict and
catastrophe.
Rather than be discouraged or
paralyzed by these disturbing con-
cerns, we need to get up, organize,
and mount without ceasing our
strong nonviolent voices and wit-
nesses to change the narrative of
what it means to be a good stew-
ard of God’s earth and all of God’s
peoples – and be determined to
pass on a safer and better nation
and world order to our children
and grandchildren.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.