Angeles included discussions about discrimination against religious minorities and overcoming racism. This part of the event is an hour and 15 minutes. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Were going to move right into our second discussion. The second discussion is entitled rethinking religious freedom. Im going to very quickly introduce our fellow panelists, discussion errors. Asifa quraishilandes, professor of law and a research [inaudible] focuses on the constitutionalism [inaudible] and nathan walker, 1791 delegates and its an Organization Made up of legal scholars and practitioners who help companies, educational institutions, nonprofits do with issues of religious liberty, religious literacy and education. So from there im just going to jump right in and i will start with nate. Could you walk us through just a brief history of religious liberty in the United States . Waited come from . What are what we sing today in f an almost redefinition of religious liberty being what from my perspective used to be thought of as a shield, right, the constitution of the amendments in the constitution used as a shield for which the majority would not impose its views on the minority but now almost being wielded as a sword by the majority. So if you could, that was, i packed a lot into but if you could give it a shot. Well, first of all its a great honor to be with you all, especially in this time where the question of muslims in america is the number one religious liberty issue of our time. This is a most pressing issue that we can trace back to the founding era where you have thinkers and leaders like roger williams, john adams, jefferson, madison, all of whom in the writings articulate religious liberty rights for mohamed begins, for muslims, even in those early times. It was actually the diversity within the meaning christianity is that led to the creation of a constitution where theres only one mention of religion in the original constitution. And that is that theres no religious test for office, and yet now we are seeing as we saw with roy moore challenging keith albertsons legitimacy. We are even sing it with Dianne Feinstein and Bernie Sanders questioning some judges based on their religion. Religious test for office was a fundamental value based on the diversity of those at the table at the time. And then of course in 1791 you get the adoption of the bill of rights gives you the free exercise clause and establishment clause. These are two principles that make up the one right of religious liberty. But what weve seen over time in the judicial system, religious minorities would bring up cases before the courts, and they would bring it many, many cases that have a low returns in their wins. To date there has never been a native american, jew or sick that is ever want a u. S. Supreme court free exercise case. Never. It is 2000 muslims with the first win in 2015. The case is about abercrombie and the beard case. These are landmark moments in American History. But when you look at protestant christianity, speaking as a minister who trained in a christian seminary in new york, you will see that as a protestant, theres a de facto protestant establishment in the United States. It is historically been very discriminatory towards catholics, jews, hindus, muslims, actually with the genocide of native americans. And so with that whenever protestants would bring forward cases they would bring up a low number of cases that have high rewards. So these are some of the patterns that we are seeing in the legal system that we all have to work against. Turning to you, asifa come in your work on islamic constitutionalism, islamic law, sharia. And i think this myth of the sharia bogeyman is coming and trying to take over the judicial system in place of the kansas and ohio, and the antisharia laws and bills been introduced and actually signed into law by governors who are now senior officials in the administration, if you could walk us through where some of the genesis of that, you know, we thought maybe we overcame them but now the threat has been reintroduced. Well, we cant blame trump. This antisharia how many have heard of the antisharia legislation movement . Most people know a all about ir maybe a lot about it but this has been going on since about 2010. See arising that what was the motivation except i will tell you what their ostensible reason is. But just what i did, this is a fact check based on august of the summer, 120 antisharia deal seven introduced in 42 states since 2010. In 2017 alone 2017 alone, 13 states introduced antisharia bills, two of them texas and arkansas passing them. One is going to the system in wisconsin now. Who was doing this . Whats going on . Some of the organization she may have heard of you might want to watch, act for america is one of them. American Freedom Law Center is another one. Center for security policy, American Public policy, also very neutral. Some of the names associate with these organizations now have been seen in various trump related advisory position paper like us if this started before trump. He just adopted some of the rhetoric. Not surprising given the other rhetoric hes had to say about muslims. Whats going on . The argument is this is to quote protect american citizens Constitutional Rights against the infiltration and encourage a foreign laws and for legal doctrines, special sharia law. The first versions of these legislations, some of the use the word sharia in the legislation. That was struck down in federal court as being targeting of religion. So theyve rewritten them to this neutral foreign law sort of thing, which it clearly, you can see the motivation for what they mean when they say that if you just look at the advocacy behind it. So the idea here is some of the characters have been behind us have said well, this is the new stealth jihadist. This is a new civilizational jihad. The way muslims are plenty take over, the second muzzles all want to take over the world wherever they are, its not going to be in a service through jihadist. Its sneaking in, trojan horse. Where is this coming from . Some of the most early versions were criminalizing actual sharia practice which clearly again is a civil right, i mean a Constitutional Rights problem. What cases theyre siding with his problem, most of the rhetoric in public is this is a myth, theres a problem, nothing going on, these crazy arguments of parts of michigan are under sharia law. Thats all falls where the getting the idea there is this infiltration . It happens to do with some the ares i studied in family law cases where muslims coming to family law situation pick some of them are inheritance laws. Most of them are marriage cases where their argument based under islamic marriage right that they would like the judge to accommodate when youre doing the marital dissolution, for excel. The muslims in the items are familiar. Part of it acquired muslim conduct contract is a white is given something of value. The money, property that the husband owes the white bead eit the time of the marriage or delayed till the time of divorce. Many of the family law cases this is part of the litigation over how much was intended, has already been given . Doesnt get counted against the value of the house, for example. They say see, the secular american judges are enforcing sharia law and thats unacceptable from american secular perspective. There was one case we like to cite and that was where the system and basically misunderstood a cultural defense when women wanted a restraining order against her husband for domestic, for rate actually, marital rape. The trial judge misunderstood the cultural defense and sent i have a right to do this under islam so they didnt give her the restraining order. That went up on appeal, was reversed and says no, she is right for every string quarter. For lawyers watching this, this is that a situation where an islamic law is taken with the basic individual rights of citizens. Thats an example that gets cited. I have some interesting, as academic a constitutional i think its quite interesting to think about what is the role of an accommodation of religious values in secular courts, for example . Is that something where multiculture, multireligious society what to do . Does it have to be mutually consented between the two parties if they could arbitration . As very much an Orthodox Jewish community. Is that okay . Are the limits to that . How far do we want that to go . Those are interesting questions but thats not the conversation were having as a Community Come as a country. We are having a conversation of sharia is try to attack us and trying to stick and you might remember the summer in june do is make marches against sharia. These happen every once in a while and the population is starting to fear just the word sharia as a bad infiltrating kind of thing. I just was simple that more and then ill stop and will have our conversation. My first reaction to this legislation was, it doesnt matter anyway because my work in the area of religious legal references in family court cases was, the judges, they were all over the map for one thing because it is state law based so some state judges accommodated requests and others didnt, but all of them at the basic principle that in single course of those against American Public policy or basic civil rights would not be accommodated. That was standard. This argument that somehow accommodating religious law as sacrificing our own public policy, public good seemed irrelevant. I first reaction was okay, who cares . Yes, they should be passing these laws but its not what if any tangible effect until a family lawyer, friend of my integer you said theres this cant this case. And so, or the dad of the woman, i dont know. So, anyway, she had 650,000. The court denied this citing it happened in kansas and interestingly, they cited to an earlier michigan case where the courts had said theres something about islamic divorce law thats unfair to women, did more for men, which it is, therefore its gender unequal and the michigan case wouldnt look at islamic law. And the michigan case happened before the antisharia legislation and its weird the kansas case would cite that and the michigan case at the same time. Were not going to know a lot of cases going forward. They dont go to an appellate situation where its public. A lot of people, who knows who is giving up based on the legislation passed in their state theyll never talk about out loud. Many years before we get a landscape of whats going on, but whats happening is that some judges are looking at the antisharia legislation with a stereo type of what sharia is, that somehow its fundamentally bad for women, that is the underlying, one of the many underlying members of sharia in the country. That picks a few here is the question i have, again, the question, if theres any aspect of the legal system thats bad for women does that mean you dont accommodate any part of that legal system. I submit that would be a case for u. S. Law. Do you not accommodate any aspect of it the. And the things theyre denying are arguably better for women than if you were to end up with a Community Property arrangement. Community property arrangements goes against islamic law value that a womans property is her own property and cannot be owned by anybody else. Its not true that always islamic law leaves a woman worse off than secular law. The idea that any aspect of this foreign law is counter to our values is irrelevant when youre looking at the particular aspect that the woman or man is trying to request to be accommodated. So, anyway, thats the point and the conversation has to change in the public about what is sharia. Because the public conversation is that its fundamentally bad for people, especially for women. I have a couple of suggestions about how we can change our narrative how even muslims talk about sharia in a limited education way. I dont mean that as an insult. Its unfair that the average muslim is supposed to know the highest jurisprudence in talking with their grocery clerk, but well look at that at the endment. Im going to you, nate, the sharia bogeyman is not is what is projected out for many people that dont know what even the pro poepts of these legislation are pointing to, right . Its not some kind of infiltration of the judicial system in the few cases where its come up, its narrow in family law and divorce law setting and some courts have wide latitude in some states to distribute the assets of the marriage, right. Yes. So, nate, i want you to talk a little about the irony about the forces behind these antimaria laws, which are, you know, in many cases, protestant, white, evangelical christian groups, but those same groups were cited by now u. S. Attorney general Jeff Sessions as being some of his advisors in his latest department of justice guidelines on religious exemptions for a whole host of federal regulation and laws. So just in a nutshell. These new guidelines, in some distances, the federal government is saying, it is okay to discriminate if you bring a religious objection, even though we have certain types of antidiscrimination laws. So i want you to talk a little of the irony and to tee up a case currently before the Supreme Court which is bringing religious liberty back into the forefront of the potential landmark decision, and thats the master piece cake shoppe case and if you could set the scene and what are the implications and more importantly, i want you to talk about this also, why should muslims care. So, the first thing we have to look at the big picture and that is, there is something happening to america that no other human civilization has experienced as far as i know, in history. And that is in 2012, protestants for the first te team time in American History became a minority. That means were a nation of religious minorities. No generation, no government has ever had the burden or the challenge of governing a nation of religious minorities. So when were talking about these various things, the trend is this grief and fear of a loss of power, and a majority status, and so thats where were seeing another way to say it in the hobby lobby case, if that owner were muslim, and brought forward to the u. S. Supreme court, saying it is my religious belief that i should not be required to pay for contraception, to an insurance plan, that would go to my female employees for contraception, he would have never won because he was muslim, right . But because he was christian, oh, its a legitimate claim. So, this is the irony that were facing and this is also the irony coming before the Supreme Court with the masterpiece case. As many of you know, this is the question of can a baker, or another case, a florist or an inn keeper, or a stationary shop owner, refuse to participate in the samesex couples wedding by selling them a cake or having their stationary or having their wedding be on their Community Farm or something. So, in these cases they routinely lose because of a very simple legal trend and it has to do with race. In the 1970s Bob Jones University began to admit black students. In 1987 they came before the u. S. Supreme court and they said, we have a religious objection to interracial dating and marriage and we will not allow any of our students have them married housing if theyre in an interracial relationship and therefore, because our religious beliefs, we dont believe we should uphold public accommodation laws or nondiscrimination in higher education. The u. S. Supreme court said, no, we there is a compelling interest to eradicate Racial Discrimination in education and therefo therefore, you do have to do that if youre going to receive federal aid. And they said okay, were not going to take federal aid and went off the grid and maintained that believe until 2000, and they had a theological awakening and they permitted interracial. So, the question before the court now, can a business owner, who is required to uphold nondiscrimination laws in public accommodation, have a religious view in saying i will not serve this couple in that context because of my views of marriage . Im sympathetic to this in part because i have many conservative family members and friends who view my partner and i in a very different way than we see ourselves as equal citizens and i know that they dont see ourselves as that, but my point is, is that is it true that my religious views can trump your civil rights, your Constitutional Rights . For me, the simple answer is, in the constitution. Its that second clause of establishment, and that is simply, the cake baker can go to the church and say, im going to sell my wedding cakes through the church and there will be a way for people to purchase those, the business is not harmed, but theres not the stigma of my partner and i walking into that wedding cake and then being refused service, and do i go to another baker . What if they refuse service again . Either we have nondiscrimination laws or we dont. Either we have equal protection under the law or we dont. And we can have religious liberty, the shield of it to protect that baker and his right of conscience by allowing him to engage in those activities in the church or in the mosque, right . And so, i think thats where the balance is. Whereas, you were mentioning religious liberty is often caused as a sword to cause another harm, this is the Common Ground approach where true liberty is a shield. Why should we care . So, we had a chat this week getting ready for this presentation and i said in that conversation, i said, this is hard for american muslims because its very easy to get distracted by the substance of the litigation having to do with gay marriage, and so muslims may have an instinct those who are conservatives muslims, and believing that gay marriage is not a muslim practice, may instinctively feel aligned with the cake baker and theres a danger in that, and that is that the precedence of law that would get established could very easily and given your prescription of who wins and who loses, probably easy be used against muslims, so an individual cake baker may say, i believe islam is a threat to the United States, its my religious belief that i must try to reject this in any possible form and refuse any number of services. So, here is what i want to say. We as muslims do not have a full deep understanding of our own complexity of how sharia has actually worked in our history. It is not the case that we believe the government should enforce my particular interpretation of my religious practice. And this is a problem that comes from our con tetemporarco and blip. Three colonial societies in them. How do you lead a muslim life. By the way, that was diverse because the individual scholar arctic lated it. And theres one articulated by the rulers, they were not doing it at the scriptures. They were making law theoretically for the public good and the laws enforced on the land were not a particular selection imposed on everyone, so we are failing our own history if they say the state is enforcing my version of islam on everybody. This is why its an easy step to say, wait, i may not want that in my life, but do i believe that my personal version of how i want to live in gods way if the state decided that religious diversity, Sexual Orientation diversity is is it my own version of islam if i decide to live here. And the idea that they live under the law that youre in or unless the law forces you to do something prehibited. Unless theyre not allowing you to pray or forcing you to drink. We have to . Dont use the word code, theres not a code and law thats not a good translation of sharia. It comes in many forms and aspects and parts are enforced by the state and others are my personal practice. Dont get distracted by the subject. And dont always side with the plaintiff, try to keep thinking of the macro justice for everyone and i think well all be better off and incorporate respect each other much better that way. Thank you. [applaus [applause] so, this is and i know, i just want to do a time check. So, if nate and asifa, if you could kind of offer some of your experience in what does a you know, from the state level. From the community level, what does implementing religious freedom really look like and how do we as communities of faith and i know this room today and the work that impact does is engaging with, you know, communities of many faiths and no faith. What does that look like . What should that look like in America Today and what are the opportunities for that bridge building which were all gathered here today to kind of figure out within this realm of religious liberty . Where are the areas that we can Work Together and build coalitions around and actually show to the rest of society and this is a general trend, nate, you can talk about this, that people are leaving faith, right . Whether its islam, whether its christianity, whether its judaism. And we had a meeting earlier today with our advisory council, with many different faith backgrounds and faith leaders and there was an anxiety expressed by many people, what do we do because were losing our young people from faith. Where does this idea of religious liberty be able to kind of galvanize communities of faith and no faith towards doing good work and then asifa, if you could talk about your recommendatio recommendations, faith as muslim to keep our community intact around an idea of sharia thats closer to what we have kind of experienced throughout islamic history . So, one way to conceptualized religious liberty is to just chant this phrase over and over and over, and that is i am not free until you are free. I am not free until you are free. And that is true liberation. And so, in this context, when i was serving as a minister in philadelphia, there was an incident where an attorney actually came forward in the paper and said, we need to ban the burqa and here is why. It is a security issue, as the earlier panelists were saying. And so, i came forward to give my thoughts on this, and i said, look, there is a very serious trend happening, every december all around the country. It involves criminal activity of kidnapping, of vandalism, of all kind of horrible things, theft and so on and there is one trend that is occurring in all of these cases, and that is the criminals are all wearing santa claus outfits. We need to ban santa claus outfits. Thats the solution. This is the idea of the basic hypocrisy, thank you, of how one can be blind to ones own liberty. If i do not fundamentally chant i am not free until you are free, then i can buy into the idea that, oh, that criminal who was in that santa claus outfit. No problem, that doesnt say anything about christianity, that doesnt say anything about that Holiday Season at all. That just said something about the criminal because i know the difference between what the criminal does and what the criminal wears. Imagine if our society had the same sophistication with any when anyone starts to saban the burqa, ban the burkini, ban the hijab. There were schools that banned teachers from wearing religious garb in the classroom. Why was that created . To ban nuns from teaching in defacto protestant schools. In oregon, leaders of the kkk that brought this law forward. Now, today, theres only one state left that has this antigarb law and thats pennsylvania. And what were seeing in modern times disproportionate ly with muslims, but it historically came from an anticatholic bias. This is what it means i am not free until you are freement it means to know your history and know who is the suspect minority of the day to see which patterns are replicated so when we go to the Public Square we can participate in the Legal Education and the religious literacy education so as to, if nothing else, stop being hypocritical and thats what our society need most right now. [applaus [applause] and my sharia 101 here. Here is the question i get asked when i give a sharia history. And theyll say sharia law. Dont call it sharia law. The word law implies thats something that the governor does. If i practice sharia, or if they say sharia law, you want all of american law to be sharia. Youre weighting the conversation against yourself. Muslims know its not what the government tells me to do, why i follow sharia is not because of what any government tells me to do. What should i say, sharia. Islam, islamic practice. I like muslim religious sciences, that sounds nice, something islamic way. Something like that. Ill explain and ill hear, but in, insert your favorite muslim majority country and x. And pick one. And here is what i answer. I say thats a law of that country, thats not sharia. But then the answer, response will be, but they got it from sharia. And i say, no, they may have grabbed one interpretation from many multiple interpretations of sharia, but that doesnt happen to be the only one, but then thisll point here in this book, this muslim scholar or this i read somewhere and this is high wellfunded theyve got the same postit note when they come to heckle me, so its organized. If youre interested in the money behind this look up the book fear, inc. And youll hear the background. So this book says this and i say thats interesting, thats one interpretation, not one that i follow. But dont you have to follow this, we heard the idea that theres some autoton, im going to follow this. And so, here is my answer, no, we dont have a pope. There is i can ignore or whatever i hear. Its not binding, authoritative respected opinions, but have no binding force on muslims. One that popped up, i cant believe anything you say, muslims lie, they practice how many of you heard that. If youre shia, its not knew id like to say. The City Community has been using this against our community. And chickens coming home to roose. But the idea is that if youre in first i say, why are you talking to me if you think im lying, but anyway, if im not so snarky, i would say, here is the idea, its any moral system where if you are put in a situation where you can protect the life of yourself or another innocent person, would you lie . So i give an example, if youre harboring ann frank and her family in your basement or attic and nazis to your door, and you have jews in your house, you say no. And i give that example. They resonate with the american audience and thats the role of lying in sharia. And i dont trust you, your loyalty is to sharia and not to the United States. Its part of sharia i follow the law of the land where i am. And muslims have been minorities since the date of the muslim calendar. We have a history of respect in law of the land where we are, its part of sharia. Prosecutable in a Muslim Country if you commit treason on violence against the state that brought you in as a guest. My last point is, thats my how do you answer my questions, but public service. The thing all minority religions, were close to all being minority races in the country and were wrestling with and the comment this morning is were litigating the civil war even now. The racial divide in our country a heightening and heightening and emotions are very high. I feel that muslims should be the key to figuring out, helping us figure out how to live with that level of diversity. Because we have always had diverse legal interpretations of law. Not only lived with each other, but respected each other even when the particular details were opposite to each other in practice. And something as important gods law, multiple interpretations and historically societies which could easily accommodate minority religious communities, jewish communities and religious communities could live under muslim government because we did not have a uniformity of law, but a mechanism by which individual communities could live with their own identities and value. It didnt up root the whole system so we should be the example rather than sharia being a bogeyman we should be afraid of, maybe sharia is the key, right . If we muslims actually know and understand what sharia is in our own history and inherently diverse, that we actually can teach how this happens. How do you live with knowing yourself, but interacting those who are different from you. This is, you go more when you interact with those who are different. Thats the history of muslim, islamic law, sharia had the scholars interacting with each other, so this is the message how can we take this forward and help and be a part of american society. Its not just, and i agree, join your local city council and do community service, yes, also, if youre understanding islam, you should be an example of how to not be afraid of difference, because both American History and muslim history have been at our worst when we tried to create uniformly and rigidity from the top down and thrived our best when we figured out how to live with respect for diversity. So go out and own yourself to difference and the thing is, that you dont lose yourself when that happens. You actually grow from the experience and you keep your own values. It doesnt mean this is the thing, am i afraid ill lose my values if i talk to somebody different . No, ill become a deeper person and stronger and deeper in my ability to respect differences. [applause]. Well, thank you, asifa and thank you, nate, for this discussion, you can follow them both online. Theyre active on social media to continue this and asifa is working on a book project. Not done yet. Host do a plug. Not done yet, but some of the recommendations how can we as american muslims and communities of faith chart a, you know, a progressive and way forward for american society. Thank you. [applaus [applause] i want you to welcome sammy rangel and connie wright. Sammy is author of life after hate, deals with victims who become perpetrators of hate and violence and he is involved in a documentary called healing from hate, angry white men and the rise of the altright. Connie rice of the wroj that deals with Racial Justice and the legislative issue, a number of legislative issues and sought out by key policy makers including the obama administration, and putting together a paper on 21st century policing. Our discussion
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