Michigan Sen. Mallory McMorrow on Monday slammed the role of religion in politics and said state lawmakers must step up to protect freedoms that are under attack.
Appearing on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the Royal Oak Democrat alluded to the role that Christianity has played in the debate over abortion and said it must stop.
“It gets into the bastardization of religion,” McMorrow said.
McMorrow has become an outspoken critic of conservative Christians who are using religious rhetoric to erode rights and attack critics. In a speech that went viral in April, McMorrow, a self-identified Christian, called out state Sen. Lana Theis for falsely claiming in a fundraising email that Democrats want to “groom and sexualize kindergartners” and teach white children to hate themselves.”
Theis also used the Senate invocation – a prayer to start a Senate session – in April to baselessly claim Democrats are attacking children.
“This was about this horrific abuse of religion and inflicting it on others,” McMorrow said on Morning Joe.
“Religious freedom in this country does not mean you get to inflict your religious view on others,” she added. “It means the freedom to practice your own religion without fear of prosecution.”
To save reproductive autonomy and other rights in Michigan, McMorrow said, state lawmakers are going to have to step up.
“Right now the Supreme Court is not going to save us. The Congress is not going to save us,” McMorrow said. “States and state legislatures are the frontlines and the last line of defense.”
The fate of abortion rights in Michigan hangs in the balance. Although the state has a 1931 law still on the books that would ban abortion, a Michigan Court of Claims judge issued a preliminary injunction against the law last month in response to a Planned Parenthood of Michigan lawsuit that argues the state's constitution protects abortion rights.
Judge Elizabeth Gleicher said Planned Parenthood is likely to prevail in its lawsuit.
The U.S. Supreme Court “sent this to the states and that is where we all have to focus our energy and our effort to take our freedoms back,” McMorrow said.
On @Morning_Joe - Roe has revealed this: The Court won’t save us. This Congress won’t save us. State legislatures are the front lines and the last line of defense and it’s where we all need to focus our efforts to take our freedoms back. pic.twitter.com/n6WAWvLiUS
— Mallory McMorrow (@MalloryMcMorrow) June 27, 2022
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