Lawmaker who was censured for hiding bibles still believes in separation of church and state

LAUREN GILGER: And now let’s turn to the next segment in our ongoing series here on The Show about religion at the State Legislature. We’re calling it Ditat Deus, Arizona’s state motto, meaning “God enriches.”

Here, we’re exploring the role religion plays in the lives of the folks who shape policy here in our state. And we’re finding religion is often a defining factor in their politics, their decision making and often why they’re there to begin with.

Today, let’s meet a lawmaker who found herself at the center of a major controversy at 1700 West Washington just a few years ago, dubbed “Biblegate.”

[MONTAGE OF NEWS CLIPS PLAYS]

CHRIS CUOMO: Now to Arizona and the case of the missing Bibles.

KYMA NEWS: New tonight, a Democratic state lawmaker is apologizing for hiding two Bibles kept in a lounge at the state Capitol.

INSIDE EDITION: The Good Book was showing up in the strangest places, under seat cushions, in a fridge.

REPORTER: Stephanie, you’re an ordained minister. Why would you hide the Bibles, Stephanie?

[END OF MONTAGE]

GILGER: Democratic Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton was found to be the culprit behind the scandal. She had been taking the two Bibles that were normally placed on the tables in the House of Representatives’ member lounge and hiding them in odd places. She was caught on hidden camera placed there by Republican leadership who were trying to get to the bottom of the mystery of the moving Bibles.

STEPHANIE STAHL HAMILTON: Members, I stand here today wanting to acknowledge the offense I committed by my actions.

GILGER: It was an odd position for the Tucson Democrat to find herself in, namely because Stahl Hamilton is a believer in the Bible and its sanctity.

STAHL HAMILTON: I hold scripture very dear to my heart. It is what guides me. It is what shapes and informs the decisions I make.

GILGER: In fact, she is an ordained Presbyterian minister. She was trained at Princeton’s Theological Seminary, the Presbyterian Church’s flagship program, and she told me it was a major departure from the conservative evangelical church she was raised in.

STAHL HAMILTON: I was supposed to be quiet and submissive, and I was created to be anything but.

GILGER: Until she was 11 years old, Stahl Hamilton lived on Navajo tribal lands, where she said she was exposed to a rich culture that was religious in very different ways.

STAHL HAMILTON: Again, there was some dissonance if we were told that the only way for salvation was through Jesus and God.

GILGER: Then, as a college student, she started thinking more critically about her faith — and eventually she left that church altogether.

STAHL HAMILTON: Yeah, and it was incredibly difficult. I lost a lot of friends.

LAUREN GILGER: I bet.

STAHL HAMILTON: In that moment, and a lot of people thought I was backsliding. Like slippery slope, all of that. And for me, it really truly felt like freedom.

GILGER: It wasn’t until she had kids, though, that she dove into public service.

STAHL HAMILTON: I’m married to a public school teacher, and I had three children who never had the benefit of a fully funded education system.

GILGER: She joined her local school district’s Site Council around 2007 and 2008 and saw just how hard-hit they were by the Great Recession when budgets were swept.

STAHL HAMILTON: I saw the fabric of our community starting to be pulled apart. That was the first thing. And then my husband was not making a living wage to support a family of five.

GILGER: Her family couldn’t make ends meet. They went into debt. They didn’t have health insurance for the kids. Her kids were on free and reduced lunches. Then in 2015, she went to the Legislature for the first time for a public education advocacy day.

STAHL HAMILTON: And as I started noticing, I noticed the Bibles on the desks. And my first thought was, “Wow, somebody’s awfully pious.” But then I started noticing, coupled with the Bibles were elephants. And I thought, “Are we reading the same Bible?”

GILGER: Sounds like that’s a theme from your life, though. That’s the same thought you had as a as a young person when you started learning about your own faith in the evangelical kind of sect that you grew up in.

STAHL HAMILTON: Are we reading the same Bible that says, “A little child shall lead them?” And then I was like, “But wait a minute, where is the separation of church and state?”

GILGER: The same question she would be faced with years later, when she was a lawmaker in these halls.

GILGER: OK. So, I have to ask you about so-called “Biblegate,” right, a few years ago. This kind of moment when you were really in the hot seat, and it created so much outrage. Like you were formally censured by your Republican colleagues, they tried to expel you from the legislature unsuccessfully. You apologized at the time, and I wonder, like a few years later, how do you view this in the rearview mirror?

STAHL HAMILTON: Well, certainly I’ll go back to the moment, it was really raw because how it was handled was really awful, how I was treated was really awful. And it led to lots of destruction, people at my church being bullied, my husband, my children bullied online. And even for 2 1/2 years, lots of hate email, just lots of — I got anonymous letters.

So in that moment, the way people responded, it was red meat for a really rabid base. And people who wanted to protect the Bible said all kinds of ugly things to me that I thought, “Oh, wow. This is not about protecting Bibles because you would never do these types of things to a human being if you really were a Christian.”

But even in the moment, I was frustrated. I had just come off the floor after hearing a lot of really poor theology in regards to abortion. And I was frustrated, and I stepped off the floor trying to catch my breath, and it’s when I noticed the Bibles. And I thought, “Oh my God, here we go again. Where is the separation of church and state? I’ll fix this.”

GILGER: So this was, it was a statement you were trying to make.

STAHL HAMILTON: It was a protest. It was a moment of protest. At times, scripture felt like it was being used as a bludgeon. And I was quickly dismissed as a “so-called pastor.” And if you know anything about the Presbyterian process of being ordained, you don’t get to just go to Bible school and call yourself a minister, or feel some funny feeling in your tummy and decide you’re a minister.

No. Ordination exams, three years of education, learning languages, all of the things. It was very rigorous process. And my call was affirmed by the community, and my church stood behind me and by me with all of it.

In the rearview mirror, it has not changed my relationships with my colleagues across the aisle. They still are very baffled by me, but they also said it was used as a political maneuver, and it got wrapped up in the politics. And I handed it to them on a silver platter, truly.

There were a lot of people that wanted me to to really die on that hill and make that my platform, especially because at the time, we’re seeing such a rise in white Christian nationalism. And they wanted me to be the face to that.

And that’s not why I came down here. I still believe very strongly there needs to be a separation of church and state, but I do not shirk — because I can’t — my theological lens when I step through this building. It absolutely drives me.

But I’m here to be a representative of my people, and there may be some things that I some things I probably would not have dreamed I would take votes on. But I try not to let my personal thoughts and views cloud how I show up and who I’m representing.

GILGER: I want to dig into that more in a moment. But let me ask you first: Do you regret it?

STAHL HAMILTON: No. I mean, you know, it it certainly, that will always be out there forever. But on the other hand, I apologized immediately, but there were so many people who looked to that to say, “She’s — yeah, right on.” It shone a light on something that a lot of people didn’t know was happening at the state Capitol.

GILGER: So, it’s interesting because you come from this explicitly religious point of view as a minister, as a Protestant, as a Christian. But I think when we talk about religion in politics, we assume we’re talking about conservatives. How do you reconcile that? Like what do you think your Republican Christian colleagues are thinking differently that lead them to different conclusions?

STAHL HAMILTON: I’m not going to assume to think for them. I can tell you they are baffled by me, and they’ve told me as much. But I also want to put out on the table, I have memories of Rev. Jesse Jackson from when I was a teenager back in the ’80s. And then the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, who was assassinated before I was born, right? We have these examples where it is OK for the Black church to marry faith and politics and actually be stand up leaders, and we embrace that and celebrate that and put them squarely in the camp of Democratic politics.

It has been a little bit different for me until I remind people that, no, there have been examples long before I ever arrived on the scene that have given me all kinds of permissions.

GILGER: Well, so like the Presbyterian Church sees something like abortion, for example, as morally acceptable. Reading the same Bible that, you know, someone on the right is who will live and die on that issue. What do you think the difference is?

STAHL HAMILTON: I don’t know. I think this idea of believing — and this is a belief structure — that life begins at conception has somehow taken root, end of discussion. And that’s not, life doesn’t necessarily begin at conception. You know, the Jewish faith and tradition does not believe life begins until the first breath. For me, I agree with Dr. King and that the arc of history bends towards justice. And for me, you do not have justice without mercy. It’s born out of mercy.

GILGER: OK. We’ll leave it there. State Rep. Stephanie Stahl Hamilton joining us. Thank you so much.

STAHL HAMILTON: Thank you.