While the promotion of religious liberty sounds relatively innocuous, there have been growing voices standing against such a foreign policy as practiced by the United States, Canada, and some Western European nations. Prof. Daniel Philpott, professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame, examines the basis for a number of these critiques and responds to them, arguing that religious liberty is a universal human right that should be protected and promoted both by official policy and private initiative.
We start with a short discussion about Danâ??s collegial blog (with other scholars) entitled Arc of the Universe. After informing Tony that it is not about astronomy, he explains how the title originated from one of Martin Luther Kingâ??s sayings with respect to justice and what the bloggers write about over at that website. Many of the issues we address today can be found written at Arc of the Universe. Dan then briefly surveys how the issue of religious liberty became a topic of concern for US and Western European foreign policy, dating back to the 1999 International Religious Freedom Act, and what that policy is intended to do.
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