I was thrilled to work to help elect Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell in a special election earlier this month. After she lost her son to gun violence in 2013, she created the CHARLES Foundation, a nonprofit to empower communities and push for more gun violence prevention. Most recently, she served as supervisor of Victim Services in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, under Larry Krasner.
So Monday’s swearing-in should have been a joyous day for Rep. Johnson-Harrell and all her loved ones who had travelled to Harrisburg to support her—32 of her 55 guests being fellow Muslim-Americans.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
The GOP-controlled chamber chose freshman state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz (R) to deliver the opening legislative prayer, prior to the swearing in, and you won’t believe how offensive it was without watching it.
As Sean Kitchen noted, that’s 13 mentions of Jesus plus a heck of a lot of Trump/Israel boosting in a very short period of time, concluding with Speaker Mike Turzai (R) nudging her to wrap it up already. In response, Rep. Johnson-Harrell released a statement:
Five years ago, I wrote about the U.S. Supreme Cour’t’s 5-4 decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway, which held that it’s okay for governmental town meetings to begin with expressly religious invocations so long as they weren’t coercive or one-sided. Dissenting there, Justice Kagan described a situation remarkably close to today’s:
Let’s say that a Muslim citizen of Greece goes before the Board to share her views on policy or request some permit. Maybe she wants the Board to put up a traffic light at a dangerous intersection; or maybe she needs a zoning variance to build an addition on her home. But just before she gets to say her piece, a minister deputized by the Town asks her to pray “in the name of God’s only son Jesus Christ.” She must think—it is hardly paranoia, but only the truth—that Christian worship has become entwined with local governance. And now she faces a choice—to pray alongside the majority as one of that group or somehow to register her deeply felt difference. She is a strong person, but that is no easy call—especially given that the room is small and her every action (or inaction) will be noticed. She does not wish to be rude to her neighbors, nor does she wish to aggravate the Board members whom she will soon be trying to persuade. And yet she does not want to acknowledge Christ’s divinity, any more than many of her neighbors would want to deny that tenet. So assume she declines to participate with the others in the first act of the meeting—or even, as the majority proposes, that she stands up and leaves the room altogether. At the least, she becomes a different kind of citizen, one who will not join in the religious practice that the Town Board has chosen as reflecting its own and the community’s most cherished beliefs. And she thus stands at a remove, based solely on religion, from her fellow citizens and her elected representatives.
Everything about that situation, I think, infringes the First Amendment.
As minority leader Rep. Frank Dermody (D) said Monday, "never have we started out with a prayer that divides us. Prayer should never divide us, it should bring us together."
Today was supposed to be a celebration. What an awful thing for Rep. Borowicz to have done. Shameful.
