Massachusetts Proposes Government Islam Commission

Commission will use “practice of Islam” to pick government appointees.

In 1833, Massachusetts became the last state in the country to ‘disestablish’ its church and separate church and state. In 2026, Massachusetts legislators are proposing to ‘reestablish’ Islam as a state religion with the power to propose laws and pick government officials.

13 out of 40 State Senate Democrat members backed a bill calling for a “permanent commission on the status of people who practice Islam”. The title of Bill S.2134 ‘An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth’ may appear innocuous, but the bill creates a quasi-government body, not for an ethnic or racial group, but for a religion, that will take government and private funding, propose legislation, recommend Muslims for government positions and “foster unity” and cooperation among Islamist groups.

The government commission will, among other things, use its government access to “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions”. This amounts to a government-created body making “the practice of Islam” into a religious test for government office, something that is completely illegal and would never be tolerated from a Christian government commission using the “practice of Christianity” as a test for recommending its members and allies for appointed office.

Under Chapter 3 of its general laws, Massachusetts has permanent commissions on the status of various groups, women, black people, LGBTQ, the disabled, grandparents, and Latinos, but not for any specifically religious group. There was a temporary commission on antisemitism, which was shut down and the legislative rider that created it made no mention of the commission being created specifically for a religious, rather than an ethnic group.

So I reached out to the Massachusetts ACLU, the American Humanist Association and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, three organizations that had been very involved in lawsuits and campaigns over church and state issues to see whether they objected to a ‘permanent commission’ to advance the ideological and religious aims of a particular religious group.

The ACLU and AHA did not respond, however RFRF Senior Policy Council Ryan Jayne warned that “Section (d)(5) of the bill states that the Commission will “identify and recommend qualified American Muslims for appointive positions at all levels of government, including boards and commissions, as the commission considers necessary and appropriate”. This is entirely unacceptable for a taxpayer-funded body because it shows a clear denominational preference for public office, raising serious concerns under the First Amendment and Article VI of the U.S. Constitution.” Certainly the ability of the “practice of Islam” commission to put forward religious appointees for government positions involves an inherent religious test for holding public office.

As Jayne notes, Article VI does state that “no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” It’s hard to square that with creating a commission limited to one religious group and having it propose appointments.

The Islamic commission will however also propose “legislation to combat Islamophobia”, a unique case of a specifically religious group getting government funding to propose legislation.

Ryan Jayne of RFRF, while arguing that “anti-Muslim bigotry” is a problem, also noted that “the bill uses but does not define the term ‘Islamophobia.’ This creates a risk of the commission conflating genuine animus against Muslims with criticism of Islam, which is protected speech under the First Amendment and would be inappropriate for the government to censor or oppose.” Defining ‘Islamophobia’ also requires defining ‘Islam’.

Bill S.2134 raises all sorts of major problems, beginning with its creation of a government religious commission on the “status of people who practice Islam”. It is not clear how Massachusetts exactly intends to define the “practice” of Islam. There are two branches of Islam and various groups like the Nation of Islam or the Ahmadis who claim to practice Islam, but whose religious beliefs Muslims reject. If Bill S.2134 becomes law, the Massachusetts government will have to determine who is or isn’t actually practicing Islam. It will also have to deal with potential discrimination complaints from groups like the Ahmadis whose “practice” of Islam is rejected by Islamists and would likely be barred from this commission.

Sen. Jamie Eldridge, the leading proponent of the “Practice of Islam” bill lists laudatory quotes about the bill from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in funding Islamic terrorism which endorsed the attacks of Oct 7, and a Boston mosque patronized by a terrorist, implying the Islamist group is a driving force behind the bill.

CAIR’s endorsement is a significant issue because Bill S.2134 also states that members of the ‘permanent commission’ must have “demonstrated a commitment to the Muslim American community.” That suggests backers such as CAIR will be picking members of this commission.

Another item in the legislation makes it clear that the commission is meant to be a government-backed command hub for CAIR and other Islamist groups. The goal of the commission is to “foster unity among the American Muslim community and organizations in the commonwealth by promoting cooperation and sharing of information and encouraging collaboration and joint activities.”

The idea of a government commission to “foster unity” among a particular group is a very strange one and such language doesn’t exist in the black, Latino or LGBTQ commissions.

Islamists want to exploit the resources, finances and prestige of the Massachusetts state government to create and manage an Islamist umbrella network. Not only is Bill S.2134 creating a permanent commission on “the practice of Islam”, but the commission will oversee existing Islamist operations in the state. It’s unclear what these are, but some may well be religious.

And the Islamic commission will be able to accept both private and government funding which “shall be deposited in a separate account with the state secretary’s office” and the organization will be staffed by “a paid executive director” and “employees” as well as volunteers, further crossing the lines between government and private Islamist religious group activism. An Islamist group with private funding and government authority seems like a constitutional nightmare.

Had such an organization been created for Christians or Jews, with the specific mandate that it represent the agendas of those “who practice Christianity” or those “who practice Judaism”, the ACLU and the American Humanist Association would have been all over it, and yet none of these organizations have objected to the Massachusetts bill because the two tier system bans church and state, but welcomes mosque and state.

Bill S.2134 ‘An Act promoting the civil rights and inclusion of American Muslims in the commonwealth’ has not yet become law. After being proposed in 2024, it made it out of committee at the end of last year and the last action on it was a referral to the State Senate Committee on Ways and Means.

Those voting in favor of the bill included Sen. Rebecca Rausch, a Democrat who had fought to remove the state’s old blasphemy code, but now how long will it be until she’s fighting to put it back?

AUTHOR