One of the hallmarks of religious liberty protections is that they protect people of all faiths, even if their beliefs seem unfounded, flawed, implausible, or downright silly. Recognition of a right to religious freedom does not, however, depend on religious skepticism, relativism, or indifferentism. Rather, it rests on the intelligible value of the religious quest—the activities of seeking to understand the truth about ultimate questions and conforming one's life accordingly with authenticity and integrity.
The Catholic Church committed itself to precisely this understanding of religious freedom in the Declaration on Religious Liberty of the Second Vatican Council, Dignitatis Humanae. In doing so, it did not embrace the idea that “error has rights.” Rather, it recognized that people have rights—including the right to pursue religious truth and, within the limits of justice and the common good, to act on their judgments of what truth demands. All people possess these fundamental rights, even when they are, in some respects, in error. Kevin Seamus Hasson, the founder of the Becket Fund, captured this in the title of his book The Right to Be Wrong. Hasson rightly argues that religious liberty is for A to Z, Anglicans to Zoroastrians.
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