Suggested Headline: What the Religious Right Doesnt Get About Religious Freedom

Word Count: 620

The Religious Right would like nothing better than to export its brand of intolerance to
the world.

No surprise then, that a blogger for the Christian conservative Family Research Council
is raising concerns over the recent nomination of Rabbi David Saperstein as the new
Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom. A known progressive, Saperstein would
represent everyones beliefs fairly and equally, including the non-religious.

Thats got the Religious Right shaking in its jackboots.

FRC Blogger Rob Schwarzwalders litany of complaints against Saperstein includes the
Rabbis criticism of the U.S. Supreme Courts recent Hobby Lobby decision. Saperstein
objected to the courts finding that corporations have religious freedom rights to deny
employees contraceptive coverage in their health insurance in violation of the Affordable
Care Act.

Coming from a minority faith, Saperstein is attuned to the religious oppression to come
now that corporations mostly representing the majority faith may impose religious
dictates on employees. His ambassadorship will undoubtedly urge freedom from religion
as well as freedom of religion something chilling to the FRC and its ilk.

The group I represent, Openly Secular, is calling on the U.S. Senate to quickly confirm
Saperstein when the body reconvenes a week after Labor Day. Our organization, a
coalition made up of more than two dozen secular organizations, supports Saperstein
because we share a common mission: to stem intolerance and support diversity of
belief, including that of atheists, agnostics, humanists and freethinkers.

Saperstein is a rabbi of global prominence who has led the Religious Action Center of
Reform Judaism for more than three decades. If confirmed, he will also be the first non-
Christian to hold the position.

Schwarzwalder claims Sapersteins Judaism is not a problem, but calls the Rabbis
liberalism troubling. He points with derision to Sapersteins role as a board member for
People for the American Way, an organization devoted to defending equality. In
Schwarzwalders words, the groups progressivism includes the marginalization of faith
in public life, unrestricted access to abortion-on-demand, and what (People for the
American Way) calls dumping the Defense of Marriage Act.

Lets analyze this together, shall we?

Schwarzwalders concern over PFAWs marginalization of faith in public life is PFAWs
support for the separation of church and state. Who better than an ambassador for
religious freedom to remind the world that religious displays by government dangerously
alienate and disenfranchise minority religions and the nonreligious? In many parts of the
world, Iraq and Nigeria to name current hotspots, when governments take religious
sides, violence ensues.

PFAWs support for unrestricted access to abortion-on-demand is the groups support
for a womans unfettered right to choose an abortion within the framework of Roe vs.
Wade, a position that reflects American law, but infuriates FRC. Conservative
evangelical groups like the FRC have worked furiously to interfere with womens access
to abortion services around the globe.

Its efforts to thwart womens reproductive rights include keeping the United States from
ratifying the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women making our nation one of the worlds last holdouts.

PFAWs support for marriage equality for gays and lesbians and its opposition to the
federal Defense of Marriage Act run counter to the FRC international agenda of
promoting discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Sapersteins nomination is seen as threatening by the FRC because he will use his post
to promote true American values: church-state separation, social equality for all people,
the protection of religious minorities, and the rights of people who subscribe to no
religion at all.

The FRC and conservative evangelicals see religious freedom as the right of
governments to impose religiously grounded, nanny-state, autonomy-limiting public
policy on their population. Saperstein knows the opposite is true. For that reason, as well
as his sterling qualifications, he should be confirmed.

Robyn Blumner is executive director for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason
and Science and the project director for Openly Secular.