14 | MAY 18 • 2023 

T

he audience was startled 
to hear the voice of a 
pastor bragging about 
helping even “witches find 
Christ” as part of his invocation 
(prayer) to the Michigan State 
Legislature in Lansing. 
State Sen. Jeremy Moss 
(D-District 7), president pro 
tempore of the 
Senate, played 
the tape “to bring 
a sense of how 
it feels to belong 
to a minority 
religion” during his 
participation on a 
panel discussing 
“Religion-
Government 
Separation in 
Michigan Today.
” 
He was joined 
by State Sen. 
Rosemary Bayer 
(D-District 13) and 
a moderator, Nomi 
Joyrich, Michigan 
director of Jews for a 
Secular Democracy 
(JFASD). 
Rabbi Jeffrey 
Falick of 
Congregation 
for Humanistic Judaism in 
Farmington Hills and Rabbi 
Miriam Jerris led a Humanist 
Havdalah service prior to the 
program at CHJ on April 29. 
Each session of the Senate 
opens with an invocation, Moss 
explained, despite the fact that 
“our Michigan constitution states 
that government is not supposed 

to uplift one religion. Some want 
to lead by inserting their values 
into governance for the rest of us.
”
Bayer, who is not Jewish, 
shares Moss’ conviction that 
“religion should be kept separate 
from governing.
” Serving her 
second term in the Senate, as 
is Moss, Bayer said she was a 
“brand-new legislator” when she 
accepted a Christian colleague’s 
invitation to attend the body’s 
weekly Prayer Breakfast Caucus. 
“I wanted to go for the 
camaraderie and getting to know 
everybody better,
” Bayer said, 
but she was immediately turned 
off when “everyone opened their 

Bible, first thing.
” She left and has 
never returned. 
The panelists talked more 
about the bias brought to bear 
by what Bayer termed: “White 
Christian favoritism.
”
She said, “It’s an excuse for 
bad behavior in decision-making 
because ‘somebody else told 
me what to do. God tells me to 
do this.
’ It’s a pervasive attitude, 
every day.
” No one is forced 
to stay in the room and listen 
to Christian theology-laced 
invocation prayers, “but then 
the same notions come out in 
speeches on their floor.
”
“They have an absolute right 

to believe that,
” Moss said, “but 
if it impacts the law-making for 
those who don’t subscribe to that 
religious value; that’s when it 
becomes a problem in the state.
” 
Bayer remembered the 
intimidation the legislators 
and staff felt on April 30, 2020, 
when a group of white Christian 
Nationalists with assault weapons 
went into the Capitol building for 
their so-called “
American Patriot 
Rally.
” 
She now keeps a bulletproof 
vest under her desk. “We learned 
later that they were practicing 
for the Jan. 6 coup attempt in 
Washington, D.C.,
” Bayer said, 
and that “their full intent was 
to shoot all the legislators” — 
“burn down the building, too,
” 
Moss interjected — “capture the 
governor and kill her.
” 

NEW LEADERSHIP 
IN LANSING
Before this year, the Republican 
majority with its Christian 
bias wouldn’t pass legislation 
acceptable to a majority of 
Michiganders, such as securing 
access to reproductive healthcare. 
A more progressive agenda is 
now possible in the wake of 
the nonpartisan commission 
that eliminated gerrymandered 
districts, by drawing new maps 
reflecting the 2020 census. 
Democrats held on to the top 
offices in the November election 
and won their first majority in 
many years in both chambers of 
the state legislature. 
Although voters approved 
the “Reproductive Freedom for 
All” Proposal 3 in 2022, it was 
important to Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer and the Democrats 
to repeal the state’s 1931 anti-
abortion rights legislation. The 
so-called “zombie law” was 
automatically triggered to go into 
effect when the Supreme Court 
overturned Roe v Wade last 
year, but Whitmer put a hold on 

Keeping Religion 
and State Separate

OUR COMMUNITY

Panel discussion examines religion’s 
role in state government. 

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Nomi 
Joyrich

State Sen. 
Jeremy 
Moss 

State Sen. 
Rosemary 
Bayer 

Paul Golin and Nomi Joyrich of Jews for 
a Secular Democracy and State Senators 
Rosemary Bayer and Jeremy Moss. 

ESTHER ALLWEISS INGBER

continued on page 16

