S. 8797-B – Proposed Amendment to the New York State Constitution
Agudath Israel of America opposes this proposed amendment. While we have multiple concerns, we will focus our comments here on a glaring omission, which immediately captured our attention.
Article 1, Section 11 of the New York State Constitution says, “No person shall because of race, color, creed or religion be subjected to discrimination in his or her civil rights.”
The current amendment proposes to add a new section to the Constitution, Section 20, granting equal rights to a number of additional protected classes. However, while race, color, creed and religion all have existing protections as set forth in Section 11, only race and color are granted the additional protections of Section 20, along with many new protected classes, while creed and religion are conspicuously omitted. The obvious inference is that race, color and the other enumerated classes are offered a higher degree of protection than creed and religion. This is very troubling to us and others in the religious community.
Furthermore, Section 20(b) of the proposed amendment states, “No government entity, nor any entity acting in concert with or on behalf of the government, shall discriminate against any person in either intent or effect based on the characteristics listed in subdivision (a).” As creed and religion are not among the characteristics listed in subdivision (a), they would fail to be offered the protection against actions by government (or entities acting in concert with government) that have the “intent or effect” of discrimination. In contrast, the other protected classes listed, including race, color, ethnicity, national origin, disability, or sex including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, will receive those protections. This is further evidence of creed and religion explicitly being demoted to a lower protected class.
While we appreciate the addition of subdivision (b) which states that. “Nothing here is intended to alter or diminish existing protections for religion set forth in articles three and eleven of this constitution,” this still does not place religion on the same plane of protection as other classes, as indicated above.
One would be hard-pressed to find a significant civil rights document since the founding of this country that does not prominently include the freedom to practice one’s religion free of discrimination. The state now seeks to add many new protected classes, and afford them additional protections, yet fails to include religion in this long list. As a Jewish group representing hundreds of thousands of Jewish New Yorkers, Agudath Israel finds this omission to be deeply concerning.