THE CHRISTIAN POST: Indiana official, Islamic advocacy group spar over claim US is a 'Christian nation'
An Islamic advocacy group and the lieutenant governor of Indiana have sparred over whether playing Muslim calls to prayer over loudspeakers in communities can be banned, and if the United States is a Christian nation following a podcast appearence last month.
Indiana Lt. Governor Micah Beckwith appeared on the “Conservative Review” podcast in late June, where he endorsed a ban on the Muslim call to prayer, known as the adhan.
"We should ban the calls to prayer, public calls to prayer," he said. “If you're a mosque and you want to have a loudspeaker and you want to start pumping these out five times a day locally, the state can say, 'You're not going to do that.’ We're not allowing that. We're not going to let you put these words of death and destruction throughout the city streets in any of our cities."
Beckwith then claimed that that America’s highest court had ruled that the U.S. is a “Christian nation” with a distinct “Christian heritage.”
"Listen, we are a Christian nation," added Beckwith. "The Supreme Court in the Coach Kennedy case ruled that. They said, ‘Hey, the heritage of America is a Christian heritage and so that's why Christianity takes precedence over all other faiths.’”
In the landmark 2023 case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court ruled that a Washington school district was wrong to punish a high school football coach for praying on the field after games. The decision did not recognize the U.S. as a “Christian nation.”
“Everyone can worship how they want, but you don't get to implement Islam in our public spaces," Beckwith said. "You can't put the Quran up on school walls, but you can put the Ten Commandments up on school walls. Why? Because of our Judeo-Christian principles. That's our heritage."
Despite media backlash, Beckwith doubled down on his comments, writing in a July 10 post on X, “Yes, I 100% want to ban mosques in America from blaring the Muslim call to prayer through loudspeakers 5 times a day across our cities. Hope this clarifies everything and have a great weekend!”
In response to Beckwith’s comments, the Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) and CAIR released a statement condemning Beckwith for his statement that “We are a Christian nation." The group contends that “no Supreme Court decision has declared the United States a 'Christian nation.’”
CAIR, an Islamic advocacy group that in 2007 was one of nearly 250 organizations listed as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a major terrorism financing case, said Beckwith's comments “fundamentally misrepresent constitutional law” in the Kennedy decision.
“While the Supreme Court's decision ... addressed a public school football coach's personal religious expression, it did not declare the United States a 'Christian nation' or establish Christianity as the nation's preferred religion,” CAIR-Chicago Communications Director Hafsa Haider said in a statement. “The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion while protecting the free exercise of religion for all Americans.”
Commentary in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the 1892 Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States case appears to cite examples that support the U.S. being a "Christian nation." The decision supported a New York church fined for hiring a foreign minister.
Justice David Brewer, who wrote the unanimous majority decision, pointed to a "volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation."
Despite the Supreme Court’s commentary, however, the U.S. Constitution prohibits the establishment of an official state religion.
Last November, CAIR-Texas called on law enforcement to investigate the alleged assault and harassment of Muslim youth praying outside Original Mocha Coffee, a Yemeni coffee shop in Murphy, located northeast of Dallas, as a possible hate crime.
No charges were ever filed.
That same month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot designated both CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, a move that prohibited both organizations from purchasing or acquiring land in Texas.