Suggested Headline: What the Religious Right Doesn’t Get About Religious FreedomWord 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 everyone’s beliefs fairly and equally, including the non-religious.

That’s got the Religious Right shaking in its jackboots.

FRC Blogger Rob Schwarzwalder’s litany of complaints against Saperstein includes the Rabbi’s criticism of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision. Saperstein objected to the court’s 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 Saperstein’s Judaism is not a problem, but calls the Rabbi’s liberalism “troubling.” He points with derision to Saperstein’s role as a board member for People for the American Way, an organization devoted to defending equality. In Schwarzwalder’s words, the group’s “‘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.”  

Let’s analyze this together, shall we? 

Schwarzwalder’s concern over PFAW’s “marginalization of faith in public life” is PFAW’s 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.

PFAW’s support for “unrestricted access to abortion-on-demand” is the group’s support for a woman’s 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 women’s access to abortion services around the globe. 

Its efforts to thwart women’s 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 world’s last holdouts.

PFAW’s 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.

Saperstein’s 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.