We often say that in enjoying our rights as Americans, it is also our responsibility to ensure that those rights are equally applied and protected for all. One Pluralism Hero, Thomas Kennedy, set an example for how we can stand up for the rights of others, even if we don’t know them or aren’t part of their group.

Thomas Kennedy was a Scottish immigrant who came to the United States in 1795, ultimately entering politics to run for the Maryland House of Delegates in 1817. His granddaughter reported that he took part in politics largely “because of his interest in religious freedom.”

The 1776 Maryland Constitution required a “declaration of belief in Christian religion” as a prerequisite for holding public office in the state. Kennedy joined a House committee to consider this requirement, particularly considering the Jewish community in Maryland. Kennedy had never met a Jewish individual. Still, he was upset that an entire group could be excluded based on their religious beliefs. For him, belief was “a question which rests, or ought to rest, between man and his Creator alone.”

For him, belief was “a question which rests, or ought to rest, between man and his Creator alone.”

Kennedy led the effort to pass a bill extending the same rights and privileges that Christians enjoyed, to Jews. The bill was repeatedly defeated. Even after he was defeated in the election of 1823 in part because of his support for the Jewish community, Kennedy vowed:  ”although exiled at home, I shall continue to battle for the measure, aye, until my last drop of blood.”

He returned to the House of Delegates in 1825 as an independent and ultimately the bill passed. Later that year voters in Baltimore elected two Jews to the city council.

Thomas Kennedy shows us that for the American experiment to work as a religiously diverse democracy that espouses religious freedom, we must take seriously the responsibility to protect that freedom for everyone — especially those who believe differently than we do.