Editor’s Note: As a new feature, Church & State will publish a monthly Q&A conversation so we can learn more about the people in the church-state separation movement and how they connect to Americans United’s work. This month Assistant Editor Liz Hayes sat down with Stan Balis, a longtime AU member from Maryland, to talk about his involvement in AU and the upcoming Summit for Religious Freedom (SRF). The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you get involved with Americans United?
Balis: To me, the First Amendment and the separation of church and state were the whole story of my youth, of trying to be Jewish in a small town where I might as well have had a yellow armband on. They knew who was Jewish and who was not. How that felt, growing up as a religious minority, informed how I view the First Amendment and the whole concept of no establishment of religion. The Establishment Clause, even more so than the Free Exercise Clause, is key for me. If you don’t establish religion and you have a complete separation of church and state, then the free exercise of religion will carry on.
I first moved to Washington, D.C., to go to law school. Living here, I heard of Americans United back in the 1980s and met [former AU Executive Director] Barry Lynn. I was so excited that there was such an organization that was based on the separation of church and state. We’re Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and that was the key for me.
What issues that AU works on resonate most with you?
Balis: I wrote about this in Church & State back in 2020 [See “Locked Out: The Lessons I Learned More Than 50 Years Ago In Small-Town Pennsylvania Remain Relevant” in the September 2020 issue]. Being brought up in small-town Appalachia in the middle of Pennsylvania and what it was like being Jewish, the only minority group in town, we had to live with a lot of antisemitism. What’s interesting about antisemitism that I don’t think people quite get is that it’s not always blatant. It’s more what we saw in public schools every day. Back when we were younger, it was the Lord’s Prayer recited in elementary school, and we had Bible reading, and Christmas programs, and Vespers services when we graduated, which we didn’t attend.
We had released time [when students are allowed to leave public school for off-site religious instruction]. Our one little synagogue was right across the street from the high school, but our rabbi did not let us go over for released time. We sat in study hall for two hours while the other kids went to released time, and then when school was over, we went across the street to Hebrew school because he believed released time was a violation of the First Amendment. It was establishment of religion, and Jews should never be in favor of establishment of religion because we know how that ends. We’ve seen inquisitions, crusades, Nazis, and everybody else along the way, and it never ends well for us.
In fact, discrimination of any kind never ends well for us. All these problems we see today — homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, racism — they’re all from the same source. You really should care about what happens to anybody who’s picked on, under any circumstances. We need to boldly confront and defeat this systemic white Christian Nationalist mentality in America that is expressed in all of its hateful, discriminatory, and vile words, actions, and manifestations.
You’ve been to every Summit for Religious Freedom since SRF started in 2023, and you’re planning to return to this year’s Summit April 25-27 in Alexandria, Va. What do you enjoy about SRF?
Balis: First of all, you have all these interesting speakers in the breakout sessions. It’s great to have the big keynote speakers, and they say thoughtful, provocative things. But I find some of the breakout sessions to be really interesting because they get down into individual, nitty-gritty problems. It might be how one school handled a specific problem in Ohio, and then they use that to talk about a larger church-state issue. Or it could be how people are mistreated because they are gay. The sessions are all different. My wife, who’s a retired teacher, comes with me; she’s interested in the educational topics, too.
We’ll never get over being impressed with how far ahead of the curve SRF was with Project 2025. We attended that presentation in 2024 — how Project 2025 was put together, how it was going to be used, how it was going to follow this playbook. It was well before anybody else had ever even heard of Project 2025. We knew all of what was going to happen, and who and why, because Americans United was out in front on this.
The other thing that’s good about SRF is it’s really nice to see when all the younger folks show up. That gives you hope that there is a new generation of people who care about these things and who are getting more in tune to them. I credit AU President and CEO Rachel Laser and everyone else working at AU for getting people who have otherwise very different worldviews and very different interests into the same group to see how the issue of church-state separation overrides all the others. You will find that every one of the other things that you’re concerned about, if you all trace them back up, they’re all going to go to the same spot — white Christian Nationalism. That’s what SRF is. The grassroots understanding and getting people everywhere to care is really, in the end, going to make the difference.
Is there anything in particular you’re looking forward to for SRF 2026 in April?
Balis: One of the things that I always ask for is more information about what’s happening in the states. What Trump is doing and the federal actions are obviously important. But the actions that grind away down at the bottom are the things that states do or won’t do. Even Maryland where I live, we have private school vouchers. They’re taking money from public education and sending it to private, religious schools that get to choose who they take and teach a particular religion.
Are there any favorite TV shows, music, hobbies, etc. that you are binging right now?
Balis: As the Kennedy Center has been mutilated by the Trump administration, we’ve been going to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., and Round House Theatre and Olney Theatre in Maryland. Supporting all the local arts and music. We’re making a big thing of it this year.
Do you have any New Year’s resolutions, goals, or intentions that you’re willing to share with our readers?
Balis: Really, two things. One is that we’ve tried to increase traveling, because if we don’t go away at least once every other month now, I sit and think about what’s going on here in Washington, D.C. We live too close to the center of the cauldron.
And the other goal is to enjoy being with our children and grandchildren, because there are times when I worry a lot about where will our grandchildren live in the future. And I don’t mean Maryland versus Pennsylvania; I mean, will they want to stay in the United States? I didn’t think that would ever be a big question. Certainly when my grandparents came over here more than a century ago, I don’t think they ever had a thought that, at some time, the boat would have to turn around and go back the other way, or go to any place else. But, as we watch the masked Gestapo guys marching through the streets, and we see the blatant antisemitism that’s out there, in the people who are holding top offices, and the people who are the friends of our leaders… It’s scary to think what’s in store for our grandkids.