Protecting religious freedom and promoting civic engagement – two of the core peace strategies practiced by the Interfaith Center of New York for a quarter of a century – are particularly vital here in New York, one of the most diverse cities in the United States.
Regrettably, two recent US Supreme Court decisions have made our work more difficult.
Since 2012, ICNY has hosted public, private and faith-based educators from around the country for our three-week Summer Institute known as “Religious Worlds of New York”.
Historically, our workshop instructors underscored the power-imbalance between teachers and students, and the importance of any kind of teachers refraining from proselytizing a particular religious tradition while on the job. This follows the Religious Freedom Center’s guidance on how public school teachers can teach religion in Constitutionally appropriate way.
Unfortunately, one of the three significant religious freedom cases recently decided by the US Supreme Court has up-ended our approach. Kennedy v. Bremerton allowed a high school football coach to pray with his students at the 50-yard line after a game.
Instead of ruling this public prayer to be a violation of the Establishment Clause, the Court majority put the religious freedom of the public school coach — a government employee — before those of his students. Wrote Paul Peterson, father of four former Bremerton High School students,
When [Coach] Kennedy met with the entire team on the field immediately following games, with the community watching, it would have been incredibly hard for a teenager, any teenager, to refuse to participate, even if Kennedy’s prayers conflicted with the student’s personal religious beliefs. I feel for any kids, especially religious minorities or nonreligious kids, who participated because they thought it was the only way to be a good teammate, to impress their coach and to be included as part of the team.[2]
ICNY has, until now, instructed our summer scholars that, when they go on a class field trip to visit a local mosque, temple, or other house of worship, they must make certain that religious do not — even in a well-meaning way — hand out proselytizing literature during the tour.
After the recent decision, however, we have a dilemma: How do we instruct our educators to teach religious literacy and also protect their students’ religious freedom?
Our experience in other areas of our work teaches us skepticism when we see members of a dominant and well-resourced religious community being protected like this for expression in the public square. Would the same verdict have been reached in Kennedy v. Bremerton if a Muslim or Hindu football coach were leading prayers at the 50 yard line? It remains to be seen if the Court will offer such deference to religious liberty consistently across America’s many faith traditions. Our experience of 25 years in New York City suggests not.
And that’s not all.
For more than two decades, ICNY has relied on the countless contributions of female religious leaders to foster a flourishing and resilient civil society in our city of 8.5 million people. Early on we learned to change our terminology from “clergy” to “religious leader” in order to include female leaders in the many faith traditions that do not ordain women.
Many of these women — Roman Catholics, Orthodox Jews, devout Muslims, and many others — had more impressive track records of working for social change than their ordained male colleagues but were overlooked by the traditional hierarchy within their faith or denomination.
There is no question that the participation of female faith leaders and their constituencies in the public life of New York City has made us a stronger and more vibrant city.
By excluding women from reliable participation in public life, the Supreme Court’s attack on abortion rights in Dobbs vs. Jackson diminishes our entire democracy — not only the rights of those Americans who can become pregnant.
Women of diverse faiths make up most of what we refer to as “civil society.” Their own views and the teachings of their faith traditions no doubt vary widely on the question of when life begins. (Indeed, state legislators who adopt wholesale a narrow swath of Christian teaching on this question should also be the targets of free exercise lawsuits from other Christian and non-Christian people of faith whose traditions disagree.)
However diverse the faith perspectives of American women are on these subjects, we know uniformly that when women can’t control their own reproductive lives, they are pushed to the sidelines of public life. And thus, the majority ruling in Dobbs vs. Jackson stymies our country’s democracy — including the civic life of New York City –making it weaker, less resilient, and more anemic.
[2] NBC News Opinion, June 27, 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/coach-kennedy-wins-supreme-court-case-praying-football-games-students-rcna35478