![]() ![]() ![]() Religious liberty therefore includes the rights of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other houses of worship not only to exist, but also to flourish. If one does not believe, one’s rights are fully protected under the Constitution’s guarantee of free speech, expression, and assembly.īut if one does believe, such a person has the right to order his or her life in accord with religious truths, without undue coercion from any human agent, especially government, and to do so in community with others. Coercion is alien to the American treatment of religion. There is no hint of coercion in the American understanding of religious freedom, i.e. Religious liberty includes the right to believe, or not to believe, in religious truths. The United States Constitution, and the legal foundation of any rightly ordered political community, carries a presumption in favor of religious freedom, and the government must bear the burden of overcoming that presumption. universal, broad, and deep – though it is not absolute. Given its profound importance to the founding of America, and to human flourishing, it is a capacious right – i.e. It is the equal right of all human beings and all religious communities to the free exercise of religion. Religious freedom is a fundamental right that is guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Accordingly, although it is deeply personal, religion is also an organized, shared set of beliefs and practices that define a religious community, and which are lived and expressed in the public life of the society in which that community is situated. ![]() Second, most people who believe they have discovered religious truths join with others of like mind and spirit. For example, is there something or someone to which or to whom I owe my being? If so, how should I order my life in light of that discovery? Why is there suffering? Is there life after death? If so, does my behavior in this life affect my fate after death? “ Religion is the effort of individuals and communities to understand, to express, and to seek harmony with a transcendent reality of such importance that they feel compelled to organize their lives around their understanding of it…” Most people by their nature seek answers to questions that seem to be in our DNA. Religion is, first and foremost, the human search for a greater-than-human source of being and ultimate meaning. ![]() In other words, it demands nothing short of the recovery and realization of free exercise equality, a core feature of the American constitutional settlement. This dangerous view, which continues to spread, is highly destructive of the American commitment to freedom and equality and demands a sustained effort to recover the true meaning and value of religious freedom. Commission on Civil Rights, created by Congress to protect the civil rights of all Americans, issued the following statement : “he phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy….” With the Founders, they believed it to be a building block for all other fundamental freedoms, indispensable to the common good, and a source of protection for everyone. Americans would sometimes disagree over how to apply religious freedom in particular cases, but they generally understood it to be our first freedom. During the 1990s both passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support in Congress and were signed by President Clinton. Consider, for example, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and International Religious Freedom Act. Until a few years ago, the vast majority of Americans supported the Founders’ understanding of religious liberty. Their view might be accurately called free exercise equality. They were convinced religious freedom was necessary for the well-being of citizens, for the common good, and for public virtue without which they believed the new Republic would fail. That’s why they styled religious freedom – that is, the freedom of all to exercise religion – as the first freedom. The American Founders understood the importance of religion for human, social, and political flourishing. Religious freedom is therefore the right of all persons to believe, speak, and act – individually and in community with others, in private and in public – in accord with their understanding of ultimate truth. If we are not free to pursue those answers, and to live according to the truths we discover, we cannot live a fully human life. Our nature impels us to seek answers to profound questions about ultimate things. Why? Because religion is important for everyone, everywhere. Religious freedom is important for everyone, everywhere. ![]()
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