From Sanctuary to Courtroom: Immigration and Religious Liberty with Legal expert Elizabeth Reiner Platt

REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST:

Elizabeth Reiner Platt has been leading the Law, Rights andReligion Project since 2015. Her publications have included the report Who'sFaith matters? The Fight for Religious Liberty Beyond the Christian Right -what a good title - which is just incredibly relevant today, as we know. Liz isa legally trained scholar and advocate who leads efforts to reframe religiousliberty in the United States, especially in relation to gender justice,reproductive rights and racial equity.

Just last month, the Law, Rights and Religion Project moved from ColumbiaLaw School to Union Theological Seminary in New York - my alma mater.

And this week, it published the latest comprehensive report titled,Religious Liberty and Immigration: Legal Analysis of Past and Future Claims.If you have heard Elizabeth Reiner Platt on our show before, you know how goodshe is at humanizing complex policy and legal abstractions. And that's going tocome in useful today as we look at this urgent topic area.

So, Liz, welcome back to the State of Belief!

ELIZABETH REINER PLATT, GUEST:

Thank you so much. I'm very glad to be back.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

This is exciting. It's exciting for all the wrong reasons in someways, that you're putting out this incredibly important report right now, ReligiousLiberty and Immigration: Legal Analysis of Past and Future Claims. I haveto tell you, we're all going insane right now with what we're seeing all acrossthe board about immigration in this country. And it's just disgusting. And forme, you know, I'll just, I know I shouldn't start out with a rant, but I'mgoing to start out with a rant.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Go for it.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

You know, as a pastor and as someone who's just looking at, caresabout our society and cares about people, seeing these masked men abductingindividuals -just terrifying. And so anyway, what you've offered here in thisreport that I really want everyone to know about and to feel like they canaccess is an accessible understanding of the legal aspects of what is happeningright now. And it's a resource for the laypeople, like most of us, but also forlawyers and faith leaders and others. So let me just say, first of all, thankyou for all the hard work this represents. And maybe we can just start out withyour own understanding of the landscape into which this report is dropping.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

 Absolutely. So the report, it really is about the ways in which,despite the administration's rhetoric on religious liberty, its activities inthe immigration sphere are really attacking people of faith and communities offaith. You know this well with the work you do starting on day one of the Trumpadministration: the revocation of the sensitive locations policy that for 30years said, you know, very basic protection, you can't do ICE enforcementiInsideor right outside of a house of worship or a religious ritual, protectingpeople's right to feel safe practicing their faith, to his attacks on BishopMariann Budde for her very modest plea for…

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 Can we say how modest that was? I mean, it wasn't courageous. Itwas important, but it wasn't like she was being some sort of crazy, unhinged,radical. She was actually just preaching what most would call the Christian Gospel.So, yeah. I'm sorry to interrupt your flow.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

 No, no, absolutely. And another thing that you've worked on atInterfaith Alliance, the letters that nonprofit organizations have receiveddemanding information and documents about anything they've ever done related toimmigration, to picking up and abducting, as you said, people on churchproperty, arresting religious refugees, including Christians from Iran,arresting faith leaders… It's horrific.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 It’s shocking. And here's the other really interesting piece ofthis, is going after, literally in the first couple of weeks, going after theCatholic bishops saying they were padding their bottom line - just for thestuff that they've been doing since the beginning, which is caring for refugeesand immigrants. This is not new activity.

But it's really interesting for JD Vance, who apparently is moreCatholic than the pope, to tell the Catholic bishops that they're moneylaundering, that they're padding their bottom line by doing this, the work thatthey're carrying out. It's religious freedom work, which is doing their work.And so I appreciate so much the way you're framing this. All of that should beunder the rubric of religious freedom that is being abrogated by thisadministration.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Absolutely. And, you know, faith communities have, of course, longbeen a huge part of the movement for immigration justice,  going back to before this, but notably inrecent history, the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, in which congregationsworked with secular activists across the country to protect refugees coming tothe US from El Salvador, were prosecuted for those activities…

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And even before that, HIAS, for those who don't know, HIAS, it wasstarted by Jewish organizations trying to bring persecuted Jews from around theworld to America. It's a refugee policy. In more recent years, it's beenincredibly important in bringing people of all faith traditions to the UnitedStates. It's completely broadened to all faith traditions. And HIAS, as youmentioned, is one of those groups that has been attacked specifically by theadministration, targeted for its its work, a Jewish-led organization targetedfor its immigration work.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Absolutely. So what the report tries to do is, tell just a smallpiece of that history; but also really talk about how, in addition to the waysthat religious communities have always shown up for immigrant justice throughthe power of the pulpit, through legislative advocacy, through doing that kindof on-the-ground resourcing, providing legal services, social services forimmigrants.

In addition to all those things that we've seen for a very longtime, there seems to me to be an increase in litigation tactics that rely onthe expansive right to religious liberty that has been created under theRoberts Court in cases that you've covered: Masterpiece Cake Shop, CatholicCharities.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

 All these cases. This is really an important point, is that thiscourt has really just said, okay, well, basically, religious - and we talkedabout this, I think, the last time we talked was I think the cake, was it…

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Masterpiece Cake Shop.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That's right. The cake shop. And I was just like, well, where doesit stop? And the idea that, basically, religious freedom has been so expandedthat it's become almost a get-out-of-jail-free card, for some things. I mean, thereinlies the rub.

Okay, Roberts Court, if you want to really expand the idea ofreligious freedom, what are we going to start including in that, and whosereligious freedom is it? Only this thin slice of radical Christian right thatwe're talking about? Or is it really everybody's religious freedom to live outtheir the mandates of their faith? And so I think that's a really importantpoint, because the landscape, technically, should be favorable to this, even ifthe administration is resistant to it.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Right. And, you know, I think it's a hard line to walk between - Idon't want to be Pollyannish and say that claim means advocating for religiousfreedom from a claimant who says that deportation would violate their religiousright to be part of their faith community, for example. I don't want to beoverly-ptimistic about how those places might fare in court. But I also don'twant to be under-optimistic.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I think we don't want to leave tools on the table, is what I thinkyou're saying. I mean, like, okay, if this is the reality, if you've said thesetools are available to us, we're going to employ those tools. And the test willbe how - and this is, of course, me pretending to be a lawyer because I have alot of lawyers in my family - but, how consistent will you apply the law, ifyou say “religious freedom”? is that is that a fair part of what we're gettingat here?

LIZ REINER PLATT:

That's right. I think some of it is just a commitment to saying, ifnothing else, these laws, religious freedom, should be applied neutrally toeveryone. And it could be applied broadly, it could be applied narrowly, but wecan't treat only some people as legitimately religious. And so I think that's apart of it.

But I also think there are success stories here. There have been acouple really interesting and, to some people, I would say unexpected winsrecently in religious right to abortion litigation, for example. But in theimmigration context, we highlight the case of several volunteers during thefirst Trump administration, volunteers with the organization No More Deaths inArizona, who were arrested for leaving water in the desert for migrants to tryto prevent people from dying from dehydration. They were arrested for thoseactivities, and they successfully brought a religious liberty defense. so, youknow, again, I'm not trying to be Pollyannish, but I also think some of theseclaims do have legs.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Let's talk a little bit about, there has been litigation in the - Ialmost called it Trump 2.0, which sounds a little too cutesy - in this recenthorror show that is the Trump administration. You know, the law has beenemployed in many ways. And what are some of the ways that you've seen religiousliberty, efforts that do show up, actually, in this report? Because I do thinksometimes there's so much information coming at us and so much news all thetime, and the legal landscape seems just like, there’s so much effort. So it'shelpful to pull out some of the ways that the law has been employed in - andspecifically religious freedom claims has been employed - as it relates toimmigration.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

 Sure. So I think one of the topics that's gotten the most presscoverage, I'll say, is there are now four lawsuits challenging that version ofthe sensitive locations policy that I mentioned up top.U p until, I think, thefourth one was filed yesterday, right as we were going to print, and I said,you know, “Stop the presses! There's now four!” So we did.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

There's no way to be endlessly current. But yeah. Okay, good.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

So there are now four challenges to that as a violation ofreligious liberty, saying, basically that people have the right to go to theirhouse of worship without being afraid of getting arrested.

 There have been a host of cases on just, actually, a reallyincredible range of topics. So there have been two challenges that I know ofsaying that this horrific practice of holding people in third countriesindefinitely violates religious liberty, because as horrible as immigrationdetention is within the United States, there are theoretically legalprotections for religious practice. Those don't exist when you're being held ina third country. So we've seen those challenges.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

Let me just go back quickly to the sensitive spaces, because Ithink this is really also interesting. Some of the litigants in one of thefirst cases that was filed with Democracy Forward included the CooperativeBaptists who - along with the Sikh Coalition and the Friends, Quakers - theyhad never done anything like that before. But they realized that this is theirpeople, right? If you actually believe that you're a pastor, if you actuallybelieve that you're caring for a flock, these are your people who are beingpicked off by masked men and abducted.

 And it is a terrible chilling effect on the practice of religionbecause people won't show up for faith, they won't show up to worship. And italso is just really a direct attack on the people that - you know, these arenot super-liberal organizations. These are religious organizations that feelthey have a religious mandate, which allows you, but it also demands that youcare for these people. And I just want to make sure that that sinks in: thatthere are legal things at play here, and underneath those legal things - andwhen we talk about religious freedom, those are commandments.

And in some ways they are, for Christians - in my tradition, it'sdescribed differently in other traditions - but in my tradition, if you'rewelcoming the stranger, you're actually welcoming Jesus. This isn't aperipheral idea; this is a central idea to what it means to actually be aChristian. And so I'm sorry to interrupt, but I do think it's important whenyou talk about sensitive spaces for lawsuits, that's a really important thingbecause this gets to the core of what it means to have the ability to practicereligion.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

And, you know, I think those cases, they talk about the violationof the religious liberty rights of the house of worship, the kind ofcorporation Itself, and saying we are forced to choose between our commitmentto being open and welcoming everyone and our commitment to keeping ourcongregations safe: we can either turn people away and close our doors and say,you're not allowed; or or we can put people at risk. So it talks about thereligious right of the house of worship, but it also talks about the religiousright of the congregants themselves, the immigrant congregants, who, again, theirown personal religious faith is being chilled.

You mentioned these are not extremely liberal congregations. I'llnote that two dioceses of the Catholic Church issued statements basicallytelling immigrant congregants that they don't have to go to mass. you don't getmore of an overt chilling of…

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

It shows you the radical reality of the situation. This is notnormal. This is not okay. I'm so grateful that you're putting out this report. I'mgoing to name it: Religious Liberty and Immigration: Legal Analysis of Pastand Future Claims, because it's being put out into a moment that is, Iwould say a crisis for American legal community, religious community andself-understanding of what it means.

So, sensitive spaces, and then also the right to being able topractice your religion when you're incarcerated is, of course, completely gonewhen you're in a gulag in El Salvador. It’s incredible.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Right. Not to mention allyour other rights. I mean, religion just being one of them. But there wereclaims related to land use with Trump's efforts to build a border wall acrossthe southern border and across, again, certain religious spaces, including aCatholic diocese, La Lomita Chapel in Texas, and a sacred Native American siteas well. So there were two cases we highlight there, again, cases of people offaith being charged with harboring, under both federal and state harboring laws,just for their efforts to prevent people from dying in the desert: leavingfood, cooking for people, giving someone a place to spend the night.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

When people talk about, oh, I wish religious folks would do goodfor the community - that's what this is all about. And yet it's being attacked.It's being penalized there.

I don't know if you get into this because it may not directly apply,but for those of us who were watching what was happening in LA, there was a lotof religious activity. I'm sure you noticed that: there were lines of religiousleaders standing up. They were kind of putting themselves in between the policeand National Guard and Marines or whatever and the people.

There was also an incident of ICE stepping onto a church's parkinglot and being located there. And there was this pastor was just like, you can'tbe here. You are on private land, you're on my church's land, and I say, youcannot be here. Those may not immediately be litigatable, but it feelsimportant as far as our abilities to show up and to say what we need to say asfaith leaders.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

I think that kind of situation goes at the heart of the claims thatthey're making in the sensitive locations policy. So in that way it is litigatable.I'll just say the church communities and the religious communities I'm talkingto, like you said, they're terrified. they're terrified of that. I've gottenquestions: Can we keep opening our soup kitchen? Can we keep providing ESLclasses?

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

And they're worried because it looks like they're fostering positiveimmigration locations for people who want to learn English and want to actuallydo well in this country. It's really outrageous.

One of the things that's come up lately is our clergy themselvesbeing arrested. I don't know if you've seen any of those cases and what itmeans to have clergy start to be targeted in - whether it's the chaplain inCincinnati or other faith leaders who are, all of a sudden, being either hauledoff or being interrogated. Have you seen any of that?

LIZ REINER PLATT:

So the the chaplain case I think you're referring to, that makes methink of a couple different kinds of cases that we outlined in the report. Andone of them are incidents of people, both citizens and non-citizens, who werespecifically targeted by the administration, again in its first term, becauseof their faith-based activities.

So one of them is, there was a case by, four women who lived insanctuary churches. These are four undocumented women who were leaders in the NewSanctuary Movement, and themselves had taken sanctuary to protect themselvesand their families. And they were hit with outrageous civil fines for,essentially, failure to self-deport. and the claim they made was, we werespecifically targeted because of our faith-based activities, and this isactually intentionally trying to chill our religious exercise. Now, therewasn't a decision in that case because, thankfully, the civil fines weredropped with the change of the administration.

But there was a second claim that did win, actually, by a UScitizen pastor, Rev. Kaii Dousa. She is a pastor who's worked closely with theNew Sanctuary Coalition in New York, has traveled to Mexico several times tominister and to provide marriage ceremonies for migrants waiting to go into theUS. And she was specifically targeted by the administration. The administrationactually sent an email to the government of Mexico saying, don't let thisperson back in if she tries to enter Mexico again. She argued that, again, thisviolated her religious liberty rights. And she won. So, I think that thosecases come to mind saying that we have a religious right to practice our faithwithout being intentionally targeted.

But there have also been a handful of really interesting claims,none of which we've had decisions in, so it's kind of an open question how farthey could go, but basically saying that deportation itself is a violation ofcertain people's right to religious liberty. So, for example, there was a Seventh-DayAdventist man whose wife and children made a claim that our religious beliefsbelieve in family unity with the man as the spiritual head of the household,and that deportation of him, of their father and husband, would actuallyviolate their religious liberty rights.

So those are kind of two different ways, either the targeting orjust saying, I actually have a religious right to stay in my religiouscommunity in the United States. And we'll just have to kind of see where thosekinds of claims go.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

This is all so important. I want to just invite you to offer areflection, more broadly, on how you understand religious freedom now inAmerica - because what we're talking about is kind of saying, okay, religiousfreedom claims have just radically expanded. And we're going to say, okay,there's consequences to that – meaning, we're going to invite ourselves intothat.

But what are we seeing? The use of religion by this administrationis so toxic to me. Andthe idea of, okay, we have an anti-Christian bias task force that's going to goin, and anybody who says anything against any… And the worst kind of religiousproselytizing, who's using their faith to say, I don't want to serve the LGBTQpeople or whatever. That's really what they're talking about. They can use thisreligious freedom card and they can say, well, we're allowed to do this.

And it's tricky, because we want people to have free exercise. Wewant people to feel free to practice their religion. But often, there issomeone at the receiving end of this, and the consequence of someone saying,oh, well, I don't have to serve you because of my religion. I don't have to beinvolved with you because of my religion. I mean, let's remember, theprohibitions against intermarriage and the segregation of lunch counters. Theywould point immediately to the Bible for that. So, where are we with religiousfreedom in America? I know you think about this too much. I know I’m phrasingit in such a, you know, dumbed down version.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

What a big and important question. So, a huge amount of litigationthat is taking place right now on religious freedom is being litigated,actually, not under the Constitution, but under a statute called the ReligiousFreedom Restoration Act. and what that statute says is that you have a right toa religious exemption from an act of the federal government that substantiallyburdens your sincere exercise of religion, unless the government can show thatthe burden it's placing on you is necessary to advance compelling governmentinterest. And each little piece of that test I just laid out can be kind oflitigated and argued about, but basically, overall, that test should have roomto consider the harms that your requested religious exemption is going toimpose on other people.

We would hope that the government would, for example, find thatthere is a compelling government interest that is narrowly tailored toenforcing major anti-discrimination laws on people. That's not how it's alwaysshaken out in courts, but that there should be room in the test that I justlaid out to consider harms. And I think we absolutely should consider the harmsthat requested religious exemptions across the theological and politicalspectrums might impose on third parties.

But I think the reality is that most of these claims - you know, givingwater to people crossing the desert doesn't impose any of the kinds of horribleharms that we're seeing in some of these other cases. And actually, if there'sa really powerful decision in one of those No More Deaths cases where thegovernment tried to argue, oh, no, no, we have to prosecute these peoplebecause we have this compelling interest in protecting the border. You know,everything you might imagine.

And the court, the judge,said, you're trying to argue that you have a government interest in a policy ofdeterrence by death. That was the court's words. And they said that that'shorrific. and I thought that was really powerful, because it wasn't about, youknow, we can't consider harms on third parties. It was saying, you're trying totell me, government, that you have an interest in people dying of dehydration.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That's powerful. You've really laid it out clearly, and as yousaid, each one of those words - I've heard the question of sincerely heldbeliefs - that's also like, okay, who gets to say this is sincerely held? So again,how does all of this talk about religious freedom and rights intersect with agovernment that is, by extension, an effort at promoting a certain kind of WhiteChristian Nationalism? You and I have talked about these kind of issues before,but you and I have not talked since this administration took power.

And I do think, it is shocking the level of - I don't know. It's notlack of awareness. It's a very aware intention. I use the phrase, this is themost anti-religious administration we've seen in years, because any religionthat is not in lockstep with their political aims is suspect. And the only oneswho are given this freedom to their religion are those who are viewed as alliesof the administration.

And so it it undermines the very idea of religious freedom as aconcept that is embedded in the First Amendment, and something that we shouldall be grateful for because I am grateful for it. But the way I see religionwielded by this administration has been horrific. You're in the center of it,really looking at the legal aspect of it. And your jaw must be on the floor, aswell.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

It's horrible. And it's also been a very long process. You know,one thing I think a lot about is, the Trump administration obviously has andwields an enormous amount of power; but they also have an enormousinfrastructure and base of this Christian conservative legal movement that hasbeen working for a very long time. I think a lot about resources, and I think alot about the long game. And one of the things that I think our center wasfounded to do and that we try to do is, if you are one of these folks who'strying to find a lawyer to say, I have a religious right as a teacher to misgendermy students, you're going to find it very easy to find a big, well-funded lawfirm to represent your case.

If you are someone who's saying, you know, I have a religious rightto help migrants, to welcome the stranger - there isn't that enormous legalinfrastructure to help you. And so we really - we're a very small shop, but wetry to be very practical in creating legal tools in a very complicated area ofthe law for faith groups that aren't going to be welcomed by, just to name it, AllianceDefending Freedom and the other big Christian right legal players.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I am so glad you brought this up. And you're absolutely right. Youknow, long game resources - this has been built. I mean, all of it has beenbuilt. The Roberts Court has been built. Absolutely did not come out ofnothing. It came out of an intention. It came out of massive amounts ofinvestment, and a long game plan.

When did, what is it, Alliance Defending Freedom, is that theireuphemism? When were they founded? Do you know, is it like 30 years?

LIZ REINER PLATT:

I believe it's 1993.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

That’s so interesting. So this is also when Ralph Reed, PatRobertson, Jerry Falwell - I mean, that's actually exactly when we were foundedat Interfaith Alliance, recognizing the moment not as a legal organization, butthey were kind of like, okay, how are we going to make sure that, legally, weget what we want? And, and what they want is not what the American people want,but it's where a thin slice of the American people are getting power and theability to wield religion. And it's very frustrating, because I actually thinkwhen you put across the broad understanding of what religious freedom can be,most people get it and they want it, but what they don't like is this idea of, Iget to invade your public school. That is just the craziest thing for me.

I'm not sure that you all do as much in that area, but the wholeencroachment of religion into public schools and kind of dictating a religious normto the rest of the religious community and saying, oh, no, that's justcultural. America was built on that. No, no, no. And I'm just mystified, as apastor and as a parent of kids in public school: you really want some randomperson interpreting the Ten Commandments? All right. Let's have the teacher whogoes through and says, as an exercise today, kids, we have the Ten Commandmentson our wall. Let's go through and see all the ones that Donald Trump hasbroken. That could be an exercise. They're not assured to get what they want.

How do you think of religious liberty? And, in terms of the thisbattle over public schools?

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the Mahmoud decision,which I'm sure you've already talked about, which is this case that just camedown that said, basically, that public school teachers are now going to have topredict what materials some parent of one of their classmates are going to findcontrary to their religious beliefs, and affirmatively provide an opt-out. It'snot possible to follow. It's simply not possible to follow. And I don't thinkit was really intended to actually be followed for everyone. I think it wasintended to do what the justices wanted in this case, which is, basically, tochill any mention of LGBTQ people in the classroom.

But they're creating these doctrines that simply can't be followed.And the idea, the opinion said something like, you know, of course, how can weexpect parents to tolerate their kids being exposed to these ideas that goagainst their religious belief? And it just seemed so absurd to me.

 You know, I'm a religious minority, you understand that yourchildren are going to be exposed to things that you do not agree with or thatdon't match your culture. And it's your job as a parent to talk to yourchildren. I just think of, my daughter had an elf on the shelf in her classroom!It never occurred to me to sue about it.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

During arguments, I spoke with my colleague Maggie Siddiqi. I'm agay man with kids in public school, and my kids go to school with so manydifferent kinds of people. And, you know, I live in New York City. They'resurrounded by people who are not like us. And yet I want my kids, actually, toknow people who are not like us - not because I want them to be something else;it's because I want them to understand that living in a neighborhood that isdiverse, whether that's an immediate neighborhood or a country as aneighborhood, is involves being with people who are different from you, andunderstanding that that's just going to exist.

And, you know, I'm sorry, you can't just say, this is an effort. Ifthey were true, truly, they would say what it is, which is an effort to eraseLGBTQ people from existence, and have only stories that have certain kinds of…You could next say, I don't want any stories that don't have two parents, youknow, heterosexual parents. But if you look at Goodnight Moon - it'sjust a grandma with a bunny. You know, I'm like, I object. Where are theparents to supervise?

So I just feel it's so sad. It's really so sad, the idea that wecan't be around people who are different from us, and we can't learn.  I want my kids to learn about other people. Ireally do. And I think that in my school, there's not a lot of other kids whohave gay parents. But they don't feel bad. And occasionally, maybe, there's agay character in somewhere, but they also don't even talk about that. Itdoesn't have to be a major deal. Someone made it a major deal. And I reallythink it comes back to this law machine that has created. I think behind all ofthis is the Defending Free, Alliance Defending Freedom or whatever they are. Youknow what I mean? Like, is really pushing this idea.

And so it just felt so sad to me. And my husband was like, well,maybe we need to go to a private school. And I was just like, that's so sadthat we have to abandon public school because someone has decided to try toerase our family from existence. And if you look at the stories that are there,it's not like: “And here are some gay parents and you should really respecteveryone and even, like, accept them!” They're not even the topic of the story.There's another moral, and there just happen to be incidentally same gender.

Anyway. There's a lot of sad examples, and it's all by intention. Butthere are great people like you and great groups like the Law, Rights andReligion Project that are keeping our spirits up and our hope alive. You have anew report, Religious Liberty and Immigration: Legal Analysis of Past andFuture Claims that's available. If you're a layperson, you can understandit. If you're a law person… A law person, also known as a lawyer, you can alsounderstand. If you're a faith leader or from a faith community, you canunderstand it. It's a really valuable and readable resource.

Let me just ask what I'm asking everybody. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaumhas been on the show; she said, nobody can do everything, but everybody can dosomething. And I think that's such an important idea. If there's one thing thatyou would hope that a listener of this program might do as part of their senseof like democracy work or faith work or whatever, what would you love for themto do or be aware of or have in their minds?

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Very good question. You know, one thing - it's a small thing, but Ialways like to encourage people to just take a beat when they hear the term “religiousliberty” in a news article and a law and a politician's speech and just say, what is this person talkingabout, really? A religious liberty right to do what? A religious liberty rightfor who? Because I think one of the ways that we've gotten here is that we'vebeen listening to just the loudest voice in the room on religious liberty, andthat's not actually what they want. They don't actually want religious libertyfor everyone, often.

So it's not the only thing that I think people should be doing, butI think it's a small thing, is just think a little bit more critically abouthow that term is wielded and about what it should mean, and who it shouldprotect and how.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH:

I love that. Elizabeth Reiner Platt has been leading the Law, Rightsand Religion Project since 2015. She has just released a new report, which isso important, Religious Liberty and Immigration: Legal Analysis of Past andFuture Claims.

Liz, thank you so much for joining me on The State of Belief. It'salways a pleasure to talk to you.

LIZ REINER PLATT:

Same. And thank you so much for having me.

‍