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On this week’s 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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ABOUT SERIES
State Of Grace is a series that explores the intersection of human rights, sexuality, and faith. Host Grace Baldridge dives into controversial societal realities that Americans face everyday and how to navigate the modern world while remaining faithful.
ABOUT REFINERY29
Refinery29 is a modern woman's destination for how to live a stylish, well-rounded life. http://refinery29.com/
RELATED CONTENT
The Life Threatening Dangers Of Gay Conversion Therapy
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HL5ThApf0IA
The Dark Reality Of Celebrity Endorsed Mega-Churches
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLuB7fvMlhc
The Scary Reality Of Sex Education In Alabama
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3ej5JBa95E
SUBSCRIBE TO REFINERY29
Subscribe to the Refinery29 channel: http://bit.ly/subscribe-to-r29
TALENT
Follow Grace Baldridge on Instagram: https://instagram.com/gracebaldridge/
Follow Unbothered on Instagram: https://instagram.com/r29unbothered/
Follow Refinery29 on Instagram: https://instagram.com/refinery29/
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LifestyleTranscript
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,
00:05the 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?
00:15Okay, 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.
00:41So 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.
01:26The 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 in 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
02:23they have to have In 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,
02:33well, 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,
02:55and 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.
03:20It 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 are 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,
04:05have assembled to form Project Blitz,
04:07a multi-tiered legislative roadmap that aims to get God back into public life.
04:12Project Blitz provides lawmakers with the language and legal toolkit
04:16to pass Christian-infused laws in states that would be most amenable,
04:20i.e., the Bible Belt.
04:22Project Blitz has been renamed.
04:25It is now called Freedom for All.
04:27All these complaints about Project Blitz,
04:30well, that's talking about a non-existent program.
04:33The Supreme Court is now using history as a guideline for approving laws.
04:40In the 50s, we had the Pledge of Allegiance altered with one nation under God, indivisible.
04:46We had In God We Trust becoming the national motto,
04:50replacing what was put on all the seals of the United States, E Pluribus Unum.
04:55And 50 years from now, they'll be pointing to In God We Trust in all our hallways and our schools.
05:01That's quite a sobering thought.
05:03If a mandate can stick around for long enough, it's like, oh, this is how it's always been.
05:07At the local level, who is passing these laws?
05:11In preparation for this episode, we reached out to a number of Republican lawmakers
05:15who have a record of writing and passing legislation informed by their Christian faith.
05:19No one was getting back to us, but now that I'm actually in Kentucky,
05:22I've decided to give it another try.
05:25Hi, my name is Grace Baldridge,
05:27and I was wondering if I could get a comment from Representative Reid on the In God We Trust mandate.
05:32I will let him know.
05:33Wonderful. Thank you so much.
05:44I just got looped back to the same menu again.
05:47What number should I press?
05:48One?
05:49Who's mine?
05:50No!
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.
06:07Yep.
06:08All right, bye.
06:09Bye.
06:10It's so frustrating when we're talking about publicly elected officials that we're having
06:14a hard time getting a hold of because they're public servants. They serve the public. To
06:19serve the public interest, they need to speak with media and address some real concerns of
06:25the 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, I visited the ACLU of
06:40Kentucky. The separation of church and state is part of how our nation was founded by individuals
06:46who left a place where there was a government religion and other religions then were excluded
06:52or ostracized or persecuted and founded a nation where everyone would have the right to practice
06:57whatever religion they wanted.
06:58Can you think of specific examples in Kentucky of how we're seeing the separation of church
07:04and state not be respected?
07:05Last year, we had the Bible Literacy Bill, which was, of course, the idea of teaching
07:10the Bible in schools, which opens the door for there to be problematic experiences in the
07:16schools when it comes to children feeling isolated.
07:20Kentucky doesn't exist in a vacuum. And a lot of this is what we see as a sort of a
07:25nationwide
07:25push by certain groups to have government be explicitly Christian.
07:32I'm curious to hear how Kentuckians really feel about this topic.
07:35Or if it's even on their minds. So I hit the streets.
07:39Why is the separation of church and state important for you?
07:41I don't want the church telling me what I can do.
07:44Do you think like the church and the state are quite separate in the state of Kentucky?
07:48Not recently with the whole Planned Parenthood debate.
07:51When you see like, in God we trust on money, how do you interpret that?
07:54Well, I mean, as a Christian, you know, that's great.
07:56But you've got God, you've got Yahweh, you've got Allah.
07:59So 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.
08:07Yeah.
08:09In an effort to bring this discussion a little closer to home,
08:12I visited my good friend Corey, a hairstylist in Kentucky.
08:14So what are you going to do with it now?
08:16Well, right now, Corey is...
08:18This is bad.
08:19Thank you. I know it's bad. That's why I'm here.
08:21To be honest, Corey and I don't agree on much.
08:24We land on opposite ends on a lot of issues.
08:27But Corey is one of my most loyal and caring friends.
08:29She stood by me during a different time in my life.
08:32Please do not take screenshots of these photos.
08:35And we can talk openly and honestly about our differences.
08:38You know, I'm pretty strong in what I believe in.
08:42But I also respect someone else's beliefs.
08:46So in a public school, if there was mandated prayer to Jesus,
08:51do you think that that crosses a boundary of separating the church from the state?
08:57I'm going to think prayer in school is great.
09:00Yeah.
09:00Because to me, it's important.
09:01That's just sort of like where you live as well.
09:04Like, how often do you come across someone who is of a different faith than yourself?
09:09Not very often.
09:10Is it sort of assumed when you meet someone in this area?
09:14That they're a Christian? Yeah.
09:15Unless sort of proven otherwise.
09:17Right.
09:18Great, I love you.
09:19Love you too.
09:20Bye.
09:20Thanks for my hair.
09:21You're welcome.
09:24In a state without a lot of religious diversity,
09:26I noticed that it was hard to raise awareness about laws that seem innocuous to the religious majority,
09:32but negatively impact people of a different belief.
09:37Finally, two Kentuckians whose viewpoints I was the most curious about.
09:41My mother and my father.
09:43What are you doing?
09:43Basically taking a hat and making it look like a present.
09:47As a retired naval chaplain, 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?
09:58Language can be inflammatory unintentionally.
10:02And so I don't pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.
10:06Do you know how I close my prayers in general?
10:09Oh 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.
10:18Okay, so there's a mandate right now in Kentucky schools that says you have to display, in God we trust.
10:22I think display is different from you have to believe in that.
10:26Would it be the same if it was in Yahweh we trust, in Jehovah, in Allah?
10:30When we say, in God we trust, in the state of Kentucky, it's a Christian God.
10:35Yeah.
10:37I wondered if it's really that hopeless.
10:39Is it possible to be interfaith in a state that is so shaped by Christianity?
10:43At a local mosque here in Paducah, a group of faith leaders started the Abrahamic Faith Council.
10:49They meet regularly and discuss what it really means to be interfaith and how to apply that to their communities.
10:54Judaism, Islam, Christianity, we share a common foundation.
10:59Love God and love your neighbor.
11:02When we talk about the separation between church and state, first of all, is that something that y'all at
11:07this table feels important?
11:09We say that, but do we practice that?
11:12If we truly believe that, then we would stop saying we're a Christian nation.
11:15Exactly.
11:16There is kind of an unconscious blindness to the fact that, oh, there may be people here who don't see
11:22things the way I do.
11:23So we have linguistic colonialism going on where these people have taken our words and they've spun them around to
11:29be something different.
11:29You know, you ask a common Muslim man, what does jihad mean?
11:33You're striving.
11:33It doesn't mean unmitigated bloodshed of non-believers or infidels.
11:37A third person is dictating what those terms mean today.
11:41Hassan 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?
11:48It's a sanctuary.
11:49It's a God's place.
11:50You know, anybody's welcome.
11:51So this is the...
11:52So this is facing towards the Kaaba in Mecca.
11:54The leader is on the front mat.
11:56The congregation forms a line behind them.
11:58Interesting, this used to be a church.
12:00I actually...
12:01I wasn't going to...
12:01Because I wasn't sure if it was intentional.
12:03We blend in, right?
12:04You blend really in.
12:06The congregation is, you know, a maximum of 50 to 60 people.
12:08The issue becomes, you know, like Friday is not a day off.
12:11People have to take time out of their work or, you know, ask for a lunch break.
12:14And, you know, sometimes those things are not taken into consideration by your employers.
12:18Have you ever had people come to the center to protest or to...
12:24Because they disagree with y'all being here?
12:26We'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.
12:35There was a huge video out of Arizona where they showed up with AR-15s and semi-automatics.
12:41And they surrounded the mosque and they protested.
12:43What I was asking people was, like, you know,
12:45how 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 nation
13:10rather than a country founded on religious pluralism?
13:15Obviously, liberty and justice for all is an American principle.
13:20But what we're seeing with regards to religious liberty is that liberty and justice for all
13:25is really liberty and justice for most or for some
13:30because not everyone is given the same freedom.
13:35And a majority religion is making the rules for everybody.
13:44Thank you for watching Refinery29.
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13:48And to subscribe, click here.
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