Dear Friends of FAIR,
FAIR has kicked off the new year with several major legal wins. As a result of FAIR Legal’s advocacy efforts, the National Institutes of Health revised its race-based requirements for SenNet internship applicants; Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham, Maine agreed to open its affinity groups to all students, regardless of race or sex; and the Pennsylvania district court professor denied a motion to dismiss professor Zack De Piero’s Title VII claim that he was subjected to a hostile work environment because of his race.
We’ve also added two members to FAIR’s Board of Advisors: Nadine Strossen, former president of the American Civil Liberties Unions and one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment, and groundbreaking investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger. Nadine and Michael are powerful voices who can help FAIR amplify its message and make an impact on the issues we care about.
The new year is also a time for self-reflection and new commitments. Although it’s an exercise we typically conduct on a personal level, healthy introspection is also something that organizations can benefit from. As we look forward to opportunities and challenges in 2024, this is the perfect time for us to assess our goals and how we hope to achieve them.
One of the greatest obstacles heterodox thinkers face is also a trap we often accuse the orthodox crowd of falling into: the lure of the echo chamber. We tend to follow the same set of influencers on X, read the same cluster of Substacks, and listen to the same podcasts. And why wouldn’t we? In these nonsensical, crazy-making times, it’s tempting to seek the reassurance of people who see the same things and feel the same way we do. We need a sanity check. We cling to our motley, hastily-assembled new tribe of disillusioned and betrayed progressives and conservatives, and “We-never-trusted-either-party” independents. We take cold comfort in knowing we’re right, and we retreat into our echo chamber.
There’s just one problem: we can’t possibly fix what’s gone wrong in our country, and the world at large, by preaching to the choir. If we want to turn things around, we’ll need to reach a critical mass of minds. We’ll need to leave our echo chamber and engage with the “other side.” That is the only way we can move the needle.
Moving the needle doesn’t mean appealing to extremists; it would be naive to expect that we can reach everybody. But I’ve always believed (and still do) that the vast majority of Americans aren’t fringe thinkers. Most are balanced, sensible people who reside in the “center,” even if they lean a little in one direction or the other. In many cases, they’re on the same page with us, even if they don’t realize it. If we want to reclaim our country and revive a society that values freedom and autonomy, authentic diversity, and objective truth, these are the people we need to reach.
I often write and talk about the illusion of division. We imagine we are more divided than we really are because our positions have been misrepresented. Because we haven’t had an opportunity to listen to each other, or we no longer want to listen to each other. Or because we reside in information silos with distorted perceptions of issues or events. But if we want to promote a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity, we have to be willing to believe that most people, on a fundamental level, embrace these same values, and we have to be willing to engage with them. Otherwise, what’s the point of our mission?
In the coming year, I would like all of us to think about how we, individually and collectively, can move the needle — in our small circles, and beyond. In keeping with our commitment to viewpoint diversity, I invite you to be open to new thoughts and ideas about how we can accomplish this, even if they challenge your conception of what’s “right” and what will or won’t work.
The task of reclaiming our country and its founding principles may seem daunting. But if we remain true to what FAIR stands for — the right to respectfully disagree with one another as we find ways to confront the existential threats we can all agree on — I’m confident we will navigate a path to success.
Sincerely,
Monica Harris
Executive Director, Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism
Subscribe to Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism
Promoting a common culture based on fairness, understanding, and humanity.
Thank you❤️
Dear Ms. Harris:
You are the executive director of the organization named Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. I am a Democrat, a Biden voter, a retired attorney and a gay man.
I have been married to my partner of 42 years for 20 years now, thanks to Canada's brave stand against the religious intolerance that, when all is said and done, has been almost exclusively responsible for marginalizing gay people and making them at best second class citizens since (pages through the Bible) at least Old Testament times.
As someone whose sexuality could subject me to the worst forms of intolerance even today in certain parts of the world and to anti-gay bigotry in some parts of the United States, I took FAIR's name to heart when I decided to follow the organization's activities and support it in my comments on social media and within my social circle. It now seems that I was badly mistaken.
In early December, FAIR platformed a member of its advisory board, Professor Robert P. George of Princeton University, on the occasion of his receipt of the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2023 Defender of Religious Freedom Award. In so doing, FAIR also platformed the National Catholic Register and its story about the award that included the text of the Professor's acceptance speech.
When I read Professor George's remarks, I was appalled to find an unapologetic and strident defense of a toxic form of Christian religious "freedom." It is an Orwellian concept of freedom in that adherents to that particular faith are adamant that their religious freedom will be impermissibly abridged if the state does not honor their right to discriminate against gay and lesbian Americans even in purely secular settings.
It should be noted that other American Christian denominations that cherish the same religious texts as Professor George do not practice intolerance towards gay people. The Protestant Evangelical wedding planner worships the same God as the Episcopalian baker, but the Evangelical planner will refuse to work for a gay couple because their upcoming marriage is religiously abhorrent to her while the Episcopalian baker will gladly create their wedding cake.
Professor George not only attacked marriage equality on purely religious grounds, he proudly advanced the outrageous notion that a church that owns and operates institutions with purely secular purposes that do business with members of the general public such as "schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you," [1] has the legal right to refuse to serve gays and lesbians if doing business with them would offend church teachings.
As is usually the case with advocates for these reactionary religious faiths, Professor George had the audacity to speak from the perspective of victims of religious persecution even while arguing for an aggressive, religiously motivated assault on the rights of fellow Americans.
I consider this to be a form of domestic religious imperialism in which certain churches and members of those denominations in effect colonize the business sector and then apply exclusionary sectarian purity tests to limit gay people's freedom to engage in ordinary secular business transactions in the public sphere on the same basis as non-gays.
The Foundation Against INTOLERANCE and Racism owes its supporters and the public an explanation for endorsing a particularly intolerant notion of so-called religious freedom. It is espoused by the same Trumpist far right that brought about an end to federally protected abortion in this nation and that seeks to end same-sex marriage.
Does FAIR advocate reverting to the "separate but equal" standard for segregating people in the public sphere? If a church-run Christian adoption agency refused to place a baby with a Jewish couple who were otherwise fully qualified on the grounds that church teachings require children to be raised by Christians, would FAIR defend the practice on religious freedom principles? Suppose the objection wasn’t the religion but the race of the prospective adoptive parents? After all, a century ago and for hundreds of years before that many Christian faiths churches had robust defenses of segregation and even slavery based on deeply-held religious beliefs. Which side of freedom is FAIR on, and why?
It has been over a month since I sent the Foundation Against INTOLERANCE and Racism a letter objecting to the organization's hypocritical indifference to religiously motivated intolerance against gay people. I have yet to receive a response. Is FAIR going to stonewall in the face of well-founded criticism the way the bad actors it targets sometimes do?
[1] George, Robert P. "Championing Religious Freedom: ‘We Must Preserve Our Unity’ Going Beyond Political Disputes." National Catholic Register. 4 November 2023. https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/championing-religious-freedom-rfi-address-2023