Asma T. Uddin - The Politics of Vulnerability: How to Heal Muslim-Christian Relations in a Post-Christian America: Todays Threat to Religion and Religious Freedom

Todays Threat to Religion and Religious Freedom

The Politics of Vulnerability

How to Heal Muslim-Christian Relations in a Post-Christian America

Asma T. Uddin

THE POLITICS OF VULNERABILITY

Pegasus Books, Ltd.

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New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2021 by Asma T. Uddin

First Pegasus Books cloth edition March 2021

Interior design by Maria Torres

Jacket design by Derek Thornton / Notch Design

Author photo by Tim Coburn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-662-2

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64313-663-9

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To the black sheep in a fitting-in culture

THE BALLROOM AT THE PIERRE Hotel in New York City was glittering that night. At various times the site of the Oscars, the Emmys, and high-fashion shows, on May 7, 2015, this room was celebrating a very different type of star: Barbara Green, the owner of the Hobby Lobby chain of crafts stores.

It was the twentieth annual Canterbury Medal gala of my then law firm, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Spirits were buoyant, as the firm was coming fresh off its United States Supreme Court win in favor of the crafts stores. The hundreds gathered in the room that night hailed from diverse faiths: multiple Christian denominations, Jews, Sikhs, and me, the lone Muslim.

Customary for a black-tie dinner at one of New Yorks exclusive venues, the dinner was extravagantsurf and turf, followed by an endless dessert buffetand scrumptious. But unlike any other swanky dinner in the city that night, one thing was missing: alcohol. Throughout the dinner and dessert reception, wine and spirits were nowhere to be seen.

The Green family is fundamentalist Protestant. While not notably ascetic, fundamentalists consider smoking and alcohol strictly forbidden by their faith. Out of deference to the honoree that night, Becket had chosen to not serve alcohol.

It was a welcome respite for me, as my religion, too, forbids the consumption of alcohol. It hasnt always been easy growing up in a drinking culture. Nearly all of the networking events hosted by my law school, and then the corporate firm where I started out my career, revolved around alcohol. I was the odd one out, sipping my Coke while everyone was getting more than a little tipsy (and naturally then finding the events way more fun than they actually were).

But finally, here not drinking was the norm, and people were having fun despite it. The Greens were strict about their beliefs. They didnt even rent their company trucks out to people who wanted to use them to transport alcohol. If your faith forbids something, helping someone else do that exact thing is almost just as bad. The idea of complicity is part of many religions, mine includednot only can I not drink, I cannot buy or bring alcohol for others or even pour it for them.

Complicity was a big part of the Greens case at the Supreme Court. Their religious beliefs against abortion also prevented them from complying with the part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that required them to pay for four drugs in their employee health insurance that the Greens considered abortion-causing drugs. Those drugs were Plan B and Ella, the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill, and two IUDs. Paying for these drugs would have violated the Greens deeply held religious belief that life begins at the moment of conception, when an egg is fertilized.

But the ACA required the Greens to pay for these drugs on pain of penalty, and made the Greens choose between violating their conscience and paying more than a million dollars per day to the government. The Greens decided to instead bring suit to vindicate their religious rights. They put everything on the linetheir entire billion-dollar businessfor their religious convictions.

Their case also made the Greens some of the most reviled people in America. Many Americans thought the Greens were using their religion to oppress women. They said that Christians like the Greens threatened to make America a theocracy, a Bible nation where their religion reigned supreme over others.

SUPREME COURTS HOBBY LOBBY DECISION IS A SLAP IN THE FACE TO WOMEN , read one prominent headline.

OF COURSE HOBBY LOBBY THINKS ITS ABOVE THE LAW , read another.

The New Republic declared, Were all living in Hobby Lobbys Bible nation.

Some critics even evoked imagery from Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel The Handmaids Tale. They claimed that with the Hobby Lobby decision, we were slouching toward Gilead, the totalitarian patriarchal theocracy (or Divine Republic) in Atwoods book. One writer lamented,

It would actually be the best-case scenario if these attacks on reproductive freedom were chiefly about punishing women for having sex, because the alternatives are that the Supreme Court of the United States is deliberately hauling us toward a straight-up theocracy

The court decision, as Ill explain in the coming chapters, had little to do with theocracy or policing womens sex lives. The court actually ensured that women still had access to the full range of contraceptives covered by the ACA mandate. So, all of the foregoing depictions were factually incorrect.

But more than that, the headlines missed an essential point: the Greens, like many religious believers, are duty bound to follow what their conscience demands, and our law guards the right of every American to fulfill those duties except in the narrowest of circumstances.

Our countrys founders made religious freedom a core constitutional right because they knew how deep religion runs for many people and that it inspires those people to do good for others. Though our country hasnt always protected religious freedom equally and fairly for people of all religions, its gotten better over the years.

Well, with some religions at least. Less so with mine.

Fast-forward to another gathering of religious freedom enthusiasts, this one mostly conservative Christians and all of them on the Greens side in Hobby Lobby. The man at the podium was announcing to the crowd,

We do not support sharia supremacists themselves or their enablers or their apologists.

And it pains me beyond words that this program that will be coming up after the attorney generals remarks, you have such an individual who will be presented to you, Im afraid, as someone who is a perfect example of moderate Muslims and a perfect interlocutor for us in interfaith dialogue and bridge building and the like

I hope that you will not be misled into believing this individual. Ive nothing against her personally. But this individual and what she stands forand most especially what she is doing with organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (one of the most aggressive Muslim Brotherhood front organizations in the country)must not be endorsed, even implicitly, by this organization.