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