Rabbi Mark H. Levin, founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah, holds a firm belief that no religion should have any privileged status in the eyes of the United States government or any jurisdiction within it.
More than 40 other Kansas City-area clergy of various religions — Judaism, Christianity and Islam included — agree with Rabbi Levin. He and they signed their names to that effect on a seven-point declaration of principles he wrote this past summer (with editing help from a friend), which he posted on his Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Rabbi-Mark-H-Levin-1104355639599380/). He also asked the declaration’s other signatories to disseminate it to their congregations and on social media.
Rabbi Levin’s effort was prompted by an ad Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. ran around the Fourth of July this year, including in The Kansas City Star on July 1, he said. Hobby Lobby is owned by professed devout Christians and frequently promotes Christian values publicly, and it has been involved in public controversies related to that.
In June 2014 in the case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the company’s favor that “corporations controlled by religious families cannot be required to pay for contraception coverage for their female workers,” The New York Times reported at the time.
Hobby Lobby’s ad that prompted Rabbi Levin’s action includes quotes from the nation’s founding fathers, Supreme Court rulings, Supreme Court justices separately from rulings, legislators and others, in some cases making explicit references to the U.S. as a Christian nation.
“When you read the ad, you will see that although they don’t say it, it appears to be an argument that the U.S. is a Christian country,” Rabbi Levin said, adding that he “was concerned and spoke to some people about it and said we need to write something which would say here’s what the vast majority of Christian, Jewish, Muslim (and other) clergy in the U.S. say, that the country should be non-sectarian. … Every religion has equal status in every jurisdiction in the U.S. With Thanksgiving, this is the most important time of the year to get the message out that the U.S. is a non-sectarian country.”
David Achtenberg, Law Foundation scholar and professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, said that in its ad, Hobby Lobby “cherry pick(s) the history” and that the ad exemplifies ignoring what undermines a thesis and citing only what supports it.
“It is not accurate history to treat that as anything other than that you can find people who’ve said things like this,” Achtenberg said.
Many historical facts demonstrate that much of the U.S. “was incredibly bigoted on religious bases,” he said, including against Jews, Catholics, Mormons and others.
“There were all sorts of bigotry in the U.S. in its early life,” he said. It’s “inaccurate to describe religion as not having had a major influence on nations” but also inaccurate to say that religion is the basis of the United States.
“The Establishment Clause (of the First Amendment) in a very narrow sense meant that the federal government couldn’t decide that any form of Christianity could be a state religion, like the Church of England,” Achtenberg said. “Cherry picking history is not history; it’s advocacy. If you look at enough sources, you can find people saying all sorts of things. … That just means there were people who had particular beliefs. It doesn’t mean that’s how the nation was founded. There were lots of people (for example) who said democracy wasn’t consistent with Christianity, (based on the doctrine of) the divine right of kings.”
Achtenberg added that, while the Establishment Clause meant that no state religion could be established at the federal level, some states at the time of the constitution and for a time afterward did establish state religions, and they were inconsistent with one another. For example, six states had established churches in 1789. Massachusetts and Connecticut had local rule, meaning that towns chose their own ministers and official religious denominations, usually some form of Puritanism.
In the South, some states for a time had Anglican establishments, just as England did, he said. Virginia abolished all state-established religion shortly after 1789. Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware had no formal state-established religion, but some states kept a religious test for public office.
“To say that this is a nation founded by people many of whom were Christians is true,” Achtenberg said. “To say that some of them were not also is true. To say some of them favored discrimination against non-Christians is true, and many of them favored not discriminating against non-Christians (including Jews). I think it was almost universally believed that religion in general was a good thing, but beyond that the differences in opinions among the framers about religions was pretty vast. This is more history than law.”
Rabbi Levin considers his written declaration more than simply a symbolic gesture. He hopes it will prompt ordained clergy members of all religions and denominations, who by their ordinations have authority in their religions, to say by signing his declaration that “that everyone, regardless of religious status, is equally acceptable before God and is or should be equally acceptable in all jurisdictions of the U.S.” He considers his effort to be “my little bit in Kansas City” to further that goal.
“My deeper worry is that under the current administration, so many constitutional interpretations have been changed that I want to make (the point of his declaration) clear,” he said.
He plans to follow up on his effort at least by seeking to ensure that the signatories do disseminate his document throughout the Kansas City area.
Congregation Beth Shalom’s Rabbi David Glickman plans to use this declaration as the basis of his sermon this coming Shabbat (Nov. 24).
“Specifically, I am titling my talk ‘Judaism in the Public Square,’ ” Rabbi Glickman said.
In addition to Rabbis Levin and Glickman, these are the Kansas City-area rabbis who are signatories to the declaration:
• The Rabbi Doug Alpert, Congregation Kol Ami
• The Rabbi Javier E. Cattapan, Congregation Beth Torah
• The Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, Temple Israel
• The Rabbi Dr. Stuart E. Davis, Ph.D.
• The Rabbi Moshe Grussgott, Kehilath Israel Synagogue
• The Rabbi Alan D. Londy, D.Min.
• The Rabbi Linda Steigman• The Rabbi Debbie Stiel, Temple Beth Sholom in Topeka, Kansas
We the undersigned ...
Rabbi Levin’s full declaration, which follows the first clause (the Establishment Clause) of the First Amendment, reads:
1 We, the undersigned clergy of greater Kansas City, with common purpose and unified voice, bear witness to and embrace religious diversity as a primary strength and foundational value of our American democracy.
2 This cherished diversity, born in mutual respect for the dignity God inheres in each human being, and which is foundational to our Constitution, promises freedom to worship and serve God as we see fit.
3 We further believe that the God who created us all loves all human beings equally, those of faith and those of no religious faith.
4 We urge all Kansas Citians to join in recognition of the sacred image in each human being.
5 We pledge to one another, and to our community, and we ask you to join us in conviction and practice, that no governmental body should ever preference any single religion’s principles or convictions above another.
6 While each of the undersigned is devoted to the Holy One as we understand the Holy One to be, we urge the complete separation between the powers of government and religion, affirming for each of us the absolute freedom to worship and practice as we understand the Sacred to require of us, and as guaranteed in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
7 We declare that no single religion, group of religions or abstention from religion claims superiority to the law of the United States; and regardless of the individual religious convictions of the Founders, we acknowledge and promulgate that all religions have and shall by right possess, now and in the future, an equal status before the government of the United States and all other jurisdictions of this great nation.
