NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday dismissed the notion that there should be a separation between church and state in American society, drawing ire from fellow Democrats and civil rights advocates who contended his line of argument runs counter to deep-rooted U.S. values.
Adams, who’s Christian, has over the course of his political career spoken extensively about how important faith is in civic life and said as recently as last February that “God” told him to become mayor.
But his comments Tuesday morning, delivered at an interfaith breakfast at the New York Public Library’s central branch in Manhattan, took it a step further.
The tone was set by Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Adams’ chief adviser in City Hall, who introduced him at the event by declaring that the mayor’s administration “does not believe” it must “separate church from state.”
“Ingrid was so right,” Adams said once he took the stage. “Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body, church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can’t separate my beliefs because I’m an elected official.”
He added: “When I walk, I walk with God, when I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them — that’s who I am.”
Adams’ comments appeared at odds with the establishment clause of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment.
The clause holds that the U.S. shall make no laws “respecting an establishment of religion,” a principle derived from the teachings of former President Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that there must be “a wall of separation between church and state” in society.
Later Tuesday, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy said the mayor isn’t pushing for upending any U.S. laws or principles. Levy also noted that Adams delivered the remarks in front of “hundreds of representatives from a multitude of religions.”
“While everyone in the room immediately understood what the mayor meant, it’s unfortunate that some have immediately attempted to hijack the narrative in an effort to misrepresent the mayor’s comments,” Levy said.
But Rabbi Abby Stein — who was at the breakfast — told the Daily News that she and other clergy members in attendance were disturbed by Adams’ comments.
“There was a lot of people who were like, ‘No, no, no, no, what is happening? What is he talking about?’” Stein said. “At least half of the room was not with him when he talked about separation of church and state.”
Having grown up in the Hasidic community before leaving it as an adult, Stein said Adams’ speech struck her as “unhinged and also very dangerous.”
“When elected leaders start calling their beliefs more important than serving the people, that’s very dangerous,” she said. “I’ve personally seen what happens when people use God, or their conception of God, to control people.”
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said Adams’ remarks are also problematic from a constitutional point of view.
“It is odd that Mayor Adams would need a refresher on the First Amendment,” Lieberman said. “After all, he has sworn to uphold the Constitution more than once, first as a police officer, later as a state representative, and then last year upon becoming mayor. The very opening passage of the Bill of Rights makes clear that church and state must be separate.”
While introducing him, Lewis-Martin praised Adams as “one of the chosen” — and the mayor embraced that suggestion, too.
“Today, we proclaim that this city, New York City, is a place where the mayor of New York is a servant of God,” Adams told the breakfast crowd.
Former New York Rep. Mondaire Jones, a Democrat who used to represent parts of Westchester and Rockland Counties in Congress, said he was shocked Adams and his chief adviser would stake out such hard-line views on religion.
“Surely the desire to sound clever or provocative is outweighed by the craziness and tone-deafness of this statement,” Jones wrote on Twitter.
Earlier in his nearly 30-minute speech, Adams argued many societal ills, including everything from crime to low student reading proficiency rates, can be traced to a lack of faith.
“When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” the mayor said.
“We are destroying our next generation,” he continued. “We say over and over again: We need to build a world that’s better for our children. No! We need to build children that’s better for our world. And we have to be honest about that, and it means instilling in them some level of faith and belief.”
In an elaborate metaphor, Adams also pulled out a yellow kitchen sponge during the speech and compared it to a soul.
“You’re not going to be able to receive the purifications of God’s blessing if you keep your sponge saturated,” he said while squeezing the sponge in his right hand. “Some of our souls are so saturated with despair and harm and pain. Today I’m saying to you: Wring it out.”
Long shot 2024 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson, a self-help guru known for her quirky spiritual beliefs, suggested she would’ve been ridiculed if she performed a similar stunt during her failed 2020 campaign for the White House.
“Imagine if I had done that,” she tweeted of Adams’ sponge monologue.
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