Why would I oppose Senate Bill 129, the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act”? After all, I am committed to the beliefs and observances of my Jewish faith. I serve as the senior rabbi of one of the largest synagogues in Georgia, one that leans towards a more traditional approach. Furthermore, I am grateful for the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution that allow us to practice that faith freely.
I must speak out because I see a wrong being contemplated in our state in the name of God and of people of faith, and I cannot be silent while that wrong comes to pass.
There are some in our state who have come to believe their faith is endangered. They have been told SB 129 would offer additional protections beyond those of the First Amendment and a host of other federal regulations. I know some come with no malice. Unfortunately, they have been sold not a bill of rights, but a bill of goods.
Any additional benefit would be, at most, marginal, and it would come at a great cost to others. In other states, similar bills have had negative consequences. These would be magnified here in Georgia, where protections for rights in basic areas like employment and housing are far weaker than elsewhere. It is telling that every effort to include an anti-discrimination clause in the bill has been rebuffed. As people of faith, can we seek to protect ourselves with a law that will exclude or denigrate others?
I respect the right of people of faith to believe and observe, to decide who to associate with and what to accept in their own houses of worship, their own places of religious study. Yet a Georgia that allows faith to be a legal litmus test as to who may be our neighbors, who large corporations choose to serve or employ, who government employees choose to serve, provides a religious cover to sentiments and actions that are in fact the opposite of godly and endanger us all.
SB 129 is unfaithful not only to our American values but, ironically, to our Biblical heritage as well. A portion of the debate about this bill has focused on issues of gender, sexuality and marriage. There are voices in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition that speak, sometimes stridently, on those questions, which have their roots in Leviticus 18 and 20. I hear God’s words in these chapters. But I also believe God commanded Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and Leviticus 25:17: “Do not oppress your neighbor.” Should a person who holds to Biblical values be any less fervent in application of the latter verses than the former?
Troubling shenanigans have marked this bill’s advancement. Infamously, the Senate committee vote was held during a bathroom break. When the House Judiciary Subcommittee met on Tuesday, a number of us whose names had been submitted to testify against the bill were directed to the wrong door, and then we were denied entry to the woefully undersized hearing room. Several never got to testify. Can I muster the naiveté to assume this was accidental? Can people who act deceptively in the name of faith really call themselves “religious”?
There are areas of traditional Jewish practice where state regulations can pose a challenge. Yet Jews have not spoken out in favor of this overreaching bill, because there are more refined ways to address those concerns. Religious minorities have been the target of religious discrimination far more often by individuals than by government.
Faith sometimes demands being different from the world around us. My own observance sets me apart in what I eat and how I spend every Sabbath, but I have never protested that the Georgia Bulldogs handle a pig skin on the Sabbath. People of sincere faith commitment can live that faith without imposing that faith on others, or being cruel or unkind to those who may not believe or practice in the same way.
People of faith and conscience must reject this law. It would provide cover for hatred and discrimination under a false flag of faith. All are at risk: gay and straight, Christian and Jew. Even if you believe this law provides you additional protections, will you take them at the expense of the dignity of others?
From our Legislature to our leaders to our laypeople, people who are committed to the traditions of the Bible from should oppose this bill — not despite their faith, but because of it.
Rabbi Joshua Heller is the senior rabbi of Congregation B’nai Torah in Sandy Springs, and chair of the rites and rituals subcommittee of the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
