Religious liberty is America’s most distinctive contribution to humankind. The genius of American religious liberty is that we protect every American’s religious beliefs and practices, no matter how unpopular or unfashionable they may be. By protecting all religious beliefs and practices regardless of their popularity or political power, religious liberty makes it possible for citizens who hold very different worldviews to live peaceably together. Robust religious liberty avoids a political community riven along religious lines.
But religious liberty is fragile, too easily taken for granted, and too often neglected. A leading religious liberty scholar, Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia, recently warned: “For the first time in nearly 300 years, important forces in American society are questioning the free exercise of religion in principle—suggesting that free exercise of religion may be a bad idea, or at least, a right to be minimized.”
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