Gov. Kevin Stitt is underneath fireplace from native and nationwide people and teams for saying that he has claimed “every square inch” of Oklahoma for Jesus.
American Jewish Committee, a nationwide Jewish advocacy group, is asking on Stitt to retract his assertion, whereas officers with the Freedom From Religion Foundation stated he owes non-Christian Oklahomans an apology.
The organizations took challenge with Stitt’s controversial statements that seem to have been made someday after he gained his second bid for Oklahoma’s high elected put up on Nov. 8. He is proven in a video posted to Twitter making the remarks in his prayer exterior the state Capitol.
“Father, we just claim Oklahoma for You. Every square inch, we claim it for You in the name of Jesus,” Stitt stated within the video. “We claim Oklahoma for You. [With] the authority that I have as governor, and the spiritual authority and the physical authority that You give me, I claim Oklahoma for You, and we will be a light to our country and to the world, right here.”
American Jewish Committee took to Twitter to repudiate Stitt’s feedback.
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“Claiming a state for any religious figure is to deny what has made America unique as well as a violation of our foundational constitutional principles,” the group stated. “We urge Governor Stitt to show respect for all Oklahomans and retract this statement.”
And the Freedom From Religion Foundation stated Stitt owes an apology to non-Christian Oklahomans for what basis officers described as “insulting” remarks “rife with Christian nationalist rhetoric.”
“Imagine the fury of Christians, and rightly so, were an elected official to claim Oklahoma for Allah or Satan,” the group’s leaders wrote in a news launch. “Stitt’s remarks as the state’s highest-ranking elected official are equally inflammatory and inappropriate. Stitt owes an apology to all non-Christian and nonreligious citizens of Oklahoma, FFRF concludes.”
Monday, a spokeswoman from the governor’s workplace declined to touch upon the matter.
Stitt has been outspoken about his Christian religion beliefs from the outset, starting together with his arrival on the state’s political scene as he sought to grow to be governor. He continued in that vein after profitable his first election and all through his first gubernatorial time period. Still, some native leaders of Jewish homes of worship and organizations stated they had been stunned that Stitt would make the exclusionary remarks.
“I was absolutely disgusted ― I was offended,” stated Michael Korenblit, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Oklahoma City and president of the Respect Diversity Foundation. “I mean it was just a repugnant statement. I don’t know what he was possibly thinking.”
Korenblit stated he noticed a video that had been circulating on-line displaying Stitt making the statements.
“As the child of Holocaust survivors, my parents living here all their life, came here to America — that’s what he thinks about us?” Korenblit stated. “And that’s what he thinks about the Muslim people, thinks about Baha’i, Hindus, Buddhists — any other religions here and even nonbelievers? We’re glad that he has found belief in God and his religion to help as a civil servant. But that doesn’t mean he has the authority as he said as governor, he says that gave me the authority to do this.”
Rabbi Vered Harris, religious chief of Temple B’nai Israel in Oklahoma City, additionally shared issues.
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“I am sad that Gov. Stitt does not recognize the dignity and sanctity of every individual Oklahoman,” she stated. “We come from many different faith traditions and I hope that he will take steps to learn more about the holiness of those who are not Christian, including those of other faiths, and no faith at all.”
Meanwhile, in a news launch, the Freedom From Religion Foundation stated Stitt’s “continued promotion of Christianity is insulting and exclusionary to nonreligious and non-Christian citizens.”
“The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights to our secular Constitution correctly prohibits the type of Christian theocracy you might be selling,” Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freedom From Religion Foundation co-presidents, wrote. “The Supreme Court has long held that the Establishment Clause ‘mandates government neutrality between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.’ As an elected representative of the people, you violate both constitutional mandates when you suggest that you have ‘claimed’ the state for the Christian God, an implication that Christian are favored over non-Christians and the nonreligious in Oklahoma.”
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