Mayor Eric Adams denounces church-state separation at New York event: ‘I walk with God’

Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday denounced the separation of church and state and also praised prayer in schools, drawing bewilderment and anger from civilian libertarians.

The mayor, who previously made no secret of his personal religious values, made his move for the more spiritual Big Apple at the annual Religious Leaders’ Breakfast in Manhattan.

“Don’t tell me that the church is not separated from the state. The state is the body. The church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies,” Adams said.

“I cannot separate my faith because I am an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I speak, I speak with God. When I implement a policy, I take a godlike approach to it. That’s who I am.”

The mayor told an audience at the main branch of the New York Public Library that a lack of faith could be linked to everything from homelessness to domestic violence to guns in schools.

“When we took prayers out of schools, there were guns in the schools,” Hizzoner said.

The Bill of Rights guarantees the separation of church and state, and the requirement to pray in public schools was outlawed in 1962.

Adams’ comments were immediately criticized by some civil liberties activists.

“For our government to truly represent us, it must not favor any faith, including infidelity.” – New York Civil Liberties Union tweeted along with a press statement criticism of the mayor.

“In matters of faith, the mayor has the right to his own beliefs. According to the Constitution, he must keep his oath.”

NYCLU President Donna Lieberman added in a statement: “It is strange that Mayor Adams needed a First Amendment refresher course.

“After all, he swore more than once to uphold the Constitution, first as a policeman, then as a representative of the state, and then last year, becoming mayor,” she said.

Naomi Peiss, former vice president of Americans United for Church and State added Twitter: “Here are the mayors of the blue cities, supporting the fundamental principle of American society.”

Meanwhile, Adams said it’s “a Shakespearean tragedy” when the townspeople don’t explore and appreciate the Big Apple.

“When I enter a Sikh temple, or sit in a sukkah, or go to a Diwali celebration, do you know how many people in this city have never left the geographic boundaries of the area in which they live and the geographic boundaries of their thinking? Adams said.

“They only know people who look like them, talk like them, eat the same food, do the same things. This is a Shakespearean tragedy and anti-Christopher Columbus theory, the belief that if you give up your intellectual thought process, you will fall off some globe or planet.

“No, reveal the beauty of this variety.”

Additional report by Bernadette Hogan

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