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Why Does Religious Freedom Matter?

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Religious liberty and a thriving religious culture are defining attributes of the United States, characterizing the American order as much as its political system and market economy. [1] From the earliest settlements of the 17th century to the great social reform causes led by religious congregations in the late 19th century and again in the 20th century, religion has been a dominant theme of American life.

Today, almost 90 percent of Americans say that religion is at least “somewhat important” in their lives. [2] About 60 percent are members of a local religious congregation. [3] Faith-based organizations are extremely active in providing for social needs at home and in sending aid abroad.

Why does religious liberty matter—to America and to the world?

Freedom of religion is a cornerstone of the American experiment. That is because religious faith is not merely a matter of “toleration” but is understood to be the exercise of “inherent natural rights.” As George Washington once observed: “[T]he Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.” And “what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator,” James Madison wrote in his 1786 Memorial and Remonstrance . “This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

The model of religious liberty brilliantly designed by Madison and the other American Founders is central to the success of the American experiment. It is essential to America’s continued pursuit of the ideals stated in the Declaration of Independence, the ordered liberty embodied in the Constitution, and peace and stability around the world.

The key to America’s religious liberty success story is its constitutional order. The Founders argued that virtue derived from religion is indispensable to limited government. The Constitution therefore guaranteed religious free exercise while prohibiting the establishment of a national religion. This Constitutional order produced a constructive relationship between religion and state that balances citizens’ dual allegiances to God and earthly authorities without forcing believers to abandon (or moderate) their primary loyalty to God.

This reconciling of civil and religious authorities, and the creation of a Constitutional order that gave freedom to competing religious groups, helped develop a popular spirit of self-government. All the while, religious congregations, family, and other private associations exercise moral authority that is essential to maintaining limited government. The American Founders frequently stated that virtue and religion are essential to maintaining a free society because they preserve “the moral conditions of freedom.” [4]

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness. – Samuel Adams October 16, 1778

Today, the religious roots of the American order and the role of religion in its continued success are poorly understood. One source of the confusion is the phrase “separation of church and state,” a phrase used by President Thomas Jefferson in a widely misunderstood letter to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut in 1802. [5] Many think this means a radical separation of religion and politics. Some have gone so far as to suggest that religion should be entirely personal and private, kept out of public life and institutions like public schools.

That is incorrect: Jefferson wanted to protect states’ freedom of religion from federal government control and religious groups’ freedom to tend to their internal matters of faith and practice without government interference generally. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s phrase is probably more widely known than the actual text of the Constitution’s First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The American model of religious liberty takes a strongly positive view of religious practice, both private and public. While it does not mean that anything and everything done in the name of religious liberty is not subject to the rule of law, it does mean that the law ought to make as much room as possible for the practice of religious faith. Far from privatizing religion, it assumes that religious believers and institutions will take active roles in society, including engaging in politics and policy-making and helping form the public’s moral consensus. In fact, the American Founders considered religious engagement in shaping the public morality essential to ordered liberty and the success of their experiment in self-government.

Defying predictions that political and social progress would eventually marginalize religion, religious belief and practice remain widespread and vibrant around the world.

“The very things that were supposed to destroy religion—democracy and markets, technology and reason—are combining to make it stronger,” write the authors of a book about religion’s persistence in culture and politics around the world. [6]

In this era—as in all prior human history—God has occupied the thoughts of man. Conscience, the mystery of existence, and the prospect of death challenge every human being to grapple with questions of transcendence and divine reality.

Religious freedom recognizes the right of all people to pursue these transcendent ends. This right is granted not by government but by the Creator. By respecting it, a government acknowledges that such ultimate issues are outside its jurisdiction, and that conscience is answerable to a higher authority than the law of the land. Individuals and institutions should be free to believe and to act in response to divine reality.

Because religious liberty is the bedrock for all human freedom, it provides a sturdy foundation for limited government. Liberty of conscience demands, and ultimately justifies, limited government.

Conversely, limited government requires individual responsibility. Freedom engages the moral responsibility of each and every person. In a free society, religion is an ally of good government as it forms the moral character of individuals and communities.

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right that ought to be enjoyed by the people of all nations. This principle has been recognized in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and subsequent international agreements. Despite widespread recognition, many people are unable to exercise this basic liberty.

Even with religion’s global prevalence, religious freedom is far from universally respected. About a third of the world’s nations restrict religion to a high or very high degree, according to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Seventy percent of the world’s population lives in these countries. [7]

In some cases, totalitarian governments have oppressed religious individuals and groups generally. In others, statist regimes built on an established religion have persecuted religious minorities.

Countries designated by the U.S. State Department as “countries of particular concern” because they restrict religious freedom (such as North Korea, Iran, and Burma) suffer in other ways as well. They also tend to have the least economic liberty—and some of the worst economic outcomes.

On the other hand, governments that respect religious liberty tend to respect other freedoms as well. Religious freedom is strongly related to political liberty, economic freedom, and prosperity. As one researcher of international religious liberty notes, “[W]herever religious freedom is high, there tends to be fewer incidents of armed conflict, better health outcomes, higher levels of earned income, and better educational opportunities for women.” [8]

The 1998 International Religious Freedom Act made religious liberty an official part of U.S. foreign policy. The United States committed to promote freedom of religion as “a fundamental human right and as a source of stability for all countries” and to “identify and denounce regimes” that engage in persecution on the basis of religion.

Condemning and curtailing religious persecution is a critical goal, but religious freedom includes much more. Our vision of religious liberty must be robust.

Attempts to relegate religion to private life or to prevent religious institutions from conducting their business according to their beliefs threaten this fundamental freedom. Religious individuals and institutions should be free to exercise their religious belief within their private spheres as well as to engage publicly on the basis of religion. Believers should be free to persuade others to embrace their beliefs. Individuals should be able to leave or change their religion without fear of reprisal, and all should have the right to protection under the rule of law regardless of belief.

The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. – Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963

The most secure and consistent protection for religious liberty needs to be rooted in constitutional government. U.S. public diplomacy can support the development of such robust religious freedom by telling America’s success story.

That requires that U.S. policymakers understand and be able to articulate the role of religion in the American constitutional order. In the 21st-century war of ideas, U.S. public diplomacy must rely on the bedrock of American founding principles in the fight against potent ideologies that present strong, coherent, and deeply misguided explanations of the nature and purpose of human existence. Evaluating religious dynamics around the world should become a regular function of analysis, and articulating the role of religion in the U.S. should be a consistent feature of communications strategy.

Religion and traditional morality continue to play a significant role in American public life. Most Americans continue to attach great significance to religious faith and practice, marriage, family, and raising children in a morally rich and supportive environment—values shared in many highly religious societies around the world.

Religious freedom is the birthright of all people, but too few governments around the world acknowledge it and far too many people have never enjoyed it.

One of the gifts of providence to the United States is a Constitution that has successfully safeguarded this fundamental right. It is a gift Americans should cherish and a model for all throughout the world.

Jennifer A. Marshall is Director of the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation .

Enduring Truths

• George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, Rhode Island The first president’s letter to this Hebrew Congregation—and by extension to one of the most persecuted religious groups in world history—eloquently articulates the American position that religious liberty is not merely a matter of tolerance but is an inherent right to be guaranteed by government.
• Gerard V. Bradley, Religious Liberty in the American Republic In this monograph, Bradley explains the Founders’ view of the relationship between religion and politics, and demonstrates how the Supreme Court radically deviated from this view in embarking on a project aimed at the secularization of American politics and society.
• J. D. Foster and Jennifer A. Marshall, “ Freedom Economics and Human Dignity ” The way we talk about freedom in the economic sphere tends to overlook the aspects of human experience that transcend the material. This essay explains how economic freedom helps order our lives together in a way that reflects the nature of man, the purpose of human life, and the satisfying of material needs and wants.

Current Issues

• PROMOTING RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. Thomas Farr, Ph.D. and Ambassador Terry Miller, “ Diplomacy in an Age of Faith: How Failing to Understand the Role of Religion Hinders America’s Purposes in the World ,” December 17, 2008. Farr and Miller argue that the American foreign affairs establishment has failed to grasp the significance of the resurgence of public religion around the world. As a result, it has missed an opportunity to incorporate the advancement of international religious freedom and the promotion of religious liberty into the general freedom agenda. This missed opportunity has harmed our interests.
• DEFAMATION OF RELIGION. Steven Groves, “ Why the U.S. Should Oppose ‘Defamation of Religions’ Resolution at the United Nations ,” November 10, 2008. The United Nations, with the backing of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, seeks to promote the concept of “defamation of religion,” which would establish an international ban on any speech that would insult, criticize, or disparage any religion. But the First Amendment to the Constitution protects the freedom of religion, which includes the right both to follow a faith and to criticize it. Groves demonstrates that the U.S. must oppose any effort to make “defamation of religion” part of U.S. law, and must resist spread of this concept inside the U.N. system.
• PUBLIC DIPLOMACY. Jennifer A. Marshall, “ Religious Liberty in America: An Idea Worth Sharing Through Public Diplomacy ,” January 15, 2009. U.S. public diplomacy seeks to impart to foreign audiences an understanding and appreciate of American ideals, principles, and institutions. In the United States, religious freedom is compatible with a positive and public role for religion. This is an American success story that should be told around the world. Marshall shows that, if public diplomacy is to play its full role in advancing American interests and ideals, it must systematically address both the role of religion and religious audiences.

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[1] Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (New York: Madison Books, 1991), p. 16.

[2] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant,” June 2008, p. 22, at http://religions.pewforum.org/pdf/report2-religious-landscape-study-full.pdf (November 16, 2010).

[3] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey: Religious Beliefs and Practices: Diverse and Politically Relevant,” pp. 36 and 39.

[4] Thomas G. West, “Religious Liberty,” Claremont Institute, January 1997, at http://www.claremont.org/writings/970101west.html (November 16, 2010).

[5] Daniel L. Dreisbach, Thomas Jefferson and the Wall of Separation Between Church and State (New York: New York University Press, 2002).

[6] John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World (New York: Penguin, 2009), p. 12.

[7] Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, “Global Restrictions on Religion,” December 2009, at http://pewforum.org/Government/Global-Restrictions-on-Religion.aspx (December 6, 2010).

[8] Brian Grim, “Religious Freedom: Good for What Ails Us?” The Review of Faith & International Affairs , Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer 2008).

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The moral and religious beliefs of individuals and organizations should be respected in law.  

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Freedom of Religion

By: History.com Editors

Updated: July 28, 2023 | Original: December 7, 2017

Freedom of religion is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits laws establishing a national religion or impeding the free exercise of religion for its citizens. While the First Amendment enforces the “separation of church and state” it doesn’t exclude religion from public life. From the colonial era to present, religion has played a major role in politics in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court over the years has ruled inconsistently on matters of religious freedom, such as the display of religious symbols in government buildings.

Religion In Colonial America

America wasn’t always a stronghold of religious freedom. More than half a century before the Pilgrims set sail in the Mayflower , French Protestants (called Huguenots) established a colony at Fort Caroline near modern-day Jacksonville, Florida .

The Spanish, who were largely Catholic and occupied much of Florida at the time, slaughtered the Huguenots at Fort Caroline. The Spanish commander wrote the king that he had hanged the settlers for “scattering the odious Lutheran doctrine in these Provinces.”

The Puritans and Pilgrims arrived in New England in the early 1600s after suffering religious persecution in England. However, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay Colony didn’t tolerate any opposing religious views. Catholics, Quakers and other non-Puritans were banned from the colony.

Roger Williams

In 1635 Roger Williams , a Puritan dissident, was banned from Massachusetts. Williams then moved south and founded Rhode Island . Rhode Island became the first colony with no established church and the first to grant religious freedom to everyone, including Quakers and Jews.

As Virginia’s governor in 1779, Thomas Jefferson drafted a bill that would guarantee the religious freedoms of Virginians of all faiths—including those with no faith—but the bill did not pass into law.

Religion was mentioned only once in the U.S. Constitution . The Constitution prohibits the use of religious tests as qualification for public office. This broke with European tradition by allowing people of any faith (or no faith) to serve in public office in the United States.

First Amendment

In 1785, Virginia statesman (and future president) James Madison argued against state support of Christian religious instruction. Madison would go on to draft the First Amendment , a part of the Bill of Rights that would provide constitutional protection for certain individual liberties including freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, and the rights to assemble and petition the government.

The First Amendment was adopted on December 15, 1791. It established a separation of church and state that prohibited the federal government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” It also prohibits the government, in most cases, from interfering with a person’s religious beliefs or practices.

The Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, extended religious freedom by preventing states from enacting laws that would advance or inhibit any one religion.

Religious Intolerance In the United States

Mormons , led by Joseph Smith , clashed with the Protestant majority in Missouri in 1838. Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs ordered that all Mormons be exterminated or expelled from the state.

At Haun’s Mill, Missouri militia members massacred 17 Mormons on October 30, 1838.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the U.S. government subsidized boarding schools to educate and assimilate Native American children. At these schools, Native American children were prohibited from wearing ceremonial clothes or practicing native religions.

While most states followed federal example and abolished religious tests for public office, some states maintained religious tests well into the twentieth century. Maryland , for instance, required “a declaration of belief in God,” for all state officeholders until 1961.

Landmark Supreme Court Cases

Reynolds v. United States (1878): This Supreme Court case tested the limits of religious liberty by upholding a federal law banning polygamy. The Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment forbids government from regulating belief but not from actions such as marriage.

Braunfeld v. Brown (1961): The Supreme Court upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring stores to close on Sundays, even though Orthodox Jews argued the law was unfair to them since their religion required them to close their stores on Saturdays as well.

Sherbert v. Verner (1963): The Supreme Court ruled that states could not require a person to abandon their religious beliefs in order to receive benefits. In this case, Adell Sherbert, a Seventh-day Adventist, worked in a textile mill. When her employer switched from a five-day to six-day workweek, she was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays. When she applied for unemployment compensation, a South Carolina court denied her claim.

Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971): This Supreme Court decision struck down a Pennsylvania law allowing the state to reimburse Catholic schools for the salaries of teachers who taught in those schools. This Supreme Court case established the “Lemon Test” for determining when a state or federal law violates the Establishment Clause—that’s the part of the First Amendment that prohibits the government from declaring or financially supporting a state religion.

Ten Commandments Cases (2005): In 2005, the Supreme Court came to seemingly contradictory decisions in two cases involving the display of the Ten Commandments on public property. In the first case, Van Orden v. Perry , the Supreme Court ruled that the display of a six-foot Ten Commandments monument at the Texas State Capital was constitutional. In McCreary County v. ACLU , the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that two large, framed copies of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky courthouses violated the First Amendment.

Muslim Travel Bans

In 2017, federal district courts struck down the implementation of a series of travel bans ordered by President Donald J. Trump , citing that the bans—which discriminate against the citizens of several Muslim-majority nations—would violate the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.

America’s True History of Religious Tolerance; Smithsonian.com . Religious Liberty: Landmark Supreme Court Cases; Bill of Rights Institute . First Amendment; Legal Information Institute .

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REVIEW CONTENTS

Why protect religious freedom.

Why Tolerate Religion?

BY BRIAN LEITER

PRINCETON, NJ: PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012, PP. 208. $24.95.

author . Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center, Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution. The author wishes to thank William Baude, Nathan Chapman, Richard Epstein, Chad Flanders, Robert George, Luke Goodrich, Paul Harold, Joshua Hawley, Steffen Johnson, Burt Neuborne, Eric Rassbach, James Sonne, and Eugene Volokh for helpful comments on an earlier draft, and Spencer Churchill and Mark Storslee for invaluable research assistance.

Introduction

Religious beliefs have always generated controversy. But religious freedom —the right of individuals and groups to form their own religious beliefs and to practice them to the extent consistent with the rights of others and with fundamental requirements of public order and the common good—has long been a bedrock value in the United States and other liberal nations. Religious freedom is one thing nearly all Americans, left and right, religious and secular, have been able to agree upon, perhaps because it protects all of us. 1 Atheists are protected from imposition of prayer and Bible reading in state schools; 2 churches are protected from interference with the hiring of ministers; 3 religious minorities are protected from majoritarian legislation indifferent or hostile to their concerns. 4 Progressive churches are protected when they oppose segregation or counsel draft resisters; 5 traditionalist churches are protected when they oppose abortion or operate faith-based schools; 6 nontraditional faith groups with unfamiliar worship practices are allowed to carry them out in peace. 7 Because none of us can predict who will hold political power, all of us can sleep more soundly if we know that our religious freedom does not depend on election returns.

When the Supreme Court narrowed its interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause in 1990, in the so-called “ P eyote Case ,” Employment Division v. Smith , 8 Congress passed the corrective Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) 9 by unanimous vote in the House and a margin of 97-3 in the Senate. 10 Supporters included the ACLU, the National Association of Evangelicals, People for the American Way, the American Jewish Congress, the Christian Legal Society, and virtually every other religious and civil liberties group. 11 Recently, however, this consensus seems to be weakening—largely from fallout over culture-war issues such as abortion and the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Many activists on these issues see religion as antagonistic to their interests, and are responding in kind. A new whiff of intolerance is in the air. 12

University of Chicago law professor and legal philosopher Brian Leiter has entered the debate with his new book Why Tolerate Religion? 13 His answer? Although we should not persecute religious believers, religion as such does not warrant any “special” legal solicitude such as that provided by the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment. 14 “[T]here is no apparent moral reason why states should carve out special protections that encourage individuals to structure their lives around categorical demands that are insulated from the standards of evidence and reasoning we everywhere else expect to constitute constraints on judgment and action.” 15 Leiter argues, moreover, that it would be consistent with “principled toleration” for the secular state to affirmatively discriminate against religious believers in access to public spaces, such as by barring student Bible clubs from meeting on public school property, even when every other form of student organization is free to meet. 16 So long as religious believers retain the right to express their own beliefs (including wearing religious symbols and clothing), the regime may advocate a “Vision of the Good” that is “irreligious” 17 and may selectively deny religious believers and religious speakers equal access to public resources and opportunities.

When it comes to accommodation of practices , and not just beliefs, Leiter argues that it would be impractical to accommodate all claims of conscience and “unfair” and “arbitrar[y]” to single out claims that are grounded in religious belief. 18 So his answer: accommodate none of them, at least if the accommodation would inflict harm or shift burdens onto third parties. Exactly what is meant by these assertions, as we shall see, is less than clear. The argument depends on terms like “conscience,” “special,” and “harm,” but the book provides no precise definition of their meanings. The author is vague about what to do when accommodations do not cause harm and when religious practices have no secular analogue.

Organizationally, the book weds four chapters of ambitious and wide-ranging philosophical arguments to a fifth and final chapter primarily addressing two controversial issues of First Amendment law: whether religious practices are entitled to exemptions from formally neutral laws (to which Leiter answers “no”), and whether groups may be excluded from otherwise open public school speech forums because they espouse a religious point of view (to which he answers “yes”).

The first major argument of the book—spread between Chapters One and Four—is that discussions of religious freedom ought to be framed around the concept of “toleration.” By “toleration,” Leiter means protection from coercion (or “eradication”) but something less than neutrality. To be specific, the state may not “jail or annihilate the adherents of the disfavored claims of conscience,” nor may it “directly target or coercively burden their claims of conscience” (absent real harm), 19 but it may use public resources and publicly controlled institutions to espouse the state’s own contrary “religious or irreligious” Vision of the Good 20 and may exclude dissenters from equal access to public facilities. 21 The second philosophical argument—Chapters Two and Three of the book—presents a definition of religion and discusses several prominent justifications for toleration, concluding that none of these theories can justify a special protection for the free exercise of religion, beyond that accorded conduct based on nonreligious beliefs. 22 In these chapters, Leiter’s argument consists of two steps. First, he offers a definition of religion as “categorical demands that are insulated from evidence” 23 —meaning that religion is a phenomenon characterized by insulation from “common sense and the sciences.” 24 Second, he examines several prominent justifications for toleration offered by John Rawls, John Stuart Mill, and Frederick Schauer, and in each case concludes that nothing in these justifications warrants tolerating religion specifically.

More surprisingly, in Chapter Five Leiter concludes that this spare doctrine of “principled toleration” also does not justify any special protection against the establishment of religion. As far as “principled toleration” goes, it would be unobjectionable to declare the Roman Catholic Church the established church of the nation, and favor it over all other ideological competitors—so long as dissenting voices are not coercively burdened or silenced. It becomes clear that Leiter’s objection is not to one particular theory of free exercise protections (free exercise exemptions), but to the entire idea of special protection for religious freedom.

At a few extraordinary moments in the book, it appears that the author might even opt for intolerance toward religion—use of the coercive power of the state to discourage or even “eradicate” religious belief, 25 on the ground that religious beliefs do real harm to the body politic. Each time, after floating the argument for intolerance, usually in the form of rhetorical questions rather than straightforward claims, he retreats. But each time the retreat is based on the lack of sufficient empirical support for the net harmfulness of religion—not because of the importance of religious freedom to the individual or to liberal democracy. At page 59, for example, he poses the question: “isn’t there reason to worry that religious beliefs, as against other matters of conscience, are far more likely to cause harms and infringe on liberty?,” 26 observing that this might “form the basis of an argument for why there are special reasons not to tolerate religion.” 27 He follows this suggestion with the tentative disavowal that “I wonder” whether “such a demeaning conclusion about religious belief . . . is warranted,” 28 leaving the reader to suspect that his support for toleration hangs on the thread of empirical uncertainty.

And consider this paragraph:

[R]eligious believers overwhelmingly supported George W. Bush, widely considered one of the worst presidents in the history of the United States, whom many think ought to be held morally culpable both for the illegal war of aggression against Iraq as well as the casualties resulting from domestic mismanagement. Of course, if we really thought there were some connection between religious belief and support for the likes of Bush, then even toleration would not be a reasonable moral attitude to adopt toward religion: after all, practices of toleration are, themselves, answerable to the Millian Harm Principle, and there would be no reason ex ante to think that Bush’s human carnage is something one should tolerate. 29

If I understand this passage correctly, Leiter is flirting with the idea that it would be justifiable to withhold toleration from religious believers because they have a propensity to support political candidates of whom he disapproves. If that is his notion of “Millian Harm,” sufficient to justify official intolerance toward American religious believers, we are very far from anything recognizable as liberalism or democracy.

Ultimately, Leiter concludes that this “Bush carnage” argument for intolerance is “not warranted,” but not because of any principled commitment to democracy or respect for differing opinion. It is unwarranted because “there is no reason to think” that religious beliefs “are especially likely to issue in ‘harm’ to others.” 30 Religion has done good as well as evil, he notes, 31 and not all evil is caused by religion. 32 Nonetheless, he finds it to be a close question. “Perhaps [religious] beliefs . . . are more harmful, on average, but it seems to me much more empirical evidence would actually be required to support that conclusion.” 33 One wishes that the argument for toleration were more robust than that.

Aside from these disquieting passages, the argument of the book rests not on the claim that religious belief is specially harmful, but on the more conventional claim that religion is nothing special. 34 Let us turn to those arguments.

I. “toleration”

The title of the book, Why Tolerate Religion? , at first blush sounds anachronistic. The value of religious toleration has not been seriously contested in the Anglo-American world since the seventeenth century. Strictly speaking, the “toleration” issue arose in the context of an established church; the question was whether practitioners of dissenting religions should be permitted to exercise their faiths without penalty. Britain’s celebrated Act of Toleration of 1689, for example, allowed certain sects—dissenting trinitarian Protestants, but not Jews, Roman Catholics, or Unitarians—to conduct worship services without being punished for violation of the Uniformity Acts. 35

By the time of the American founding, prevailing opinion had moved beyond toleration. When George Mason proposed in 1776 that the Virginia Declaration of Rights provide for “toleration” of religion, James Madison objected on the ground that “toleration” implies an act of legislative grace. He successfully moved to substitute the term “the full and free exercise of [religion.]” 36 In a similar vein, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island that “[i]t is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.” 37 It is not an accident that the United States Constitution contains a Free Exercise Clause, not a toleration clause.

But Leiter is not using the word carelessly or anachronistically. He makes clear that by “toleration” he means pretty much what Madison and Washington understood the term to mean—forbearance—with only a slight twist: that the state that today is considering whether to permit the practice of religion is the modern secular state. “[A] genuine ‘principle of toleration,’” Leiter writes, exists only when there is a “dominant group” that “actively disapproves of what another group . . . believes or does.” 38 Under his definition of toleration, “one group must deem another differing group’s beliefs or practices ‘wrong, mistaken, or undesirable’ and yet ‘put up’ with them nonetheless.” 39 Leiter candidly “reject[s] the view” that “the right posture for the modern state is one of neutrality” toward religion. Rather, the posture of the modern secular state toward religion should be one of “disapproval” 40 —the only question being whether that disapproval should be tempered with toleration. 41

To Leiter, the “contemporary problem, at least in post-Enlightenment, secular nations,” is “why the state should tolerate religion as such at all.” 42 Just as the seventeenth-century state, committed to an established church, had to decide whether to tolerate persons of dissenting faiths, the twenty-first-century state, committed to a particular form of secularism, has to decide whether to tolerate religious believers at all. Some might say, following the seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke, that it is futile to attempt to use force to compel belief (or unbelief), because convictions do not yield to external compulsion. 43 But Leiter—probably correctly—points out that the modern state in fact has “sophisticated means to effectively coerce belief.” 44 The proper question, therefore, is why “we”—meaning the secular state—“morally, ought not to eradicate differing beliefs and practices,” given that we could. 45

Leiter claims that “toleration,” understood as putting up with beliefs that the dominant group disapproves of, is “reflected” in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, and is the “paradigm of the liberal ideal.” 46 But this is incorrect: under the United States Constitution, the state does not deem religious belief “wrong, mistaken, or undesirable.” 47 On the contrary, our liberal republic takes no stand on the truth or worth of any religious belief as such. 48 One of the most widely admired opinions of the Supreme Court states that “[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in . . . religion, or other matters of opinion.” 49 That proscription of official orthodoxy applies to Leiter’s unbelief no less than it does to a conventionally religious establishment. It is no more proper for the state to assume religion is false or unwarranted than to assume that it is true. As James Madison put it, “[t]he Religion . . . of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man,” and it is an “arrogant pretension” to believe that “the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth.” 50 Indeed, many statesmen at the time of the Founding believed that religious faith was valuable or even essential to republican self-government. 51 I am not aware of any statement by a constitutional founder, any decision of the Supreme Court, or any important document in our constitutional tradition that espouses Leiter’s version of toleration: that religion is wrong, mistaken, or undesirable, but we should nonetheless “put up” with it.

Leiter acknowledges there is a competing view to his idea that mere toleration ought to characterize our attitude toward religion. Chapter Four of the book is devoted to explaining why he rejects Professor Martha Nussbaum’s argument that free exercise exemptions are justified by “respect” for the religious beliefs of others, even if we do not share them. 52 While the author states elsewhere that his concern is “ state toleration” of religion, “as opposed to toleration in interpersonal relations,” 53 much of the chapter is propelled by examples of interpersonal relations. The primary argument—spanning seven pages of the twenty-three page chapter—revolves around whether an atheist invited to shabbat dinner should participate in Jewish prayers offered by his host. 54 The problem, you see, is that the guest believes that religion is an “(epistemically) culpable false belief,” and therefore is reluctant to show the “respect” to his hosts’ beliefs that participation in the prayers would express. 55 That is all well and good. Maybe a guest with those views should politely excuse himself. But what could this possibly have to do with “ state toleration”? Leiter argues by way of analogy that because religious beliefs are false or unwarranted, they are “not the kind of belief system that could warrant [affirmative respect],” 56 and thus that the state—like the dinner guest—ought rightly to grant religion only toleration. But the state is not in the same position as the guest. The guest, like his host, enjoys full religious freedom to form his beliefs and to act on them. The question he faces is primarily one of etiquette . The state, by contrast, does not hold an official position on whether the Jewish religion, or any other, is false—“culpably” or otherwise. The dichotomy between “tolerating” and “respecting” religion based on individual judgments about religion’s truth or falsity is a red herring when it comes to questions of governance. Constitutional law is not about good manners or respect, but about law, power, coercion, and freedom.

The difference between moral demands on individuals and institutional constraints on the liberal state is fundamental. In the liberal tradition, the government’s role is not to make theological judgments but to protect the right of the people to pursue their own understanding of the truth, within the limits of the common good. That is the difference between “the full and free exercise of religion” 57 (Madison’s formulation) and mere “toleration.” Toleration presupposes a “dominant group” 58 with a particular opinion about religion (that it is “false,” or at least “unwarranted”), 59 who decide not to “eradicate” 60 beliefs they regard as “wrong, mistaken, or undesirable.” 61

By contrast to Leiter’s “toleration,” religious freedom does not proceed from any official presuppositions about religious truth. It allows everyone, believers and unbelievers alike, the right to form their own convictions about transcendent reality and to live in accordance with them, subject only to the constraint that they must not invade the rights of others or damage fundamental aspects of the overall common good. That is a more attractive vision than Leiter’s, and it is far more consonant with our constitutional principles (even if not always with our practices).

II. the philosophical argument

Leiter’s philosophical argument can be stated in three steps:

1.      Religion is a subset of the broader category, “conscience.”

2.      What sets religion apart as a distinctive subset of conscience is that religious beliefs “are insulated from ordinary standards of evidence and rational justification,” yet lead to “categorical demands on action” (meaning demands that take precedence over competing desires and interests). 62

3.      Employing this definition, neither of the two major strands of modern thought, Kantianism (represented by John Rawls) and utilitarianism (represented by John Stuart Mill), supports an argument for special protection for religion. Nor is it supported by Frederick Schauer’s argument from government incompetence.

The argument, however, is not persuasive, for two reasons. First, it depends entirely on the pejorative way in which Leiter defines religion, and second, it falls short in its understanding of Rawls, Mill, and Schauer.

A. Religion as a Subset of Conscience

The central argument in the book is that “if there is something morally important about religious belief and practice that demands legal solicitude, it is connected to the demands of conscience that religion imposes upon believers,” rather than the distinctively religious or “sacred” character of those beliefs. 63 The book is an inquiry into whether there is any reason to single out religious conscience for legal protections that are not also extended to nonreligious claims of conscience.

It would therefore seem essential to unpack what is meant by claims of “conscience” as well as what is meant by “religion.” But while the book devotes an entire chapter to a formal definition of “religion,” it provides no definition of “conscience.” I believe, however, that it would be fair to borrow the first portion of Leiter’s definition of “religion” as a definition of “conscience”: a belief system that imposes “categorical demands on action—that is, demands that must be satisfied no matter what an individual’s antecedent desires and no matter what incentives or disincentives the world offers up.” 64 Leiter comments that the “categoricity” of commands is a “significant feature” not only of religion, but “of all claims of conscience,” 65 and that seems right. In less jargony language, we may translate this “categoricity” as referring to the demands of right and wrong, as opposed to self-interest, whim, habit, or compulsion. 66 The important point is that the demands of right and wrong may arise from nonreligious as well as religious systems of belief—although, as Leiter points out, “religion is one of the few systems of belief that gives effect to this categoricity.” According to Leiter, “those who genuinely conduct their lives in accord with the categoricity of the moral demands they recognize are overwhelmingly religious.” 67

Leiter defines religion by four criteria, only two of which he says “matter” for the purpose of evaluating the claim for tolerating religion as such. 68 The first is “categoricity,” as just discussed. The second is that religious beliefs, “in virtue of being based on ‘faith,’ are insulated from ordinary standards of evidence and rational justification, the ones we employ in both common sense and in science.” 69 The combination of these two criteria becomes his catch phrase for religion: “categorical demands on action conjoined with insulation from evidence,” or variants on these words. 70

Leiter mentions two candidates for further refining the definition of religion: that religion involves “a metaphysics of ultimate reality,” 71 and that it offers “existential consolation” for dealing with “the basic existential facts about human life, such as suffering and death.” 72 Ultimately, he declines to include these two other elements in his formal definition. The former, he says, is just “a variation on the idea that religious belief is insulated from evidence,” 73 and the latter, he says, is not distinctive to religion, but may be found in such nonreligious practices as philosophical reflection, meditation, and therapeutic treatment. 74 Thus, “only the first two features [categoricity and insulation from evidence] . . . matter” for these purposes. 75 At times, though, Leiter includes “existential consolation” as one of the distinctive features of religion, with the practical effect of “excluding the case of Maoist personality cults, of Marxism, and (probably) of morality.” 76

It is difficult to follow Leiter’s method here. At the outset, he asserts that a proper definition must be based on “features that all and only religious beliefs have.” 77 But elsewhere, Leiter notes that neither “categoricity” 78 nor “insulation from evidence” 79 is unique to religion, yet for unexplained reasons these features nonetheless do “matter.” This is all rather confusing and inconsistent. Personally, I think it is futile to draw up a list of features descriptive of religion and only of religion. What makes religion distinctive is its unique combination of features, as well as the place it holds in real human lives and human history.

Leiter assumes that religion is merely a subset of conscience, distinguished primarily by its lack of evidentiary warrant. It would be more precise to see religion and conscience as two overlapping categories, neither fully subsumed within the other. Conscience has to do with convictions about moral right and wrong. Some conscientious convictions have a religious foundation and some do not. Religion is partly about right and wrong, and in that sense overlaps with conscience. But it involves much more than that. Religion typically includes a set of beliefs about the nature of the universe, it prescribes practices that are sometimes more ritualistic than ethical in character (such as taking communion or wearing a yarmulke), and it is embedded in authoritative communities involving texts, stories, institutions, leaders, and tradition. It thus involves much more than conscience, just as conscience comprises more than religion. 80 This is important because much litigation involves religious ritual, ecclesiastical form, and tradition that are not strictly matters of “conscience” and have no evident secular analogue.

There are claims of nonreligious conscience that are powerful and coherent enough that they have a moral weight comparable to that of religion. During the Vietnam War, the Supreme Court decided two cases involving conscientious objectors whose beliefs, by their own admission, were not “religious” in the ordinary sense (the sense that Congress used in the conscientious objector statute recognizing exemptions from conscription). The Court’s response was to stretch the definition of religion to include any “sincere and meaningful belief which occupies in the life of its possessor a place parallel to that filled by the God of those admittedly qualifying for the exemption.” 81 Similarly, in particular contexts of obvious seriousness, such as protecting medical personnel from being required to perform or assist in abortions, Congress has protected “moral convictions” as well as “religious beliefs.” 82

Leiter, however, does not confine the term “conscience” to claims of this serious nature. As his paradigmatic example of nonreligious conscience, Leiter refers to claims based on family tradition and identity, 83 which we will discuss in more detail below. He also includes the “lone eccentric, who for reasons known only to him, feels a categorical compulsion,” 84 and the Marxist. 85 The category is evidently open-ended. If any belief comprising a moral judgment is “conscience,” we would face some wildly counterintuitive claims.

As Leiter points out, “[i]t seems unlikely that any legal system will embrace this capacious approach to liberty of conscience” because it would be tantamount to a “legalization of anarchy!” 86 In other words, we do not extend protection to all manifestations of conscience, broadly understood, because we cannot and should not. Accordingly, the United States Constitution provides no protection for liberty of “conscience” as such—although particular manifestations of conscience sometimes receive constitutional protection under other rubrics (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, due process). In fact, although Leiter does not mention it, the drafters of the First Amendment considered using the language of “conscience,” voted it down, and used the term “religion” instead. 87 Leiter thinks that was an error. He argues that “conscience” is the morally relevant concept, and it was wrong to single out the religious subset for legal protection.

B. “Insulation from Evidence”

If “categoricity” is the element common to both religious and nonreligious systems of belief making demands on human conduct, it is the “insulation from evidence” that most clearly distinguishes religion in Leiter’s definition, and does almost all the work in his analysis. By smuggling into the definition of religion a feature that makes religious belief seem unreasonable, the book unsurprisingly comes to the conclusion that this very unreasonableness disqualifies religion from a moral claim to special legal solicitude. The conclusion is baked into the premise.

Most obviously, Leiter’s definition stacks the deck by assuming that religious belief “always” is to some degree “false, or at least unwarranted.” 88 That is a sectarian premise, predicated on a questionable view about evidence. 89 According to Leiter, the “only epistemically relevant considerations” that warrant belief are “those that figure in common sense and the sciences.” 90 He goes so far as to say that philosophic attempts to justify religious beliefs are “nothing more than an effort to insulate religious belief from ordinary standards of reasons and evidence in common sense and the sciences, and thus religious belief is a culpable form of unwarranted belief given those ordinary epistemic standards.” 91

No religious believer would recognize this description. Religious believers do not think they are “insulating” themselves from all the relevant “evidence.” They think they are considering evidence of a different, nonmaterial sort, in addition to the evidence of science, history, and the senses. It would be more accurate, and less loaded, to amend this second part of Leiter’s definition to say that religion is a system of belief in which significant aspects are not based on science or common sense observations about the material world .

To begin with, much religious thought is not “insulated” at all. Developments in biology, physics, linguistics, archeology, and other disciplines have had profound impact on Biblical hermeneutics and theology in mainstream Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, 92 and “practical reason” has played a major role in natural law thinking since at least Thomas Aquinas. 93 To be sure, some religious traditions are more insulated from scientific developments than others. The Navajo creation story, for example, is impervious to archeological and linguistic evidence that the tribe migrated to the Southwest from Canada only a few centuries before the arrival of Europeans, and fundamentalist Christian belief in the historicity of Noah’s flood and the literal six-day creation, depending on how these ideas are understood, is much the same. But to say that “insulation from evidence” is a defining characteristic of “all” 94 (or even most) religions is simply false. Religion is constantly changing, and constantly interacting with the culture and other ways of understanding the world.

More importantly, the standards established by the scientific revolution, however powerful within their proper domain, are not obviously applicable to such matters as esthetics, morality, values, love, trust, and ultimate meaning. The scientific method does not claim to provide insight into these areas of human understanding. Indeed, some philosophers of science maintain that even science depends on certain leaps of faith, which are not the products of mere observation of material evidence. 95

In a footnote, Leiter acknowledges that “of course” there may be matters such as the “meaning of life” that “are insulated from evidence only in the sense that no scientific evidence would seem to bear on them.” 96 But he immediately dismisses the importance of this observation on the ground that “[s]uch beliefs are not my concern here, mainly because they are not distinctive to religion.” 97 What could he be thinking? His entire argument is built around the idea that religion is “a culpable form of unwarranted belief” precisely because of its “insulation from evidence.” 98 If it turns out that religion’s “insulation from evidence” is attributable to the fact that “no scientific evidence bears” on many questions of a religious nature, then religious belief cannot be criticized on these grounds. There is no reason to apply the “ordinary epistemic standards” of science and material observation to questions on which they do not bear. If Leiter is confining his “concern” to beliefs on which “scientific evidence would seem to bear,” he is leaving out most of what is central to religion, including beliefs underlying almost all claims of religious conscience, which are the subject of this book.

Leiter is entitled to confine himself to whatever categories of evidence may strike him as persuasive, but he cannot reasonably label as “culpable” or “unwarranted” the sincere conclusion of many persons, including thinkers of the first rank, that there are nonmaterial aspects of reality supporting religious belief. Leiter can no more disprove the existence of nonmaterial reality than religious believers can prove the existence of God on the basis of material evidence alone. A color-blind person might think the idea of color is bunk, because the evidence of his own eyes fails to reveal it, but that does not entitle him to assume that those who see color are engaged in a culpable form of unwarranted belief. He, not they, might be the one lacking.

As individuals, we might be justified in dismissing the idiosyncratic beliefs of small numbers of persons, especially when these people do not appear rational in other respects. But religious belief has been attested to by millions of seemingly intelligent and rational people over long periods of time, who report that they have experienced, in some way, transcendent reality. There is even, as Leiter admits, a “large literature in Anglophone philosophy devoted to defending the rationality of religious belief.” 99 Leiter chooses to disregard this testimonial evidence, along with its philosophical defense, without so much as “address[ing] . . . in any detail”—really, at all—the arguments that are offered. 100 Why? The only reason he supplies is that the “dominant sentiment among other philosophers” is that belief in God is “unsupported by reasons and evidence.” 101 With all respect, there is no reason to think that members of modern philosophy faculties have any special insights about God. But as we shall see, if you take away Leiter’s conceit that religious believers are culpably insulating themselves from evidence (as opposed to responding to a different kind of evidence), most of Leiter’s conclusions fall of their own weight.

Indeed, even for those who agree with Leiter as a matter of personal conviction that there is no persuasive evidence supporting the truth of religious belief, but agree with Madison and Washington that the truth of religion is not a subject on which the government should take a stand, Leiter’s conclusions do not follow, because they rest on the view that the state should treat religious beliefs and arguments as lacking evidentiary warrant. It is better to proceed on the premise that people may reasonably disagree about the truth or falsehood of religious claims.

Having offered a definition of religion, the next step in Leiter’s argument involves asking whether unique toleration for religion can be justified by several prominent arguments for toleration. Turning first to the Kantian (or better, “neo-Kantian”) argument, Leiter adverts to John Rawls’s well-known thought experiment in which we choose fundamental principles of justice under which we should be governed as if from behind a veil of ignorance—meaning we do not know what our circumstances (including our moral and religious views) will be, or whether we will be in the majority or minority. 102 Rawls concludes that while behind the veil we would choose to protect an equal liberty of conscience. We would not “take chances with [our] liberty,” because the value of being able to form and follow our own moral and religious beliefs outweighs any gain we might achieve from the possibility of being in a majority and imposing our views on others. 103 This supports legal protection for freedom of conscience.

In a revealing aside, Leiter questions whether Rawls is correct that people really are better off when “they can freely choose what to believe and how to live.” 104 He suggests that “many, perhaps even most” people “make foolish choices about what to believe and how to live,” with the result that they make themselves “miserable.” 105 Indeed, these people may “perhaps” not “make real choices at all,” but instead they may be “hostage to social and economic milieux,” which produce only the “ illusion of choice.” 106

This line of reasoning is ironically reminiscent of the seventeenth-century Puritan preacher John Cotton, an opponent of religious toleration in his day. Cotton argued that the

[f]undamentals are so clear, that a man cannot but be convinced in Conscience of the Truth of them after two or three Admonitions: and that therefore such a Person as still continueth obstinate, is condemned of himself: and if he then be punished, He is not punished for his Conscience, but for sinning against his own Conscience. 107

Cotton, like Leiter, thinks that those who disagree with him on the fundamentals are “culpably” wrong, that their foolish ideas will render them miserable for eternity, and that their mistakes are the product of something other than sincere conscience.

Having offered these authoritarian musings, cautiously cushioned in the form of questions rather than assertions, Leiter then disposes of them in this way: “These illiberal thoughts . . . have little purchase these days within the mainstream of English-speaking moral and political theory, though not, as far as I can tell, because they have been refuted systematically.” 108 Readers must wonder whether in an environment less constrained than the English-speaking mainstream, Leiter would attempt to pursue these “illiberal thoughts” more seriously, and what his answer would be. In any event, Leiter “put[s] these doubts to one side” and accepts, “[f]or the sake of argument,” Rawls’s conclusion that behind the veil of ignorance we would choose to protect the liberty to form and follow our own beliefs.

He then gets to his real argument. He points out, correctly, that Rawls explicitly includes “moral” along with “religious” obligations in his analysis, and thus that nothing in Rawls’s argument is “specific to religion.” Leiter concludes, therefore, that “the Rawlsian perspective cannot help us evaluate the principled case for toleration of religion qua religion.” 109

This is too quick. To be sure, Rawls does not explicitly address whether his thought experiment could be used to evaluate constitutional protections for religion qua religion, but it might. Behind the veil of ignorance, we do not know whether we believe in a supreme authority or not, but if we do, by definition belief in a supreme authority creates obligations superior to all others—in Madison’s words, “dut[ies] . . . precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.” 110 Leiter himself recognizes that religious beliefs involve issues of “ultimate reality,” 111 meaning “the aspect of reality that is most important for valuable/worthwhile/desirable human lives.” 112 From a Rawlsian perspective, from behind the veil of ignorance, there is every reason to protect our capacity to pursue that which “is most important for valuable/worthwhile/desirable human lives.” Indeed, as a matter of historical experience, many hundreds of thousands of real people have regarded their religious beliefs as so important that they sacrificed their lives, fortunes, social standing, opportunities for career advancement, and bodily comfort in order to worship in accordance with their convictions, in the teeth of official hostility and persecution. Their testimony counts for something.

The freedom to carry out our perceived religious obligations in the face of political opposition might be more important than the freedom to carry out our personal conclusions about right and wrong, for two reasons. First, we might think that adherence to the supreme authority of the universe is an ontologically superior obligation to adhering to what we, as fallible persons, might conclude about morality. That is what “the sovereignty of God” would seem to entail. Leiter himself comments that religion is one of the “few systems of belief” that actually “gives effect” to convictions about morality—that “those who genuinely conduct their lives in accord with the categoricity of the moral demands they recognize are overwhelmingly religious.” 113 Maybe there is a reason for that. Second, we might think that it is essential for governments to make and enforce moral judgments, even in the face of differences of opinion, but think it not essential for governments to make and enforce religious judgments. It is impossible to conceive of a government that does not enforce norms of right and wrong, but not at all difficult to conceive of a government that leaves religious judgments to individual conscience. At least behind a veil of ignorance, we might think these things, and might think they warrant distinctive constitutional protection for freedom of religion.

What is Leiter’s answer? He says that “it is hard to see how persons in Rawls’s original position, operating behind the ‘veil of ignorance,’ could reason, in particular, about the value of insulation from evidence and the categoricity of demands, let alone existential consolation.” 114 This is an ipse dixit , not an argument. It is nothing but an arbitrary exclusion of religious belief (defined in Leiter’s pejorative way) from the original position. The whole point of the original position is that the parties behind the veil of ignorance “do not know, of course, what their religious or moral convictions are.” 115 These might include a belief in God. And if that is a possibility, a party in the original position might think it is special and worth protecting, even if Leiter does not.

Leiter’s argument regarding Millian utilitarianism is even more problematic. Mill argued that we can discover truth, or be fully persuaded of the truth, only if we are exposed to a wide range of beliefs and practices—even if some of them are false. As Leiter explains, “truths about how we ought to live” 116 support “a wider scope of toleration, one that encompasses practices , not just beliefs. ” 117 Mill’s argument thus supports free exercise of religion, and not just speech or opinion about it.

Leiter, however, says “we can dispense with [these] epistemic arguments for toleration . . . quickly,” because “[t]here is no reason to think, after all, that tolerating the expression of beliefs that are insulated from evidence and reasons— that is, insulated from epistemically relevant considerations — will promote knowledge of the truth.” 118 In other words, because religious belief is totally without evidentiary warrant, it cannot possibly contribute to the search for truth. He fits religious belief into an apparent exception Mill draws for mathematical mistakes, where there is “nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question.” 119

The argument thus depends on Leiter’s tendentious claim that religious believers “insulate” themselves from evidence as opposed to recognizing nonmaterial evidence of a sort that Leiter does not recognize. Put aside Leiter’s personal convictions about the falsity of religion, which reasonable people need not and the liberal state must not accept, and his argument here fails. Leiter pretends to be arguing from Mill, but in fact he is arguing the opposite of Mill. I quote the passage Leiter cites from On Liberty , but in its entirety:

But, some one may say, “Let them be taught the ground of their opinions . . . .” Undoubtedly: and such teaching suffices on a subject like mathematics, where there is nothing at all to be said on the wrong side of the question. The peculiarity of the evidence of mathematical truths is, that all the argument is on one side. There are no objections, and no answers to objections. But on every subject on which difference of opinion is possible, the truth depends on a balance to be struck between two sets of conflicting reasons. Even in natural philosophy, there is always some other explanation possible of the same facts; some geocentric theory instead of heliocentric, some phlogiston instead of oxygen; and it has to be shown why that other theory cannot be the true one: and until this is shown, and until we know how it is shown, we do not understand the grounds of our opinion. But when we turn to subjects infinitely more complicated, to morals, religion, politics, social relations, and the business of life, three-fourths of the arguments for every disputed opinion consist in dispelling the appearances which favour some opinion different from it. 120

Leiter takes it to be a faithful extension of Mill’s position that science, like mathematics, presents a way of knowing that ought to be applied to all our beliefs because its empirical force has demonstrated its superiority beyond all argument. But Mill thinks nothing of the sort. For Mill, mathematics is a unique domain of knowledge precisely because the “peculiarity of [its] evidence”—namely, the way that mathematical evidence is not susceptible to objections or answers to objections—renders argument superfluous. Science (“natural philosophy”), by contrast, is just one more place where argument and competition among positions is needed in order to determine and justify our beliefs. And for subjects “infinitely more complicated” than science, such as religion , Mill regards the clash of various epistemic positions as even more essential. 121 Neither science nor religion can be resolved by dogmatic appeals to authority or the pretense that there is only one side to the question.

Here again Leiter reveals himself as the Anti-Mill. Take his reference to “[t]he large literature in Anglophone philosophy devoted to defending the rationality of religious belief.” 122 One might think Leiter would wish to engage with the ideas in this literature, in a Millian spirit, if only to prove why they are wrong. But no. Leiter says it “[s]uffice[s] to observe that its proponents are uniformly religious believers,” and that “much” of this literature has the air of “post-hoc . . . rationalizations.” He then resorts to authority—to the “dominant sentiment among other philosophers,” which, he reports, is on the other side. 123 The first avenue of attack is a tautological ad hominem. It is neither surprising nor disqualifying that philosophers who find religious belief rational are likely to be believers, just as philosophers who take the opposite view are likely to be nonbelievers. What does that prove, other than that there is a difference of opinion? The second avenue of attack—Leiter’s appeal to the dominant sentiment among supposed experts—is both elitist and authoritarian, in precisely the sense that Mill condemned. Religious ideas should not be put to a vote, not even of philosophy PhDs.

Careful readers will also note the inconsistency between Leiter’s use of Rawls and his use of Mill. Rawls does not comment on whether his theory would support a special role for religious freedom, beyond that due to secular moral beliefs, and Leiter takes this as tacitly rejecting such a role 124 —even though we can construct an argument, fully consistent with Rawls’s methodology in A Theory of Justice , that supports such a role. Mill explicitly states that his theory applies with particular force to religion, yet Leiter argues that it does not, employing an argument from expert authority that Mill would never accept. How can this be reconciled?

E. Schauer and “Governmental Incompetence”

Leiter also touches too quickly on one other argument—Fred Schauer’s “argument from governmental incompetence,” made in defense of the freedom of speech. 125 Even on the assumption that speech sometimes causes real harm that outweighs any possible benefit, Schauer argues that there is no reason to think that the government will make the right choices about what speech to regulate. Politicians are likely to suppress speech when it advances their own political interests, which is unlikely to coincide with the suppression of speech that causes the most net harm. The same argument can be made about freedom of religion, with even greater force. A cornerstone of the American constitutional tradition of religious freedom is the view—held by all stripes of religious opinion—that the government has no competence to judge religious truth.

Public schools can teach all kinds of nonsense, and people may not like it, but they confine their objections to ordinary channels. When public schools purport to teach religious truth, by contrast—for example, by allowing a prayer at a graduation—it is a constitutional case of the highest order. As a supporter of the Court’s School Prayer Cases , 126 I have gone on Christian talk radio to defend the prohibition of collective spoken prayer in school. The natural impulse of the audience tends to be to defend prayer, but when I explain that agents of the government should not be entrusted with the power of teaching our children how and what they should pray, even the most fervent believers usually come to see the wisdom of the decisions. Whatever our views on religion, no one trusts the government to guide our spiritual lives. That is what Schauer is getting at. Even if we would not be principled disestablishmentarians in a theoretical world where government officials are theologically trustworthy, the actual fact of government incompetence is good reason to deny them the power to guide the religious life of the nation.

Leiter’s reaction to Schauer’s argument is brief and baffling. After devoting almost two pages to explaining Schauer’s argument, Leiter offers one (long) sentence in response. He says: “Perhaps this kind of instrumental argument for state toleration is more plausible,” but “it does not tell us why we, morally, ought not to eradicate differing beliefs or practices, it tells us only that we (through the instrumentality of the state) are unlikely to do it right.” 127 That is not much of a response.

To begin with, Schauer’s is not just an “instrumental” argument. It goes to the heart of the matter. Government is not omnicompetent. It has a large, but limited, role in human affairs, limited to matters where collective coercive action is necessary and likely salutary. It makes no sense for a people to give its government powers that are outside its competence, and it makes no sense to talk about constitutional design on the assumption that government will always exercise its power intelligently and beneficently. Second, what is wrong with an instrumental argument? We might erect constitutional barriers to governmental action because the activity we are protecting is especially important to the individual or to society, and we might erect constitutional barriers to governmental action because the power we are limiting–the power to “eradicate differing beliefs or practices”–is especially inappropriate to government, or susceptible to abuse. Leiter offers no reason why the latter is less persuasive a reason than the former.

That the state is “unlikely to do it right” is evidently not, to Leiter, a deeply serious objection. He operates on an abstract plane where a magisterial “we”—those who share his own convictions and prejudices—control the levers of power. The entire book is about what this infallible “we” should do about religion. The American tradition of constitutionalism, though, proceeds on the premise that “enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm” 128 and that the “Civil Magistrate is [not] a competent judge of Religious Truth.” 129 Leiter’s dismissal of Schauer’s argument misses this important point.

III. the legal arguments

The conclusion of the first four chapters is that there is no “principled argument that picks out distinctively religious conscience as an object of special moral and legal solicitude.” 130 In Chapter Five, entitled “The Law of Religious Liberty,” the author applies that theoretical conclusion to two practical issues of First Amendment law: whether persons whose religious beliefs conflict with neutral and generally applicable laws are entitled to exceptions or accommodations, and whether state institutions such as schools may deny religious groups equal access to otherwise generally available public resources. As to the first, he argues that singling out religious claims of conscience would be “unfair” because it “arbitrarily selects some subset of claims of conscience for special consideration,” 131 although he leaves room for exemptions that would not shift burdens onto others. As to the second issue, Leiter argues that it is “consistent with principled toleration” for the government to discriminate against religious views of which it disapproves and to exclude them from equal access to public property and resources, particularly in the schools 132 —though he is careful to insist that this discrimination must not extend to “persecution” or the imposition of “coercive burdens.” 133

Putting these two positions together, religious beliefs and practices may not be given “special moral and legal solicitude,” but they may be subjected to special civil disadvantages and exclusions. It is “arbitrar[y]” and “unfair” to single out the religious “subset of claims of conscience” when this would protect the religious but not when this would disadvantage them. What theory could support these two conclusions?

A. Free Exercise Exemptions

Professor Leiter’s rejection of free exercise exemptions bears strong superficial similarity to the Supreme Court’s still-controversial 1990 decision, Employment Division v. Smith . 134 In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court held that members of the Native American Church have no constitutional right to use the drug peyote in their religious ceremonies, because the Free Exercise Clause provides no protection against neutral laws of general applicability. Leiter, similarly, argues that “there should not be exemptions to general laws with neutral purposes, unless those exemptions do not shift burdens or risks onto others.” 135

There are three important differences, however, between Leiter and the Court. First, Leiter’s rationale is entirely different from, even contradictory to, the Court’s. Leiter bases his opposition to exemptions on his belief that it would be “unfair” and “arbitrar[y]” to protect religious beliefs if it is not feasible to extend the same protection to nonreligious claims of conscience. 136 The Court, by contrast, primarily based its opposition on the jurisdictional impropriety of allowing judges to weigh religious needs against the importance of governmental purposes. 137 The Court did not think it improper for the First Amendment to single out religion, and in fact even stated that legislative exemptions for religious practices may be “desirable.” 138

Second, Leiter excludes from his “no exemptions” rule cases where the exemptions would not shift burdens or risks onto others. The Smith Court recognized no such limitation. In fact, because the ceremonial use of peyote does not harm others, Leiter seems to conclude that Smith itself was wrongly decided. 139 Once this exclusion is taken into account, Leiter advocates a far broader scope for free exercise exemptions than the general rhetoric of the book suggests—almost as broad, perhaps, as pre- Smith interpretations of the Free Exercise Clause.

Third, Leiter recognizes the danger that a no-exemptions regime might “open the door to state conduct motivated by antireligious animus, but under the pretense of legitimate, neutral objectives.” 140 The Smith opinion seems oblivious to that problem. The problem is especially serious because it is exceedingly difficult for courts of law to ferret out official pretense. Leiter argues that

if we had reason to think that it will be impossibly difficult to discriminate between the facade of neutral purpose and actual neutral purpose in legislation that burdens religion—then we might think exemptions for religious claims of conscience the preferable approach, notwithstanding the inequality such an approach entails and notwithstanding the burden on the general welfare. 141

That is a generous concession, though it ultimately appears not to sway him from his no-exemption position.

Leiter frames his discussion of the exemptions issue around one illustrative case: whether baptized adherents of Khalsa Sikhism, who have a religious obligation to carry a ceremonial dagger, or kirpan , should be exempted from general school regulations prohibiting students from carrying weapons. Leiter compares this Sikh believer to a hypothetical “rural boy” of the same age whose “family traditions and upbringing” call for him to carry a knife as a symbol of his identity as a man in his community. 142 He asks us to think about what should be done in the two cases. Should both boys be exempted? Neither? Only one of them?

Leiter says there “can be no doubt” that his hypothetical rural boy’s felt need to carry a knife is a “conscientious obligation”—indeed, an “equally serious obligation[] of conscience” to that of the Sikh. 143 In my opinion, far from there being “no doubt” about this, the idea that the rural boy has a conscientious obligation comparable to the Sikh is highly dubious. Strictly speaking, conscience is an individual’s judgment about right and wrong—such things as not killing innocent persons, telling the truth, and caring for your children. It strikes me as very unlikely that the hypothetical rural boy believes that his family’s tradition of knife carrying is a moral obligation of this nature. It may take away from “who he is” to deny him the right to carry a knife, but it does not make him commit a wrong. There are many practices tied up in ethnic or familial identity that are not moral in nature. This does not make them unimportant, but it does put them in a different category than that of “conscience.” A religious dictate, by contrast, is more than a question of identity; it is a duty.

As Leiter points out, “no Western democracy” would recognize a legal right on the part of the rural boy, though it is easy to imagine that rules against pocket knives might not always be rigorously enforced, especially in rural communities where knives are commonplace and useful. The Sikh, by contrast, has a good case. In the leading decision in the United States, Cheema v. Thompson , 144 the Ninth Circuit approved an arrangement under which the Sikh student was exempted from the “total ban” on “weapons,” provided his kirpan had a dull blade of only 3-3 ½ inches, was sewn into its sheath, and was worn under his clothing so as not to be plainly visible. 145 (The dissenter’s main point of disagreement was to think that the blade should be still smaller, and riveted to the sheath. 146 ) In other cases, courts have found that kirpans are not “weapons” at all, in light of their design and ceremonial purpose. 147 Leiter focuses on a Canadian Supreme Court decision, Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys , 148 in which the Sikh student was allowed to wear his kirpan without these protective limitations.

One might expect Leiter to say that these cases were wrongly decided at a level of principle, because it would be unfair and arbitrary to allow the Sikh student to wear a kirpan when the rural boy has no right to carry a knife. After all, the rural boy’s conscientious claim is “equally serious” to the Sikh’s. 149 But that does not seem to be Leiter’s view. “Certainly,” he says, “the state should tolerate the various religious practices of Sikhs under the general rubric of liberty of conscience.” 150 Apparently this is so even though no Western democracy protects the right of the rural boy to wear his knife, and Leiter does not argue that they should. Leiter’s reservation about the decisions—and it is an entirely reasonable one, even if I might come out the other way—is that the courts in the kirpan cases gave insufficient weight to the risk of harm to others. If the equality objection (no exceptions for religion unless there would be an exception for secular conscience) were dispositive, Leiter would not need to discuss the risk of harm. Leiter concludes that “both boys should be out of luck,” 151 but that is because he thinks an exemption in this context would create a risk of harm to others. If the harm could be minimized or eliminated—as the Ninth Circuit thought it could, through the protective conditions—it appears that only the rural boy would be out of luck.

Note what has happened to Leiter’s argument. When it comes down to the real case of the Sikh boy and his kirpan , the “culpable falsity” of religious belief drops out of the calculus, and the analysis shifts to what he calls the “side-constraint” of not allowing harm to others. Leiter’s position turns out to be “that there should not be exemptions to general laws with neutral purposes, unless those exemptions do not shift burdens or risks onto others.” 152 Another way to put this is: “There may be exemptions to general laws with neutral purposes unless those exemptions shift burdens or risks to others.” The real point of difference then becomes: How much burden? How much risk?

It appears that in cases where the Millian Harm Principle is not violated by an exemption, Leiter’s rhetorical case against “special” solicitude for religion turns out not to matter very much, if it matters at all. As Leiter understands, his hypothetical rural boy’s perceived need to carry a knife will not and should not receive legal protection. This is not because the law is hostile or indifferent to nonreligious claims of conscience. It is because the claim is too broad, too undefined, too unfocused to be enforceable as a legal right.

As Leiter recognizes, this practical problem of open-ended subjectivity is not true of religious claims, at least not to the same extent. “After all,” he points out,

a litigant who asserts a claim of religious conscience must reference a religion . Religions typically have texts, doctrine, and commands . . . . Membership in the religion in question usually depends . . . on participation in practices , rituals , and ceremonies . All of this gives the courts a rich evidential base for assessing the genuineness of a claim of conscience. 153

These practical differences lead Leiter to the uncomfortable thought that “perhaps we should simply extend legal protection for liberty of conscience only to claims of conscience that are rooted in communal or group traditions and practices that mimic, from an evidential point of view, those of religious groups.” 154 After a few pages debating the “unfairness of such inequality,” 155 Leiter concludes that “the inequality of treatment of claims of conscience is not necessarily fatal to a scheme of universal exemptions for claims of conscience.” 156 Translation: it is permissible, after all, to single out religious claims and those nonreligious claims that “mimic” religious claims, and to give them special solicitude.

We cannot know how different this revised position is from the pure protection of free exercise of religion without knowing how often nonreligious claims “mimic” religion in this sense. This might well be a very small category. Leiter himself observes that “those who genuinely conduct their lives in accord with the categoricity of the moral demands they recognize”—which presumably is the heart of the matter—“are overwhelmingly religious.” 157 As already noted, the Supreme Court found that the claims of two Vietnam-era conscientious objectors were close enough that they warranted religious exemptions, 158 but there have been no others. In the very situation Leiter uses to illustrate the problem—the Sikh and the rural boy—the latter claim does not sufficiently “mimic” the former to warrant legal protection.

Having talked himself out of the claim that “the inequality of treatment of claims of conscience is . . . fatal to a scheme of universal exemptions for claims of conscience,” 159 Leiter drops the subject with no further discussion—until the very end of the book, when he returns to the position that the “selective application” of toleration to the conscience of only religious believers “is not morally defensible.” 160 Even then, however, he equivocates. He reiterates his support for a “No Exemptions approach . . . to claims of conscience that are burden-shifting,” 161 but as to non-burden-shifting exemptions, it still appears to be his position that religious claims and those that “mimic” religious claims are entitled to exemptions.

How different that is from the current regime depends entirely on what he means by “mimicking” religion and what counts as harm. On the actual practical meaning of those key ideas, Leiter says almost nothing.

The question of free exercise exemptions thus turns out not to hinge on the philosophical arguments of the first four chapters, but instead on the application of the Harm Principle. Some religious exemptions entail harm or the risk of harm to third parties, and some do not. In the former category Leiter gives as examples “exemptions from zoning regulations for religious institutions, exemptions from mandatory vaccination schemes, or exemptions from a ban on knives in the schools.” 162 In the latter category are such exemptions as “the right to wear certain religious garb, or to use certain otherwise illegal narcotics in religious rituals.” 163 So, the Peyote Case was wrongly decided after all.

The analysis of free exercise claims has always taken harm to third parties into account. Madison wrote that the free exercise of religion should prevail “in every case where it does not trespass on private rights or the public peace.” 164 Most of the early state constitutions protected the exercise of religion up to the point that it endangered public peace and good order. 165 Prior to the Peyote Case , free exercise litigation turned almost entirely on questions of harm, 166 and cases governed by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act 167 and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act 168 employ that same standard. 169 But the idea of “harm,” or of “burden-shifting,” is not self-defining. If these are to be useful legal concepts, courts must be able to make defensible judgments both about degree and nature of harm.

Unfortunately, neither courts nor scholars have given serious analytical attention to what counts as “harm.” Leiter quotes John Rawls as saying that liberty may be limited “to prevent an invasion of freedom that would be still worse,” 170 which implies some sort of weighing or balancing of harms, to determine which is “worse.” That is not easy to do with any consistency or predictability. And Leiter refers many times to John Stuart Mill’s Harm Principle, according to which “the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” 171 But that statement merely begs the question: What counts as harm?

There are, of course, many easy cases. Leiter mentions that “the state need not tolerate . . . killing the infant children of the alleged heretics.” 172 No one will argue with that. But what about parents who make decisions about their children’s upbringing that others—maybe experts, maybe majorities—think are deleterious? A test case might be Wisconsin v. Yoder , 173 where the Supreme Court held that Amish families have a free exercise right not to send their children to school after the eighth grade. Was that “harm” in the Millian sense? What about prisoners whose religious practices—for example, a kosher diet—increase the cost to the taxpayers? 174 Is that “harm”?What about slitting the throats of chickens and sheep in a religious ceremony? 175 When members of three small California Indian tribes sought to block construction of a logging road through their sacred places in a national forest, was the loss of the economic benefits to the logging companies a Millian “harm”? 176

Outside the context of free exercise claims, we do not live in a Millian world. A great deal of modern legislation coercively adjusts the burdens and benefits of life, helping some at the expense of others, in ways that Mill presumably would not approve. Many modern free exercise controversies arise in the context of social and economic regulation that coerces transactions and dictates their terms. In our post- Lochner , which is to say post-Mill, world, if the problem is merely economic redistribution, there is generally no constitutional obstacle to these schemes. But what if the regulatory scheme demands a violation of conscience? From the baseline of the regulatory requirement imposed on everyone, an exemption for one individual can be said to “harm” the intended beneficiaries of the law, because they will not receive the benefit. But from the standpoint of the Millian Harm Principle, an exemption to such regulation merely returns the parties to the position they occupied before law coercively intervened.

For example, in the contraceptive mandate cases, the government has decided to shift the cost of obtaining contraceptives (including abortifacient drugs) from the user to her employer, through a mandatory term in the health insurance contract. There is nothing constitutionally objectionable about that for most employers, but what about those for whom providing abortifacients is a violation of conscience? 177 Leiter objects to “burden-shifting” religious exemptions, but what if the burden-shifting goes the other way, and the grant of an exemption would return the parties to a clearly constitutional status quo ante?

For another example, a wedding photographer in New Mexico, Elaine Huguenin, declined to provide her services to a lesbian couple, out of the conscientious belief that same-sex marriages are contrary to God’s will. 178 The couple easily found another wedding photographer. Were they harmed by Elaine’s refusal to film their nuptials? If Elaine had declined their business because she had another booking, or because she was going on vacation, no one would think they were harmed. It would appear that the only real “harm” was the communicative impact of Elaine’s action—the feeling of offense experienced by the lesbian couple because of Elaine’s reasons. In other contexts, the Court routinely holds that people may not be punished because others are offended by what they say. Yet state officials fined the photographer for her refusal, and the New Mexico Supreme Court recently upheld the fine as constitutionally legitimate. 179 Should we treat offense as “harm” in the context of a free exercise claim for exemption?

In an intriguing footnote, Leiter says that “to exempt Catholic priests from performing gay marriages would not be a burden-shifting exemption as long as gay couples can otherwise be married.” 180 From the perspective of harm or burden-shifting, that example is not different in any meaningful way from the Elane Photography case, unless the priests’ religious status is the driving factor (meaning that religion is “special” after all). Leiter purports to distinguish the case of a Catholic pharmacist who objects to dispensing morning-after pills on the ground that “depending on the community at issue and the availability of the relevant medicines,” this could be burden-shifting. 181 I say “purports” because in the two litigated cases involving such pharmacists, in Illinois and in Washington State, the evidence showed that conscience exemptions did not have meaningful effects on patient access to the drugs. 182 Thus, it would seem that, in Leiter’s view, the government should not be able to enforce public accommodation requirements or universal service obligations against service providers with conscientious objections, except in the rare circumstance where the service would not otherwise be available.

One more example: How does the Millian Harm Principle apply to the hiring of ministers by churches? 183 Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gives everyone a right to obtain employment without discrimination based on sex. 184 If a woman goes to seminary and is otherwise qualified for an available position, can an Orthodox synagogue refuse to hire her as a rabbi? Who is shifting burdens onto whom, and relative to what baseline?

Questions of this sort will dominate free exercise litigation for the next decade or two. My sense is that very few free exercise claims seek authorization to invade the private rights of third parties or to inflict harm (in the Millian sense) upon them. Most, instead, resist the blanket enforcement of regulatory schemes that interfere with natural liberty in a way that, in some cases, also burdens conscience. Leiter does not say much about these situations outside of footnote 11 to Chapter Five, 185 but that footnote suggests that the logic of his arguments may be more supportive of these claims for exemption than the more generalized rhetoric of the book would suggest.

C. Establishment of a “Vision of the Good”

The book closes with an argument that the establishment of religion is not inconsistent with Leiter’s conception of “principled toleration.” As a heuristic device, Leiter contemplates a “scenario in which the state, instead of disestablishing religion in the public schools, endorses a particular religion (say, Catholicism) and thus declines to let funding for public education be utilized for supporting Hinduism or atheism.” 186 This means, among other things, that “public school facilities” (such as classrooms in the afternoon) “would be available to the Catholic Student Society, but not to the Hindus or the atheists or perhaps even to the Republicans!” 187 So long as dissenters are permitted to express contrary views using their own resources, including wearing religious symbols or garb to school, and to attend alternative sectarian schools, 188 he says this establishmentarian scenario is consistent with “principled toleration.” 189

That is probably true. The government could use its prestige, power, and resources to support one vision of religious truth while still leaving dissenters free to dissent. The establishment of religion may be consistent with mere toleration, but it is not consistent with the “full and free exercise of religion” 190 that our founders adopted at the federal level in lieu of toleration. About half a dozen states pursued some form of tolerant establishment in the early years of the Republic, when the Religion Clauses did not apply to state governments, but all of them dismantled their establishments by 1833. No one, to my knowledge, mourns their passing.

Toleration might be the most we can hope for in nations of the Middle East, where the population is overwhelmingly of one religious faith and there is a long tradition of union between mosque and state, but for pluralistic liberal democracies, mere “toleration” would be a step backward. From the point of view of religious freedom or of liberal constitutionalism more generally, it is hard to see why anyone would prefer Leiter’s hypothetical Catholic establishment to a regime of religious neutrality. As Madison and others pointed out long ago, the establishment of religion is bad for religion, including the established faith, bad for dissenters, bad for government, and bad for freedom.

Leiter recognizes that it is “possible that a religious or irreligious establishment reduces citizens with differing views to a second-class status.” 191 But for some reason this “is a separate question,” which requires a “culturally nuanced inquiry.” 192 He says no more against it.

Of course, Leiter has no interest in establishing the Catholic religion. What he defends is the establishment of secularism, where we would use the public schools to inculcate ideologies of a nonreligious nature and prevent voluntary student groups from using the facilities on an equal basis for prayer or Bible study. 193 His defense of establishment is a disguised attack on the modern constitutional doctrine that the state must be neutral toward religion and may not deny equal access to otherwise open public facilities to groups on account of their religious point of view. 194

Now, the idea of a secular state may sound harmless. We often use the term, loosely, to describe a nonsectarian or nonconfessional state—a state that is not committed to a particular religion or religious worldview. 195 But Leiter is using the idea in a more insidious way, to denote a state that is committed to secularism as a substantive position—that is, to what he calls “irreligion, in the form of atheism or otherwise.” 196 The establishment of secularism would stand in the same relation to religious beliefs as his hypothetical Catholic establishment stands to Hinduism, atheism, and Republicanism. The whole point of this sixteen-page detour 197 into antidisestablishmentarian theory is to legitimate the use of governmental institutions, especially schools, to promote secularism or irreligion and to discriminate against religious speech.

A state that is neutral toward religion is different. Such a state may promote ideas consistent with democratic republicanism, but will not promote religion over irreligion or the other way around. It “may place its imprimatur on values and worldviews that are inconsistent with the claims of conscience of some of its citizens,” 198 just as—in the words of the Supreme Court—it may pass laws that “happen[] to coincide or harmonize with the tenets of some or all religions.” 199 But it cannot teach religion (though it can teach about religion in a non-catechetical way), and it cannot teach “irreligion” either. And when such a state opens its facilities to private persons for speech of their own choosing, it must neither favor nor disfavor groups on the basis of their religious or other beliefs. We should remember Justice Arthur Goldberg’s admonition in the School Prayer Cases that “a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious . . . [is] not only not compelled by the Constitution, but . . . prohibited by it.” 200

Leiter’s defense of the establishment of religion brings us back, full circle, to where we began discussion of this book. It seemed odd and anachronistic that Leiter would write of religious “toleration” instead of religious freedom. Toleration was a term associated with the religious establishment. As President Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, in disestablishmentarian America “[i]t is now no more that toleration is spoken of.” 201 It turns out that Leiter wants to return to the earlier regime, but with secularism rather than Anglicanism in charge. I hazard the guess that he will not persuade many readers not already predisposed to that point of view.

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See Alan Wolfe, One Nation After All: What Americans Really Think About God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Other 61-72, 69 (1998) (noting a high degree of consensus for the proposition that “[i]n a diverse religious climate, the proper way to treat conflicts between one religion and another is to give space to them all”).

See Sch. Dist. of Abington Twp. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).

See Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 132 S. Ct. 694 (2012).

See Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993).

For an account of the importance of the Religion Clauses to religious progressives, see Stephen H. Shiffrin, The Religious Left and Church-State Relations (2009).

See Pierce v. Soc’y of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925) (holding that there is a constitutional right to educate children in private, including religious, schools).

See Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418 (2006); Lukumi , 508 U.S. 520.

494 U.S. 872 (1990).

42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb-2000bb-4 (2006).

See Douglas Laycock, Free Exercise and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act , 62 Fordham L. Rev. 883, 896 (1994).

See Brief for the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion as Amicus Curiae Supporting Respondent at app. A, City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997) (No. 95-2704) (listing amici curiae supporting the constitutionality of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act); Laycock, supra note 10, at 895-96.

See Douglas Laycock, Sex, Atheism, and the Free Exercise of Religion , 88 U. Det. Mercy L. Rev. 407, 411-18 (2011).

Brian Leiter, Why Tolerate Religion? (2012).

Contra Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 132 S. Ct. 694 (2012) (noting, in a unanimous opinion by Chief Justice Roberts, that the Religion Clauses “give[] special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations”).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 63.

Id. at 122-26.

Id. at 121.

Id. at 102 (claiming that a regime that allows exemptions only for religious claims of conscience is “unfair” because an exemptions regime only for religious claims “arbitrarily selects some subset of claims of conscience for special consideration”).

Id. at 114-15.

Id. at 122-24.

Id. at 83-84 (noting religious resistance to Nazism and apartheid). Leiter shows no awareness of sociological evidence regarding the connection between religious participation and civic engagement, charitable giving, volunteer work, obedience to law, or other matters of civic concern. See Anthony S. Bryk, Valerie E. Lee & Peter B. Holland, Catholic Schools and the Common Good 312-43 (1993) (indicating, on the basis of empirical study, that Catholic education furthers students’ communal engagement, social responsibility, and personal development); Paul J. Weithman , Religion and the Obligations of Citizenship 36-66 (2002) (surveying empirical data on the role of religion in American democracy and concluding that religion helps to promote active citizenship).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 83-84 (noting Bernard Madoff as an example of harmful behavior driven by secular greed).

Other scholars making a similar argument against the special status of religion include Frederick Mark Gedicks, An Unfirm Foundation: The Regrettable Indefensibility of Religious Exemptions , 20 U. Ark. Little Rock L. Rev. 555 (1998); Steven G. Gey, Why Is Religion Special?: Reconsidering the Accommodation of Religion Under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment , 52 U. Pitt. L. Rev. 75 (1990); and Micah Schwartzman, What If Religion Is Not Special? , 79 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1351 (2012).

See Michael W. McConnell, Establishment and Disestablishment at the Founding, Part I: Establishment of Religion , 44 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 2105, 2114 (2003).

I summarize these events in Michael W. McConnell, The Origins and Historical Understanding of Free Exercise of Religion , 103 Harv. L. Rev. 1409, 1443, 1462-63 (1990).

31 The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, at 93 n.65 (John C. Fitzpatrick ed., 1939).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 13.

Id. at 8 (quoting Bernard Williams, Toleration: An Impossible Virtue? , in Toleration: An Elusive Virtue 18, 19 (David Heyd ed., 1996)).

Id. at 13 (“Some contemporary ‘liberal’ philosophers think the right posture for the modern state is one of neutrality, not toleration, with the disapproval the latter implies. But I reject the view that any state can really be neutral in this way.”).

In a later chapter, Leiter denies that his book is an argument “that religious belief per se deserves disrespect (e.g., intolerance),” rather hotly calling this a “pernicious conclusion . . . that is no part of the argument of the book.” Id. at 91. “Disapproval” and “disrespect,” however, are not far apart.

Id. at 14-15.

According to Locke:

[T]he care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God. And such is the nature of the understanding, that it cannot be compelled to the belief of anything by outward force.

John Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration (1685), reprinted in L ocke on Toleration 64 (Richard Vernon ed., 2010).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 10.

Id. at 8. (quoting Williams, supra note 39, at 19).

Andrew Koppelman’s recent book persuasively makes this theme the centerpiece of his understanding of religious freedom under the First Amendment. See Andrew Koppelman, Defending American Religious Neutrality (2013).

W. Va. Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).

James Madison, Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments (1785), reprinted in Religion and the Constitution 51, 52 (Michael W. McConnell et al. eds., 3d ed. 2011).

See McConnell, supra note 35, at 2193-205.

See Martha C. Nussbaum, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality 164-74 (2008).

Id. at 73-79.

Id. at 77-78.

  Id. at 68 .

McConnell, supra note 36, at 1443 (quoting Gaillard Hunt, James Madison and Religious Liberty , 1 A nn . R ep . Am . H ist . Ass’n 163, 166 (1901)).

Id. at 78-80.

Id. at 8. The phrase is borrowed from Bernard Williams. See supra note 39.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 34.

Id. at 29-30.

Id. at 34 (emphasis omitted).

Id. ; see also id. at 37 (positing that “one might think that all commands of morality are categorical in just this way”); id. at 148 n.17 (claiming that “an experience of categoricity is central to anything that would count as a claim of conscience”).

The principal definitions in both the Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionaries define “conscience” in terms of “right and wrong.” Conscience , Merriam-Webster , http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/conscience (last visited Nov. 26, 2013); Conscience , Oxford English Dictionary , http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/39460 (last visited Nov. 26, 2013).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 38.

Id. at 53, 55, 59, 60, 62, 65, 67, 80-81, 83-85.

Id. at 47 (emphasis omitted).

Id. at 52-53.

Id. at 46-47.

See Nathan S. Chapman, Disentangling Conscience and Religion , 2013 U. Ill. L. Rev. 1457, 1461 (noting that “religious liberty” and “liberty of conscience” overlap but are not identical).

United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163, 176 (1965); see also Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333, 340 (1970) (holding that “purely ethical or moral” beliefs may entitle an individual to a conscientious objector exemption).

See 42 U.S.C. § 300a-7 (2006) (forbidding health care providers receiving certain federal funds to require individuals to perform or assist in abortions in violation of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions”).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 1-3, 64-66, 93.

Id. at 39-40.

Id. at 94 (Leiter’s exclamation point).

This history is set forth in McConnell, supra note 36, at 1488-91.

Leiter , supra note 13, at x (emphasis omitted). Leiter sometimes seems to equate “falsity” with being “unwarranted,” see id. at 77 (“Religious belief is (epistemically) culpable false belief—that is, it is unwarranted and one ought to know it is unwarranted.” (emphasis omitted)), but some unwarranted beliefs are true.

For Leiter’s view of the kind of evidence that would support the reasonableness of religious belief, see id. at 40-42. For discussion of why this view of evidence is questionable, see Alvin Plantinga, Warranted Christian Belief (2000); and Nicholas Wolterstorff, Can Belief in God Be Rational if It Has No Foundations? , in F aith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God 135 (Alvin Plantinga & Nicholas Wolterstorff eds., 1983), which offer criteria for the application of the concept “rational” that do not indulge in reductive evidentialism.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 58; see also id. at 39.

See, e.g. , Marcus J. Borg & N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions 3-30 (1999) (discussing the impact of archeology, history, and cultural study in understanding the life and message of Jesus); Gary Dorrien, The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity 2 (2003) (describing the development of modern liberal theology in Protestant and Catholic thought as a movement characterized by the belief that “God was immanent in the evolutionary processes of nature and modern cultural development”); Hans W. Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative: A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics (1974) (charting the broad ranging shift from precritical narrative readings of the Bible to historical-critical readings); The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies 567-674 (J.W. Rogerson & Judith M. Lieu eds., 2006) (offering a collection of essays in Biblical hermeneutics drawing on archeology, textual criticism, literary criticism, and feminist theory); J ohn Polkinghorne, Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality (2004) (exploring the relevance of claims of science and modern physics to Christian theology).

See Thomas M. Osborne, Jr., Practical Reasoning , in T he Oxford Handbook of Aquinas 276 (Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump eds., 2012); see also Daniel Westberg, Right Practical Reason: Aristotle, Action, and Prudence in Aquinas (1994).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 27.

See, e.g. , Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 157-58 ( 3d ed. 1996 ) ( noting that a decision to adopt a new scientific paradigm often demands “defiance of the evidence provided by problem-solving. [The scientist] must, that is, have faith that the new paradigm will succeed with the many large problems that confront it, knowing only that the older paradigm has failed with a few. A decision of that kind can only be made on faith”); see also Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 341 (1st ed. 1979) (arguing that we should think of science as a “value-based enterprise”).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 149 n.18 (emphasis omitted).

Id. (quoting Alex Byrne, God , Bos. Rev. , Jan.-Feb. 2009, at 31).

See John Rawls, A Theory of Justice 207 (1971) [hereinafter Rawls, A Theory of Justice ]. Leiter declines to draw support from Rawls’s later work, John Rawls , Political Liberalism (2005), calling it an “unfortunate” development in Rawls’s thought, Leiter , supra note 13, at x, and asserting that it plays no role in his analysis, id . at 141-42 n.17.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 16 (quoting Rawls, A Theory of Justice, supra note 102 , at 207).

John Cotton, The Bloudy Tenet Washed and Made White in the Blood of the Lamb 13 (Quinta Press 2009) (1647).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 18.

Id . at 55.

Madison , supra note 50, at 51.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 47.

Id. at 38 .

Id. at 54-55.

Id. at 16 (quoting Rawls, A Theory of Justice, supra note 102 , at 206 ).

Id. at 55-56.

Id. at 57 (quoting John Stuart Mill, On Liberty 35 (Elizabeth Rapaport ed., Hackett 1978) (1863)).

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty 49 (Alan S. Kahan ed., Bedford 2008) (1863).

I am grateful to Mark Storslee for this point.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 80.

Id . at 12 (citing Frederick Schauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Enquiry 86 (1982)).

Sch. Dist. of Abington Twp. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 12.

The Federalist No. 10, at 80 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961).

Madison, supra note 50, at 51-52.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 92.

Id. at 102.

Id. at 123.

Id. at 104.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 4.

Smith , 494 U.S. at 890 (criticizing a system “in which judges weigh the social importance of all laws against the centrality of all religious beliefs”). The Court also purported to rely on text and precedent, but these arguments were unpersuasive. See Michael W. McConnell, Free Exercise Revisionism and the Smith Decision , 57 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1109, 1114-16, 1120-27 (1990).

Smith , 494 U.S. at 890.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 100.

Id. at 107.

67 F.3d 883 (9th Cir. 1995) (arising under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, prior to City of Boerne v. Flores , 521 U.S. 507 (1997)); see Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb to 2000bb-4 (1994)).

Cheema , 67 F.3d at 884, 886.

Id. at 892, 894.

See, e.g. , State v. Easterlin, 149 P.3d 366, 369 n.3 (Wash. 2006) (suggesting that a Sikh may argue to the trier of fact that he was not “armed” while wearing the kirpan ); State v. Singh, 690 N.E.2d 917, 920-21 (Ohio Ct. App. 1996) (holding that the trial court erred when it denied defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal because there was no evidence the kirpan “was designed or adapted for use as a weapon” as required for a violation of the state concealed weapon statute); Hof van Beroep [HvP] [Court of Appeal] Antwerpen, Jan. 14, 2009, L204 P 2007 & L205 P 2007 (Belg.), http://www.sikhs.be/files/IMG_0003.pdf .

[2006] 1 S.C.R. 256 (Can.).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 3.

Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333 (1970); United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163 (1965).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 99.

Id. at 133.

Id. at 130. Leiter uses the term “burden-shifting” not with regard to burdens of proof in litigation, but as referring to cases where protection for one person’s conscience would impose a burden on someone else.

Id. at 99-100.

Id. at 100.

Letter from James Madison to Edward Livingston (July 10, 1822), in 9 The Writings of James Madison 98, 100 (G. Hunt ed., 1901).

I discuss these provisions in greater detail in McConnnell, supra note 36, at 1455-58, 1461-66.

See, e.g. , United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252 (1982) (holding that the Free Exercise Clause did not mandate an exemption from social security taxes for an Amish employer because such accommodation would undermine the mandatory contribution system at the heart of the program); Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 406 (1963) (noting that infringement of a claimant’s free exercise rights can be justified by only “the gravest abuses, endangering paramount [state] interests” (quoting Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 530 (1945))).

Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (1993) (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb to 2000bb-4 (1994)).

Pub. L. No. 106-274, 114 Stat. 803 (2000) (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc-1 to -5(2006)).

See Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal, 546 U.S. 418, 437 (2006) (pointing out that the government had not advanced any argument as to why allowing a free exercise accommodation under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act would cause the kind of “administrative harm” recognized as a compelling interest in earlier cases); Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 720 (2005) (mandating that when considering a prisoner’s free exercise claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, courts take into account the burdens the accommodation imposes on non-beneficiaries).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 22 (quoting Rawls, A Theory of Justice, supra note 102 , at 215 ) .

Id. (quoting Mill , supra note 120, at 23).

406 U.S. 205 (1972).

See, e.g. , Beerheide v. Suthers, 286 F.3d 1179 (10th Cir. 2002) (finding a prison’s refusal to provide free kosher meals to claimants a violation of the First Amendment notwithstanding budgetary concerns).

Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) (holding that city ordinances prohibiting animal sacrifice violated free exercise principles).

Lyng v. Nw. Indian Cemetery Protective Ass’n, 485 U.S. 439 (1988) (rejecting the free exercise challenge to the government’s infringement on tribal sacred land).

See Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, 723 F.3d 1114 (10th Cir. 2013) (holding that employers with a religious objection to abortifacients cannot be required to include them in health insurance coverage).

Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, 284 P.3d 428 (N.M. Ct. App. 2012).

Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, 309 P.3d 53 (N.M. 2013).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 162 n.11.

Stormans, Inc. v. Selecky, 844 F. Supp. 2d 1172 (W.D. Wash. 2012), appeal docketed , No. 12-35221 (9th Cir. Mar. 23, 2012); Morr-Fitz, Inc. v. Quinn, 976 N.E.2d 1160 (Ill. App. Ct. 2012).

See Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & Sch. v. EEOC, 132 S. Ct. 694 (2012) (holding that a “called” teacher was a “minister” under the ministerial exception, which barred teacher’s employment discrimination claim against her religious employer).

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) (2006).

Id. at 126.

Id. (Leiter’s exclamation point).

Interestingly, Leiter adds that the alternative sectarian schools in his hypothetical establishmentarian regime are funded by the state “in the manner of Britain.” Id. at 127. Does this suggest that our current system in which the government runs secular schools and (mostly) refuses to pay the costs of religious alternatives is intolerant?

Hunt, supra note 57, at 166.

Leiter , supra note 13, at 129-30.

Id. at 130.

Id. at 120-22.

See Lamb’s Chapel v. Ctr. Moriches Union Free Sch. Dist., 508 U.S. 384 (1993); Bd. of Educ. of the Westside Cmty. Sch. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990); Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981); see also Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972) (applying a similar equal access principle to a radical political organization).

I discuss implications of the two meanings of “secular” in Michael W. McConnell, Reclaiming the Secular and the Religious: The Primacy of Religious Autonomy , 76 Soc. Res. 1333 (2009). See also Charles Taylor, The Polysemy of the Secular , 76 Soc. Res. 1143 (2009) (describing the developing and contested meanings of “secular” and noting that modern conceptions often emphasize some form of neutrality).

Leiter , supra note 13, at 129. To be sure, Leiter stops short of calling for an actual establishment of irreligion, but only because he has not (yet) “made the argument” that irreligion “is in fact a proper object of appraisal respect.” Id. That should not be a difficult argument for him to make, since the reason he regards religious beliefs as unworthy of appraisal respect revolves around the “falsity” of religion. See id. at 75-85. There is no indication Leiter believes irreligion is false.

Id. at 114-30.

Id. at 117.

Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 319 (1980) (quoting McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 442 (1961)) (rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge to the denial of funding for abortions).

Sch. Dist. of Abington Twp. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 306 (1963) (Goldberg, J., concurring).

McConnell, supra note 36, at 1444 (quoting 31 The Writings of George Washington, supra note 37 , at 93 n.65).

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Why Religious Freedom is a Human Right

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Daniel Philpott, Why Religious Freedom is a Human Right, The American Journal of Jurisprudence , Volume 68, Issue 3, December 2023, Pages 177–194, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajj/auae003

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This essay presents a fresh defense of the human right of religious freedom. It addresses two versions of skepticism of this human right, one a liberal variant, which questions religious freedom’s distinctiveness, the other a post-modern variant, which questions religious freedom’s universality. The case for a universal and distinct human right of religious freedom rests upon the claim that religion is a basic human good, manifesting human dignity and warranting a human right. The essay details four respects in which religion fulfills the meaning of a basic human good. Religion is a purposive set of acts, or practices; is a definable phenomenon whose core meaning is right relationship with a superhuman power; entails both an intrinsic good and derivate goods; and is universal in its scope. Finally, crucial to the human right of religious freedom is religion’s interiority, that is, its critical involvement of will, mind, and heart.

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Is religious freedom necessary for other freedoms to flourish.

By: Thomas Farr

August 7, 2012

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Table of contents, promoting tolerance and coexistence, preserving cultural and religious diversity, fostering individual identity, upholding universal human rights, counteracting extremism and intolerance.

• Shah, T. (2013). Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right. Beacon Press.
• Witte Jr, J. (2013). The Reformation of Rights: Law, Religion, and Human Rights in Early Modern Calvinism. Cambridge University Press.
• Neusner, J., & Chilton, B. (2002). The Golden Rule: The Ethics of Reciprocity in World Religions. A&C Black.
• Donnelly, J. (2013). Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Cornell University Press.
• Saeed, A. (2003). Interpreting the Qur'an: Towards a Contemporary Approach. Routledge.

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Why Is Religious Freedom Important Essay

Religious freedom is a fundamental human right. It is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in many international and regional human rights instruments.

Religious freedom means that individuals have the right to believe and practice their religion without interference or discrimination. This includes the right to change one’s religion or beliefs, and the freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Rel religious freedom are diverse and pluralistic societies where people of different religions and beliefs can live together in peace and harmony.

There are many reasons why religious freedom is important. Firstly, it is a basic human right which everyone is entitled to. Secondly, it promotes social cohesion by allowing people of different religions and beliefs to live together peacefully. Thirdly, it encourages religious and cultural diversity, which enriches societies. Finally, religious freedom helps to prevent extremism and violence by allowing people to express their religious beliefs in a peaceful and tolerant way.

Religious freedom is therefore essential for the promotion of peace, social cohesion and respect for human rights. It is an important element in any society which values diversity and pluralism.

“Religious freedom is the idea that people of faith may freely practice their religion without fear of persecution.” To me, religious liberty means being able to express my views on my beliefs and have them accepted. Religion in general implies a well-defined set of ideas about a life that goes beyond our current human existence. We also enjoy religious freedom; it’s an essential component of our existence.

It allows us to follow our own conscience, and not be forced into a certain belief system. This is a very important human right that we have, and it should be defended.

Christianity is based on the belief in one God who created the world and all that exists in it. Christians also believe in the Bible as the authoritative source of guidance for their lives. Christians are called to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves. The Bible teaches that Jesus is the only way to know God and have eternal life. Christians are called to share this Good News with others so that they may also come to know Christ as their personal Savior.

The importance of religious freedom cannot be understated. It is a fundamental human right that allows us to live according to our conscience and beliefs. It also allows us to share our faith with others and evangelize. Religious freedom is important for Christians because it allows us to freely practice our faith and share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others.

Religious liberty is, in fact, far more significant than most people think. Religious freedom is the human right to believe and act according to one’s beliefs. It also allows us to express ourselves strongly about our beliefs and practices them. I am a Catholic, and I consider myself quite fortunate. The term “Catholic” to me implies practicing the New Commandment and following in Jesus’ footsteps as well as His holy path.

Most people in the world live in countries where they are not free to practice their religious beliefs. In many cases, people are forced to conform to the state-sponsored religion. In other cases, they may be barred from practicing any religion at all.

This is why religious freedom is so important. It is the fundamental right of every human being to choose what they believe in and to practice their beliefs freely.

Religious freedom is also important for social stability and harmonious relations between different groups. When people are free to practice their own religion, they are more likely to tolerate and respect others who have different beliefs.

The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this includes the right to change their religion or belief, and to manifest their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an international document that was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. It contains 30 articles which have been described as declaratory and normative in character. The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled.

While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding, it is widely accepted as a moral code by which all nations should abide. Thedeclaration has served as the basis for many subsequent international treaties, national constitutions, and other laws.

The importance of religious freedom cannot be overstated. It is a fundamental human right that should be protected for all people around the world.

I am a Christian from the United States who has just completed a year abroad in Spain. The entire purpose of being Catholic is to love God fully. I have been Baptized, Reconciled, Communed, and Confirmed. After receiving all of these sacramentsthe first time was even more meaningful than before. Now that I’m part of my religious community, I feel so empowered and cheerful. As a result of religious freedom’s importance, we are able to learn about our beliefs.

Religious freedom is important because it allows people to learn about and practice their beliefs. It is a fundamental human right that allows people to live according to their conscience. This right is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.

Christians are called to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). This means that our relationship with God should be the most important thing in our lives. We should strive to grow closer to him every day. One way we can do this is by learning about our faith and sharing it with others. Religious freedom allows us to do this without fear of persecution.

Religions are man-made constructions, and the individuals who subscribe to that faith are referred to as believers. You don’t need any religion to learn about spirituality and develop yourself genuinely, and you don’t need any religion in order to understand spirituality and grow yourself genuinely. In order to appreciate the significance of religious freedom, it is important for you to examine all religions with an open mind. People have a right to think and believe what they choose without fear of persecution.

The freedom to practice any religion is a fundamental human right. It is enshrined in article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in subsequent international treaties.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted in 1966, requires that all individuals have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to change their religion or belief at any time. This includes the right to worship or not worship, and the right to manifest their religion or belief through religious observance, practices and teaching in public or in private.

Religious freedom is protected under domestic law in most countries. However, there are still many countries where people do not have the same freedoms that we enjoy. In some countries, people can be jailed, tortured or even executed for their religious beliefs.

There are a number of reasons why religious freedom is important. It is essential for human dignity and for the promotion of religious harmony. It allows people to express their identity and to build strong communities. And it is essential for social cohesion and for the proper functioning of society.

Religious freedom also has an important impact on economic development. A recent study by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs found that countries with high levels of religious freedom have higher levels of GDP per capita and are more likely to attract foreign investment.

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How schools like Harvard emerged as defenders of religious liberty

Harvard law school’s religious freedom clinic is led by a graduate of byu.

By Mariya Manzhos

BOSTON — New Jersey first responder Alexander Smith stood against a damask-covered wall lined with 17th-century French paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts. Dressed in a tuxedo, he had come here to thank the Harvard Law students and faculty who supported him in his fight to keep a beard for religious reasons.

Smith, a devout Christian, works as an air mask technician for the Atlantic City, New Jersey, fire department, fitting masks and refilling air tanks for the firefighters. He’s also a pastor in his community and a police and fire department chaplain. In these roles, he believes he has a biblical obligation to keep a beard. But the city denied his request for a religious accommodation, citing “ overwhelming safety concerns,” even though Smith said the beard would not interfere with his job.

Smith’s hope began to wane, he said. ”I wasn’t sure which direction to turn, if I should continue to fight or throw in a towel and give up the fight.”

But then he heard from two organizations: the First Liberty Institute, a Texas-based nonprofit defending religious liberty, and Harvard Law School’s Religious Freedom Clinic , a pro bono student program that offers representation and counsel to members of minority faiths on various religious liberty issues. “The hope that was seemingly lost was restored,” Smith told the audience of religious freedom scholars, advocates and students who gathered April 11 in the museum gallery for a gala recognizing the work of Harvard’s Religious Freedom Clinic.

A recent movement

Smith’s case is a fitting example of the ethos of the Harvard clinic, which is committed to bridge-building and helping students learn “what it means to serve and assist the needy and … provide access to justice,” said Josh McDaniel, the clinic’s director and an alum of Brigham Young University and UCLA Law School. “Religious freedom for all is essential to human dignity and flourishing, and it is imperative that we find ways to build bridges of understanding around the idea of religious freedom.”

While legal clinics have been around for some time — Harvard has 38 dedicated to various kinds of law — clinics dedicated to religious liberty are a recent development. The first clinic to specialize in clients in religious freedom cases, pioneered at Stanford in 2013, was followed by others at Notre Dame, Texas, Yale and Pepperdine universities, among others. Harvard’s clinic launched via Zoom in the fall of 2020, with just a handful of students scattered across the country.

Three years later, it’s now a 5-person shop that along with many more students has filed more than 20 amicus, or “friend of the court,” briefs and has four direct-representation cases in litigation or about to be filed, according to McDaniel. The group filed a brief defending the Western Apaches fighting to preserve their sacred land in Arizona, another in support of an Orthodox Jewish community that wants to meet on property that’s been sitting vacant for years, and one supporting a prisoner on death row who asked to pray with his pastor during his execution. In partnership with the ACLU of Nebraska, the clinic argued to protect Lakota religious beliefs of Native American school children regarding hair cutting.

“One can say it’s starting to look like a religious liberty clinic movement around the country,” said McDaniel, who clerked for two federal judges prior to his role at Harvard.

McDaniel’s sense of his life’s calling began to take shape early in his career. As an appellate litigator in California, his first case involved a small African American Baptist church. One day, after the oral argument, McDaniel, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and his Jewish colleague joined members of the Baptist church on the courthouse steps in a prayer circle. After that ecumenical experience, “I sought out every religious freedom case I could find,” he told Deseret News. So when the opportunity arose to help start a religious freedom program at Harvard, he pursued it.

Last week, for the first time in person since its founding, Harvard’s religious liberty community celebrated its work with an all-day symposium on religious liberty followed by a gala. Rabbi Eli Goodman, the founder of the Chabad of the Beaches in Long Beach, Long Island, and the clinic’s client, offered an invocation, praising the group’s work to defend “fundamental freedoms that form the bedrock of our society.” Nury Turkel, commissioner of the U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom and the first U.S.-educated Uyghur American lawyer, spoke about the threats of “digital authoritarianism” on democracy and religious freedom.

Turkel knows what persecution looks like firsthand — since coming to the United States in 1995, due to Chinese sanctions, he said he hasn’t seen his mother since his law school graduation and he couldn’t return home to attend his father’s funeral.

Why Harvard?

But how did a religious liberty program come to flourish at secular institutions like Harvard, or Stanford for that matter? Ruth Okediji, a Harvard law professor and a Christian, posed the question during her conversation with two judges during the gala at the Museum of Fine Arts, noting “This is not Notre Dame, it is not Catholic (University), it’s not even BYU.”

“Religious liberty is actually under a lot of assaults,” said John Bush, a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and a Harvard Law alumni. “Maybe that’s the reason it’s perceived as a need.” In an increasingly diverse and pluralistic society, the need has never been greater. “It’s perceived now as more of a need than when you have a more homogenous society, where everyone just went to the same place of worship,” Bush said. “It was taken for granted at that point.”

Thomas Griffith, a retired judge who served on the D.C. Circuit and teaches a class each year at Harvard, noticed that Harvard Law School has become an increasingly welcoming place for conversations about faith. Last year, for instance, Harvard Law School hosted the Faith and Veritas conference, a gathering of Harvard’s Christian alumni, featuring Robert George, Mary Ann Glendon, David French and others. “When I tell my friends about it, they are gobsmacked — they can’t believe you pulled that off,” Griffith said to Okediji, who played a key role in organizing the conference.

It’s incumbent upon believers, Griffith said, to protect religious liberty and show that religion “is an act of reconciliation,” especially amid debates about the purpose of religious liberty and growing secularization. Griffith, a fellow of the Wheatley Institute at BYU, invoked the divine origins of our rights as stated in the Declaration of Independence. “We’ve been endowed by our creator with rights and the rights that recognize human dignity,” he said. “I can’t think of any right that’s more important than the right to worship the creator.”

Representing the whole person

For lawyers, regardless of their beliefs, respecting and recognizing the faith of their clients is key to their work. It can be off-putting and disheartening when a lawyer dismisses his client’s faith or urges them to put it aside, said Okediji. “As lawyers we represent the whole person … and if that whole person comes with faith, we have to have humility to honor and to recognize that’s a part of who they are,” she said.

Griffith cautioned young lawyers against becoming “bulldog” litigators who lose sight of humanity in pursuit of winning. “As I see it, the legal system is one of the highest expressions of our sense of dignity,” he said. It’s those lawyers who respect the dignity of the person who tend to succeed, he said.

A good lawyer builds community even when they’re litigating a case, Griffith said. “I think a lawyer is doing her best possible work when she’s using law to reinforce the community, to bring together those things that were separated into one community,” he said.

Amid today’s unforgiving culture, religion creates room for forgiveness, Bush said, and this allows people to change. But judges need to separate personal forgiveness from judicial decision-making and upholding the consequences of wrongdoing, he added. Griffith echoed the judge’s duty to put aside personal feelings regarding a case. “When you put that robe on, it’s Caesar all the way down — you are an agent of the state, you are administering justice the way American people have told you to administer justice.”

Religious liberty cases often offer students a new lens through which to examine their own religion, McDaniel told the audience. He recalled defending a Muslim prisoner, who asked for accommodation for Ramadan, to allow him to adjust his meal schedule to accommodate the fast. The jail refused to grant the request. The prisoner opted for saving his meals on a piece of paper until he was ready to break his fast.

For two students who worked on that case — one Muslim, another a Christian — the case was a transformative experience, McDaniel said. The Muslim student helped deliver a copy of the Quran to the prisoner, reconnecting with his own faith. The Christian student, who had never planned to represent prisoners before coming to law school, came to see his advocacy for the Muslim prisoner as a Christian mission. “He realized that actually what I’m doing as a lawyer is teaching me what it means to be a Christian,” McDaniel said.

The support of Harvard’s clinic has enabled Alexander Smith to continue to “fight the good fight,” he said. In April, the First Liberty and Harvard Religious Freedom Clinic filed a brief in a federal appeals court arguing that Smith should be allowed to have a religious beard, especially since it doesn’t interfere with his job of fitting masks on his colleagues. His prayer at the conclusion of the night resounded across the marble-accented gallery: He invoked the need for courage, wisdom, empathy and “humility to recognize the inherent dignity and worth of every individual.”

The Importance of Religious Freedom

Freedom of religion essay introduction.

Religious freedom is a vital human right that should be ensured in all democratic nations. Without the freedom to worship or not to worship, it would be difficult to preserve other freedoms that society holds dear in America. It is for this reason that the U.S. Constitution supports the precise separation of the state and church. Moreover, the majority regard the United States as a light to the entire world serving a great example of the ethical standards that other nations should also uphold.

Since the establishment of this right, individuals of various religious confessions have often suffered discrimination mostly because of their religious beliefs. The struggle to protect religious liberty has long been closely linked to the civil rights movement. Over the past years, advocates of civil liberties and rights have repeatedly fought the attempts to restrict free religious expression and break the wall between the state and church (“Why You Should Care about Religious Freedom”, 2013).

Freedom of Religion Essay Body Paragraphs

Religious freedom benefits anyone since it creates conditions for development, peace, democratization, and other fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, nowadays, there are various instances throughout the world where violations of this most important human right occur. The protection and promotion of religious freedom is not a matter of the church’s self-interest. A lack of religious freedom generates social and economic discrimination. It decreases humans’ abilities to become agents and come together for peaceful changes. In addition, it may cause extremism and inter-community tension. If religious freedom is rejected, human prosperity and development are worsened. Upholding and promoting religious freedom is an important practice for the church to decline poverty as well as achieve development and democratization.

Contemporary policymakers have long sidelined the promotion of religious liberty as a niche concern. However, its significance cannot be understated. The opportunity to trust and distrust enables individuals to think critically and be assured in a matter of choice as opposed to restricting. A society that respects religious liberty also allows different claims of truth to compete with each other creating an atmosphere of civil respect, transparency, and debates. Regarding the basic role of religion in the culture, it makes sense to believe that a way the society treats religious assurance helps to identify its perception of human freedoms more widely.

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The U.S. model of religious liberty takes a strongly positive view of public and private religious practices. It does not mean that everything completed in the name of religious liberty is not subject to the rule of laws. However, it does indicate that the law should create as many opportunities as possible for the practice of religious faith. It is supposed that institutions and religious believers will take active participation in the life of society helping generate the public’s moral consensus and engaging in policy-making. In reality, the Founding Fathers of the United States regarded the religious engagement in generating the public morality as a vital aspect to ordered liberty and the success of their experience in self-government (Marshall, 2010).

Freedom of Religion Essay Conclusion

In modern times, religion continues to play a significant role in America’s public life. The majority of Americans continue to attach great importance to the religious practice and faith, family, raising children, and marriage in a morally supportive and prosperous environment. These values are shared in most of the highly religious nations throughout the world. Today, people regard religious freedom as their birthright. However, just a few governments around the world recognize it and far too many individuals have never enjoyed it. For many years, the U.S. Constitution has successfully safeguarded the fundamental human right of religious freedom. It is a good example for all human beings throughout the world and, undoubtedly, a great gift for the American nation that they should cherish to achieve the glorious future.

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Religious Freedom, Essay Example

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There is religious liberty to the documented sources on how it impacts every discussion input and their ability to understand every detailed historical analysis in America, which has led to controversial opinions. In the United States, the history of religion has seen it adopt and undergo many amendments to incorporate the establishment of diversified choices and show the importance of freedom development (Curtis 2016). The American religious society is still on a halt when pondering the main establishments in every clause of the existing religious beliefs and relative functions. The main question is relishing the existing establishment with a focus on understanding the importance of belief in religion to different human beings.

The declaration on the existing models states that someone’s belief in a religion should not be questioned on any grounds, and the declarations are only relative to function, and a unanimous decision can be handling the listed requirements on efforts planning and associational differences. A tussle in the court proved that it is important to understand a basic planning choice in understanding a positional requirement over the choices and options. Arguments by Murray shows that variated philosophical arguments can be essentially documented in a religious freedom context(Thomas, Jolyon Baraka 2019). In so making, the contented approach considers religious freedom as a natural law that protects human dignity

In Maryland, religious freedom and empowerment are used as a basic agenda in turning things around and analyzing major concepts, which serves as a philosophical concept in understanding and causing the emergence of western ideologies as a basic concept with development ideas. The state generational law is a relief system that brings firms’ belief into the proposition that the main declarations are prohibited from taking diversified state positions. The public office is a unanimous concept of position. Therefore any congress must make laws to understand the establishment of the diversified religious concepts that shall help redress the diversified differences in religious freedom. In understanding agenda, the United States safeguards interests in religion as the amendment provides freedom of expression belief and expression, and this makes the government request the damages and complaints, which has an indirect relationship right offering an establishment of religion having direct light access, which offers partial damages to complaints over religions and bars, anyone, from favoring religion against each other.

Religion is important and should be partial to all regardless of the relative social institutions. According to (Hurd, Elizabeth, and Shakman 2015), the admission selection in a school, for instance, was denied access from a radiotherapy class, which affected a major understanding of similar happenings, which questions everyone’s guiding principle as a regulated thought process and analysis. Similar happenings are observed as Dr. Doughterty tells Brandon that “religion is a field that requires to be exercised in another location.”Who guides this location addresses that religion cannot be practiced in any school despite the contributions that come with religion as a major undertaking into the required process. The major reason for undertaking various record labels is that an undertaking is anti-discriminatory, and every conscious choice is justifiable, which makes it entirely unconstitutional. Since every university should offer training to any qualified student regardless of their rational concept or choices, the federal court system calls for diversified cases on achieving this as a personal direction. This concept is key as every religious principal shall have a display showing the main regulated concepts in analyzing the main tools of practice as a major introductory element of success. This principle offers integrity when handling religion as it is direct from a morality of underlying principles of religion.

The morality concept underlies every meaning with a commitment to the underlying informational speech concept as a term for understanding the main laws of an individual as a justice system. Reiterating GeorgeWashingtons’ farewell analysis(Hurd, Elizabeth and  Shakman 2015) where every character is promoted as a promotional planning occurrence, the important requirements are offered as an object of interest, and the justice system is expressed as a tool of operation, which helps to build an analysis output. In his statement, He observed that religion could be a characteristic that operates on the minimum underlying principles as an objective planning agenda, and the expressions can be limited to options and choices. This can be a leading principle in understanding the morality of options when respecting the laws and the justice systems since everything is sustained in a built-in concept model where the sustainability of the main analysis impacts the choice planning model. The views and opinions are obligated to the religious freedom development concept where there should be existing regulations controlling the practice of religion.

According to ideals made in a court system, religious freedom should only be based on ideals, not concepts. The American government shows a morality of choice and operation when putting the decisions from self-regulated ideals on how religion can be conceived to show an end of an operation, and the basic survival skills can be a religious affiliation or adaptation to interest. A choice panel is a religious description of the ascertained interest in the program, which is ideal for any American system(Kaufman, Robert and Stephan Haggard 2019). The moral society observes a diversified conflict of interest, and this religion self affects the principled agenda from a pragmatic context, and the arguments are based on a religious operation.

The liberty of religion should be preserved as a necessary anchorage with a personal rule to the free will of choice and concept operation. This basic liberty agenda has tools for activity, and this is a liberation concept with an established choice of interest, which prohibits regional influence, and this is religion affliction which offers a free exercise of the regulated thought system(Thomas, Jolyon Baraka 2019). Moreover, the congress system should make no laws regarding the religious establishment. This can offer laws respecting religious establishment and planning, which offers confirmation of interest and prohibition of the choice model on a free exercise of the amendment with an average choice. The amendment observed in the constitutional affiliation offers a free exercise of will and planning; this makes everyone assemble

American technology follows the regulated knowledge gap and influences the prohibited choice of interest with a bridge freedom of speech and the right to understand amendment issues and criteria for the First Amendment in analyzing some of the religious affiliations as congress is limited from making any laws concerning having an establishment that affects comprehension of thoughts and ideas. The amendments and petitions are important in regulated awareness.

There are existing court cases, such as the Johnson and Gregory case, where the Republican conventional agenda protested the violation of interest held in Dallas. Moreover, in the Texas statute, the desecration of objectivity is venerated in defense of the  American flag, which was observed to be a religious emblem. Their reasoning was on a 5-4 basis, making it a religious symbolic speech(Thomas, Jolyon Baraka ,2019). In observation of the constitutional amendment is an offensive statement that suppresses the anger aroused solely based on apprehension, which is venerated in practices. The diversity observed in belief systems is conclusive feedback of the McCreary cases v.ACLU, which has led to the unconstitutional crisis, and this displays the ignorance of the political offices in some of the religious beliefs which led to the “establishment clause.”It prohibited access to religious beliefs, which happened to a different extent. Another case is a court examining the anti-bigamy statute in the First Amendment, which banned every regulated belief system which allowed the government to function regardless of the existing religious belief.

The American society, the statute shows that the religious practice in America is believed to be a public life crisis, and the federal government upholds this religious practice. The examination of plural marriage is a religious practice upheld in federal law courts(Lewis and Andrew., 2019). The republicans lament the religious trends in America, while the democrats hold a chain of mixed reactions over the issues. The gap issues show that religious activities in America are activity-based, and the dependence can only be manifested in a free-will organization that makes every one of the existing languages available (Kaufman, Robert R., and Stephan Haggard  2019). The religious basis is a religious belief, and organizations that seem to do good strengthen the religious organizations. American society believes that the republican institutions regulate religious institutions, making the parties have a highly regulated jurisdictional functional difference. The existing gaps are uniformly religious with a religious acumen under different religious Acumen, a religious role from a diversified societal outlook.

In conclusion, Religious Freedom in America can not be tolerated, and the amendments exist based on religious practice, which means discrimination cannot help different countries to diversify. However, a country can tolerate religion to a certain extent, which helps the government to speak against people’s discrimination with a regulated government belief. Altogether, the government should not discriminate against the existing religious difference since there exist establishment claws where there is supposed to be the authority with freedom of religion in the American government where the delegations have a standstill w with a civic authority. The constitutional basis is a provision on the amendment choices which prevents a vast majority of outcomes from any of their particular belief system, and this has been a destructive measure against involving the government in any of the existent affairs. The essential existence holds a diversified passion of existence holding a different position, but all the same, religious practice should be a liberty to every different individual.

Works Cited

Curtis, Finbarr. “The production of American religious freedom.”  The Production of American Religious Freedom . New York University Press, 2016. Curtis, Finbarr. “https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9781479823734/html/

Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman. “Beyond religious freedom.”  Beyond Religious Freedom . Princeton University Press, 2015. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400873814/html/

Kaufman, Robert R., and Stephan Haggard. “Democratic decline in the United States: What can we learn from middle-income backsliding?.”  Perspectives on Politics  17.2 (2019): 417-432. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/democratic-decline-in-the-united-states-what-can-we-learn-from-middleincome-backsliding/1D9804407AAD81287AA0CA620BABDEA6/

Lewis, Andrew R. “The inclusion-moderation thesis: The US republican party and the Christian right.”  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics . 2019. https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228637-e-665/

Thomas, Jolyon Baraka.  Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan . Class 200: New Studies in Reli, 2019. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=WQOHDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Religious+Freedom+in+America&ots=5VZKkyalIz&sig=b_lBgP6LeB3Jq-h4kSz6qYPWajA/

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The Importance of Freedom of Religion

Our country is a society built on freedom . While all our freedoms are spectacular, I believe that the greatest of them is freedom of religion. As stated in the first Amendment to the United States Constitution, freedom of religion prevents our govenunent from forcing citizens to practice any single kind of religion. Thanks to this wonderful Amendment, all sorts of religious practices have taken root and spread in our beloved country, from Catholicism to Hinduism . In fact, as reported in the New York Times and Staten Island Advance, my local newspapers, the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, proclaimed his interpretation of our Amendment in his recent Philadelphia speech, fittingly delivered near Independence Hall. We witnessed history unfold before our eyes, as the Pope moved people with his words, announcing that religious freedom is a "fundamental right" for all citizens. Freedom of religion definitely makes the lives of citizens of the United States better. As a citizen myself, I can say with resounding truth that freedom of religion has made life on Staten Island better. No person has to worry about being punished wrongly or being ridiculed for his or her beliefs. For instance, I can freely attend a Catholic school and Sunday mass. One of  my mother's closest friends is Jewish, but my family is Catholic. Thanks to freedom of religion, we can be very close with one another (I even refer to her as my "aunt"), despite the fact that we celebrate different holidays and believe different things. Most importantly, religious freedom means respecting the beliefs of others, and, in the words of Pope Francis, renouncing the use of "religion ... for hatred and brutality". All in all, religious freedom is a special privilege; it should bring all people together and encourage "peace, tolerance, and respect".

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Religious Freedom Essay

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Topic: The importance of religious freedom

Every year, I sit down to enjoy a Thanksgiving meal with my extended family. We share memories, joy, and laughter just like the Pilgrims did over 400 years ago. That is a memory every family can relate to, although most people have never thought about or don’t even know why they are there. The reason is simple: if the Pilgrims would not have stood up for their freedom and took a dangerous journey to the “New World” to get their religious freedom back, we would not have a Thanksgiving. If it was not for this, history-and Americans lives-would be completely different.

In England, there was one church- The Church of England. The Pilgrims were part of the Separatists, who wanted the freedom to worship God in their own way, but they did not have the freedom to. If you were found practicing a different religion, you would be thrown into jail. So, the Pilgrims merely took a journey to be able to just get back their religious freedom. 45 of the 102 passengers died on the journey. Would you be able to risk your life for religious freedom?

The Pilgrims left behind England to come to America, a land with religious freedom. In the 27 amendments of the Constitution, religious freedom is the first. It says this about freedom of religion, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” To me, those are the most beautiful words ever written. We are one of the few countries that have religious freedom and are able to do one of the most important things to me, attend a Catholic school. Catholic schooling is so important to me because the environment is safe, and I will not be bullied because of my faith. While we get this opportunity, however, other countries are not. In fact, they getting any opportunity except the ones their leader wants.

North Korea is rumored as the worst country to be a Christian in. Many Christians worship secretly, but many are found. Consequently, they are taken to a political camp where they are tortured with extra-judicial killing, extermination, enslavement/forced labor, forcible transfer of population, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance, rape, and sexual violence. Other cases go as far as hanging on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges, and trampled underfoot, according to CSW. Nevertheless, 300,000 to 500,000 people still worship secretly. Still, these Christians probably spend their days waiting to be killed. That is exactly why I am so grateful to live in America. People would have so much bravery to be a Christian in North Korea. But, they knew what was waiting for them-Heaven.

I believe Religious Freedom is definitely important enough to be the first amendment in America. The mistreatment that goes on daily in other countries because you practice religion is something that I have honestly never thought about until now. Thinking about what the other people have gone through, I think if the opportunity calls, I would give my life as Jesus did, and never turn back.

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The Importance of Religious Freedom in Contemporary Society

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