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On this weekâs State Of Grace, our host Grace Baldridge heads to her home state of Kentucky to better understand the lack of separation between church and state. What she learns there is a frightening truth. Watch this episode of State Of Grace to see what she learned!
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00:00It's nothing scary, we're just talking about the separation of church and state.
00:03It's not that bad, we're just talking about politics and religion,
00:06the two things that you're never supposed to talk about with a stranger.
00:08And I'm a stranger. Hi, also, surprise, lesbian. Curveball.
00:11On the count of three, let's all say the First Amendment.
00:14Should you go? Do you want to go? Okay, I'll go. I'll just start it off.
00:17Okay, no, you go? Okay, fine. Let's just look it up.
00:20Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion
00:23or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, etc, etc.
00:26Seems simple enough.
00:27Keep church and state separate to protect the religious and the non-religious.
00:31America's founding fathers believed in keeping religion out of government affairs
00:34because they were fleeing religious persecution in Europe.
00:37In practice, though, this separation is not so clear-cut.
00:40So help me God. So help me God.
00:43Off the top of my head, I can point to several instances
00:45where religious beliefs unequivocally informed policy.
00:49From who has the right to marry, to reproductive rights
00:52and the legal determination of when life begins,
00:54to the lawfulness of prayer in public schools,
00:56it becomes nearly impossible to discern the gray area
00:59of how faith can interact with policy.
01:02I pray that you grant to the senators of the United States
01:05the fear of the Lord
01:06and the courage to act by the counsel of the Lord in all matters.
01:12I've headed straight to a state in the Bible Belt that I have a unique relationship to, Kentucky.
01:18My parents settled in Kentucky after living in Belgium for my formative years.
01:22Needless to say, we all experienced a little bit of a culture shock.
01:27The Kentucky legislature is predominantly white, male, and Christian.
01:32Kentucky currently finds itself in a dynamic political climate as conservative Christian
01:36Matt Bevin was recently ousted from the governor's seat by a Democratic challenger.
01:42Bevin was always open and definitive about the ways in which faith informed his views.
01:47Please, don't just bring your Bible to school, but read your Bible.
01:51They not only inform me and my decision making as a governor in this job,
01:55but my decision making on everything.
01:58And in the past few years, more laws have been passed that infuse a Christian theology into public life.
02:04One such law showcasing the murky relationship between church and state
02:08is the recent mandate that all public schools must visibly display our national motto,
02:13In God We Trust.
02:18This billboard is here as a response to the mandate in Kentucky schools that says they have to have
02:24In God We Trust displayed in a visible public location.
02:27I think the strongest name under there is none of the above.
02:31A lot of times in this discussion, we're talking about like, well, what about other religions?
02:35And we're not even considering the fact that some people don't subscribe to any religion at all.
02:45Can you explain a little bit about why freedom from religion decided to put up these billboards?
02:51We are not one nation under God.
02:53There are citizens who believe in multiple gods, and there are people who do not worship a god.
02:58People should practice their religious beliefs.
03:00We just don't want them to harm other people in doing so.
03:03This is Edwin Hensley, president of the Kentucky chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation,
03:08an organization dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.
03:14Michelle Henry is an acclaimed lawyer who works with FFRF when they take legal action
03:18to prevent the entanglement of religion and government.
03:21It begins with little things like posting in God We Trust in every public school,
03:26and then more intrusive bills to try to keep Christianity in the public schools,
03:31or to divert taxpayer money into private religious schools.
03:36We are active throughout America because there's so many violations.
03:41Is it sort of like separation between church and state whack-a-mole?
03:44They wanted all of these laws to pop up simultaneous in lots of states.
03:49So the organizations like Americans United, ACLU, FFRF, could not respond to all of them.
04:00Right now, a group of Christian nationalists, who largely seem to remain anonymous,
04:04have assembled to form Project Blitz, a multi-tiered legislative roadmap that aims to get God back
04:10into public life. Project Blitz provides lawmakers with the language and legal toolkit to pass Christian
04:17infused laws in states that would be most amenable, i.e. the Bible Belt.
04:22Project Blitz has been renamed. It is now called Freedom for All. All these complaints about Project Blitz,
04:30well that's talking about a non-existent program. The Supreme Court is now using history as a guideline
04:38for approving laws. In the 50s, we had the Pledge of Allegiance altered with one nation under God
04:45indivisible. We had In God We Trust becoming the national motto, replacing what was put on all the seals
04:52of the United States, e pluribus unum. And 50 years from now, they'll be pointing to In God We Trust
04:58in
04:59all our hallways and our schools. That's quite a sobering thought. If a mandate can stick around
05:04for long enough, it's like, oh, this is how it's always been. At the local level, who is passing these
05:10laws? In preparation for this episode, we reached out to a number of Republican lawmakers who have a
05:15record of writing and passing legislation informed by their Christian faith. No one was getting back to us,
05:21but now that I'm actually in Kentucky, I've decided to give it another try.
05:25Hi, my name is Grace Baldridge and I was wondering if I could get a comment from Representative Reed on
05:30the In God We Trust mandate. I will let him know. Wonderful. Thank you so much.
05:35Thank you for calling the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation. For media, press 6.
05:40Thank you for calling the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation.
05:44I just got looped back to the same menu again. What number should I press?
05:48One. Goodbye. No!
05:51Hello, this is Joe Fisher. I'm sorry, I can't take your call right now.
05:55Let me get your number so I can get back in contact with you.
05:59He is in committee meetings at the moment. I can see if he has time to call you back.
06:02I'll let him know and then I'll be back in contact with you, okay?
06:05Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yep.
06:08All right. Bye. Bye.
06:10It's so frustrating when we're talking about publicly elected officials that we're having a hard time
06:15getting a hold of because they're public servants. They serve the public. To serve the public interest,
06:20they need to speak with media and address some real concerns of the community.
06:29You don't hear a lot of church bells in LA. That's one when you're just walking around.
06:35In an effort to better understand the constitutional basis for this debate,
06:39I visited the ACLU of Kentucky. The separation of church and state is part of how our nation was
06:45founded by individuals who left a place where there was a government religion and other religions
06:51then were excluded or ostracized or persecuted and founded a nation where everyone would have
06:56the right to practice whatever religion they wanted. Can you think of like specific examples
07:00in Kentucky of how we're seeing the separation of church and state not be respected? Last year,
07:07we had the Bible Literacy Bill, which was of course the idea of teaching the Bible in schools,
07:12which opens the door for there to be problematic experiences in the schools when it comes to
07:18children feeling isolated. Kentucky doesn't exist in a vacuum and a lot of this is what we see as
07:24a sort of a nationwide push by certain groups to have government be explicitly Christian.
07:32I'm curious to hear how Kentuckians really feel about this topic or if it's even on their minds.
07:37So I hit the streets. Why is the separation of church and state important for you?
07:42I don't want the church telling me what I can do. Do you think like the church and the state
07:46are quite
07:46separate in the state of Kentucky? Not recently with the whole Planned Parenthood debate. When you see
07:51like in God, we trust on money. How do you interpret that? Well, I mean, as a Christian, you know,
07:56that's great, but you've got God, you've got Yahweh, you've got Allah, so many religions out there.
08:01Being a gay man, people try to tell me that I shouldn't have the right to get married
08:04because of their religious views. And it's like, it's, that's shitty. Yeah. In an effort to bring
08:10this discussion a little closer to home, I visited my good friend Corey, a hairstylist in Kentucky.
08:14So what are you going to do with it now? Well, right now, Corey is, this is bad. Thank you.
08:19I know it's bad.
08:20That's why I'm here. To be honest, Corey and I don't agree on much. We land on opposite ends on
08:26a lot of issues, but Corey is one of my most loyal and caring friends. She stood by me during
08:31a different time in my life. Please do not take screenshots of these photos.
08:35And we can talk openly and honestly about our differences. You know, I'm pretty strong
08:40in what I believe in, but I also respect someone else's beliefs. So in a public school,
08:47if there was mandated prayer to Jesus, do you think that that crosses a boundary of separating
08:54the church from the state? I'm going to think prayer in school is great. Yeah. Because to me,
09:01it's important. That's just sort of like the, where you live as well. Like, I feel like how often do
09:05you
09:05come across someone who is of a different faith than yourself? Not very often. Is it sort of assumed when
09:12you meet someone in this area? That they're a Christian? Yeah. Unless sort of proven otherwise.
09:17Yeah. Right. Great. I love you. Love you too. Bye. Thanks for my hair. You're welcome.
09:24In a state without a lot of religious diversity, I noticed that it was hard to raise awareness about
09:29laws that seem innocuous to the religious majority, but negatively impact people of a different belief.
09:41What are you doing? Basically taking a hat and making it look like a present. As a retired naval
09:48chaplain, I was curious how my father's interfaith background would inform his thoughts on this topic.
09:53Why is it important for you to be an interfaith leader as a chaplain? Language can be inflammatory
10:02unintentionally. And so I don't pray in this in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy
10:05Ghost.
10:06You know what? Do you know how I close my prayers in general? O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
10:11My mom was a school teacher for most of my life. So I wondered if this was something she thought
10:15about for her students. Okay, so there's a mandate right now in Kentucky schools that says you have to
10:21display in God we trust. I think display is different from you have to believe in. Would it be the
10:26same if it
10:27was in Yahweh we trust, in Jehovah, in Allah? When we say in God we trust in the state of
10:32Kentucky,
10:33it's a Christian God. Yeah. I wondered if it's really that hopeless. Is it possible to be interfaith
10:41in a state that is so shaped by Christianity? At a local mosque here in Paducah, a group of faith
10:46leaders started the Abrahamic Faith Council. They meet regularly and discuss what it really means to be
10:52interfaith and how to apply that to their communities. Judaism, Islam, Christianity,
10:57we share a common foundation. Love God and love your neighbor. When we talk about the separation
11:04between church and state, first of all, is that something that y'all at this table feels important?
11:09We say that, but do we practice that? If we truly believe that, then we would stop saying we're a
11:15Christian nation. Exactly. There is kind of an unconscious blindness to the fact that, oh, there
11:21may be people here who don't see things the way I do. So we have linguistic colonialism going on,
11:26where these people have taken our words and they've spun them around to be something different.
11:30You know, you ask a common Muslim man, what does jihad mean? You're striving. It doesn't mean
11:34unmitigated bloodshed of non-believers or infidels. A third person is dictating what those terms mean today.
11:41Hasan Ali, the imam at the Islamic center of Paducah, gave me a tour.
11:46Is it quite sheltered of me that I've never been in a mosque before?
11:49It's a sanctuary. It's a God's place. You know, anybody's welcome.
11:51So this is the... So this is facing towards the Kaaba in Mecca. The leader is on the front mat.
11:56The congregation forms a line behind them. Interesting, this used to be a church, so...
12:00I actually, I wasn't going to say, because I wasn't sure if it was intentional.
12:03You blend in, right? You blend really in.
12:06The congregation is, you know, a maximum of 50 to 60 people. The issue becomes, you know,
12:10like, Friday is not a day off. People have to take time out of their work or, you know,
12:13ask for a lunch break. And, you know, sometimes those things are not taken into consideration
12:17by your employers. Have you ever had people come to the center to protest or to...
12:24Because they disagree with y'all being here? We're lucky because there's a ditch in the road
12:29and they literally would have to stand in the ditch or by the side of the road and get hit
12:32by the car.
12:33So they decided not to come down here. There was a huge video out of Arizona where they showed up
12:38with
12:38AR-15s and semi-automatics and they surrounded the mosque and they protested. What I was asking
12:44people was, like, you know, how would that narrative be if Muslims went armed like that to a Christian center?
12:53In reflecting on my time in Kentucky and the slow rolling back of our First Amendment protections,
12:58it feels like we have a short-term memory when we talk about this issue.
13:02There's no mention of God at all in the United States Constitution.
13:05So why are people so emboldened to perpetuate a falsehood that the United States is a Christian
13:10nation rather than a country founded on religious pluralism?
13:15Obviously, liberty and justice for all is an American principle. But what we're seeing with
13:21regards to religious liberty is that liberty and justice for all is really liberty and justice for
13:28most or for some because not everyone is given the same freedom and a majority religion is making the rules
13:39for everybody.