By Sydney Byerly
The Indiana Citizen
June 11, 2026
Republican and Democratic officials and religious leaders on Thursday called on Gov. Mike Braun to strip Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith of his role leading an initiative launched earlier this year to deepen state government’s collaboration with faith-based institutions.
Their calls came Thursday at an event at the Indiana Statehouse organized in response to Beckwith’s recent claim during a podcast that Americans should be given “permission to hate again” and his description of Islam as a “demonic death cult.”
Faced with growing, bipartisan backlash in recent days, Beckwith, a Republican and self-described Christian nationalist, has repeatedly doubled down – including posting on social media on Tuesday an “Ask Micah Anything” video in which he said he did not regret his comments and reiterated concerns about Islam’s role in American society.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, who organized the “Faith Over Fear” gathering alongside the Indiana Muslim Advocacy Network, said it was intended to reaffirm constitutional protections for religious liberty while pushing back against rhetoric that has left some Muslim Hoosiers feeling unsafe.
“We reject the notion that you can wrap up discrimination and hatred in nice words and wrap it with patriotism, and then promote it by giving permission to hate,” Qaddoura told reporters following the event. “It’s beneath the office of any elected official.”
The gathering was attended by Democratic and Republican officials, including state Treasurer Daniel Elliott, Republican Sen. Greg Walker, Senate Democratic leader Shelli Yoder, Democratic Rep. Cherrish Pryor and Republican Sen. Spencer Deery, who submitted a prerecorded video message because he could not attend.
Elliott, a conservative Republican and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said protecting religious liberty should transcend political divisions.
“This is a conservative issue, actually, because this is part of the founding of who we are as a people,” Elliott said. “If we start saying it’s okay to start hating the Muslim or the Jew or the Hindu or any other faith, pretty soon we start to say, ‘You’re not the right believer of Christianity, and it’s okay to hate you too.'”
Elliott told reporters he had shared his concerns with Braun and argued Beckwith’s comments do not reflect the broader Republican Party.
“That doesn’t reflect Republicans, that doesn’t reflect the statewide team, and it doesn’t reflect who we are as Hoosiers,” Elliott said.
Braun, the first-term Republican governor, has not directly rebuked his No. 2 over his comments. But he said last week that Beckwith “probably regrets” the way he phrased his criticism of Islam.
“Saying it in a way that brings up a word like hate, you probably just lost the impact of the point you were trying to make,” Braun told reporters.
Qaddoura said Beckwith’s comments have had consequences beyond politics.
“Mosques across Indiana had to hire additional security at almost every prayer to protect Hoosier Muslims from worshiping,” he said. “It’s no longer about rhetoric. It really is impacting people’s lives across the state.”
Speakers representing Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints communities repeatedly stressed that religious freedom protections apply equally to all Hoosiers, regardless of faith.
Qaddoura argued that history has shown the dangers of using fear to divide communities, pointing to the influence of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana during the early 20th century.
“The true test of our democracy and the true test of our Constitution is that we defend the beliefs that we don’t agree with or share,” he told attendees.
Yoder said Hoosiers have repeatedly had to respond to Beckwith’s rhetoric targeting minority communities.
“It was only a little bit over a year ago when we were talking about another comment about our Black neighbors being three-fifths of a person, and here we are now coming together to talk back, to show resistance to this notion of some of the comments that were made about the Muslim faith,” Yoder said.
In his video remarks, Deery said religious liberty requires defending the rights of all faith communities.
“As long as any religion suffers, all religions die,” he said.
Rabbi Aaron Spiegel, president and executive director of the Greater Indianapolis Multifaith Alliance, said the event was about supporting all religious communities and rejecting fear-based politics.
“Hate is not a Hoosier value. Hate is not an American value,” Spiegel said.
Maliha Zafar, executive director of the Indiana Muslim Advocacy Network, said Muslim families across Indiana have expressed concern about increasingly hostile public rhetoric.
“When prejudice and misinformation go unchallenged, they create an environment where people feel unwelcome, isolated and afraid,” Zafar said.
Following the event, organizers unveiled a petition asking Braun to publicly reaffirm religious liberty protections, direct the Indiana Civil Rights Commission to provide education about religious-freedom rights. Also, they called on Braun to reassign the implementation of the Faith-Based Institutions Initiative, created by a Braun executive order in February and assigned to Beckwith, from the lieutenant governor’s office to the Indiana Civil Rights Commission.
The gathering came two days after Beckwith released an “Ask Micah Anything” video focused on Islam, in which he said he did not regret his earlier remarks.
In the video, Beckwith said he would defend Muslims’ constitutional right to worship but argued that Islam should not gain a “foothold” in American governance and again criticized Sharia law. He also said he would “love to publicly and on record have a conversation with an imam that does support Sharia law.”
Asked about Thursday’s event, Beckwith said in a statement he stands by his previous comments.
“I love and support all groups of people who come to our country legally and assimilate to our culture,” Beckwith said in a statement. “Sharia Law does the exact opposite of that and promotes the destruction of our country, our Constitution, and our way of life. I will never apologize for saying the United States of America is now and always should be one nation under God.”
Beckwith’s statement did not address organizers’ calls for Braun to reassign the faith-based institutions initiative.
Sydney Byerly is a political reporter who grew up in New Albany, Indiana. Before joining The Citizen, Sydney reported news for TheStatehouseFile.com and most recently managed and edited The Corydon Democrat & Clarion News in southern Indiana. She earned her bachelor’s in journalism at Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism (‘Sco Griz!).
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
