Rep. Movita Johnson Harrell is sworn into the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives. Her swearing-in ceremony was opened by a Christian prayer delivered by Rep. Stephanie Borowicz. Illustration by Luna Reichert
The Pennsylvania state House of Representatives held a swearing-in ceremony for its first Muslim woman representative, but the ceremony was opened with a Christian prayer.
The first Muslim woman to be elected to the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives, Movita Johnson-Harrell, was sworn in on March 25. The ceremony was a momentous moment, reflecting a national trend of increasing numbers of women, people of color and religious minorities in elected office.
However, Republican state Rep. Stephanie Borowicz began the ceremony with an opening prayer, in which she quoted a chapter from the Bible, called Jesus “our only hope” and praised President Donald Trump.
“God forgive us. Jesus, we’ve lost sight of you,” Borowicz said during the ceremony. “We’ve forgotten you, God, and our country. And we’re asking you to forgive us.”
The decision by Borowicz to open with an explicitly Christian prayer displayed a desire to reinforce the status quo of white, Christian leadership in American institutions of government.
It would have been more appropriate for the ceremony to be opened with a Muslim prayer, or no prayer at all, rather than a Bible verse which made an unwelcoming atmosphere for the newly elected representative.
Accordingly, many members of the Pennsylvania democratic leadership criticized Borowicz’s prayer.
“It was directly a political statement, and I think we need to be very, very clear that everybody in this House matters, whether they’re Christian, Muslim or Jew, and that we cannot use these issues to tear each other down,” Johnson-Harrell said in a video on her Facebook page.
The first two Muslim women in the United States Congress, Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, were elected in the 2018 midterm elections. Yet, 88 percent of members of Congress still identify as Christian, according to the Pew Research Center.
There is work to be done in order to increase the number of religious minorities in legislatures across the country, including seeking out new candidates and supporting their campaigns.
In addition, however, conscious efforts have to be made to improve the environment of elected bodies in order to welcome those of all faiths.
Elected officials of all political ideologies should be denouncing this disgusting display of Islamaphobia in a place where religious intolerance should never be accepted.
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