Indiana has a long tradition of welcoming people of all faiths, many of whom have built businesses, served in uniform and strengthened our communities. That’s why, as former members of the first Trump administration and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, we were troubled by Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith’s recent comments denigrating Islam. More fundamentally, he misconstrued our constitutional heritage.
Let’s start with first principles. The lieutenant governor says our nation was founded as a Christian nation and this limits religious liberty for Muslims. It is true that Christianity was dominant both among the populace and founders, but leading founders understood that religious conviction and liberty reinforce one another.
James Madison, architect of the Constitution, grounded religious freedom in the “duty which we owe to our Creator” to seek his will personally and freely, and thus “the religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man.” Indiana’s own Constitution likewise provides that no law may control the free exercise of religious opinions or give preference to any creed, religious society or mode of worship.
Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom of 1786, a framework for the First Amendment’s religion clauses, similarly stated that since “Almighty God hath created the mind free,” a just society leaves its citizens free to pursue faith according to their consciences, neither compelling support for an established national church nor interfering with free religious exercise.
Jefferson intended to provide religious liberty for all. In fact, a proposed amendment to the Virginia Statute that would have referred to “Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion” was rejected by the legislature, making clear, Jefferson wrote, that the statute applied equally to “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan (Muslim), the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.”
Beckwith also claims that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which upheld a high school football coach’s right to offer a quiet personal prayer after games, somehow establishes that Christianity is now legally privileged. The Kennedy decision did nothing of the sort. It held that the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses protected the coach’s personal religious observance during a time when he was free to attend to other private matters, and that the Establishment Clause did not require the government to single out private religious speech for special disfavor. The same rule would apply if the employee were Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh.
And what about Beckwith’s claim that Islam is not a religion but a “military and political ideology”? The Supreme Court has expressly recognized that Islam is a religion protected by our Constitution and laws. In County of Allegheny v. ACLU (1989), Justice Harry Blackmun, quoting Wallace v. Jaffree, wrote that the First Amendment’s religion clauses are “recognized as guaranteeing religious liberty and equality to the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith such as Islam or Judaism.” In Holt v. Hobbs (2015), Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a unanimous Court, held that Arkansas violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) by prohibiting a Muslim prisoner from growing a half-inch beard in accordance with his faith.
Beckwith seeks to ban the Muslim call to prayer. Such a law would be subject to review under the Constitution and RLUIPA, which prohibits discrimination or undue interference with religious liberty in application of zoning laws. How are loudspeakers and music for other events treated? What about church bells? The law is well equipped to balance competing interests in peace and quiet with religious exercise, but it is irresponsible to seek to ban outright calls to prayer from one faith.
It is true that Islam, as applied in some Muslim-majority nations, fuses the state and religion in a manner inconsistent with our nation’s understanding of religious liberty. Critiquing radical Islamist ideology, theocratic governance or actual security risks is legitimate national security discourse.
Still, criticism of foreign regimes cannot justify denying constitutional equality to American Muslims or undermine the very constitutional values we seek to defend. Such attacks erode the rule of law, invite reciprocal intolerance and weaken the alliances and domestic partnerships vital to countering genuine threats.
As George Washington explained in his famous letter to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, “For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.”
Finally, beyond his misreading of history and the Constitution, Beckwith’s comments also ignore the many contributions of Muslim Americans and people of other faiths to our nation. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the FBI noted that Muslim and Arab American communities “are valuable partners in a shared effort to combat terrorist threats” who have “provided critical assistance in helping to disrupt terrorist plots and combat radicalization.”
Muslim Americans, as well as people of other faiths, continue to run businesses, serve in the armed forces and bolster our communities and position in the world. They are, in short, Hoosiers and Americans.
Asheesh Agarwal and Eric Treene served in the first Trump administration and in the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Agarwal lives in Zionsville. Treene lives in Arlington, Virginia.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Micah Beckwith is wrong on the Constitution — and on Islam | Opinion
Reporting by Asheesh Agarwal and Eric Treene, Opinion Contributors / Indianapolis Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Asheesh Agarwal and Eric Treene, Opinion Contributors | USA TODAY Network
