I’d suggest reading Jeff Sessions’ full speech he gave during this announcement:
“Let us be frank. A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated.
This election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends. Such a reversal will not just be done with electoral victories, but by intellectual victories.
We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law; where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit; and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a “hate group” on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs.
This President and this Department of Justice are determined to protect and even advance this magnificent heritage.
Freedom of religious is indeed our “first freedom”—being the first listed right of our First Amendment.
This has been a core American principle from the beginning. It is one of the reasons that this country was settled in the first place. The promise of freedom of conscience brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth, the Catholics to Maryland, the Quakers to Pennsylvania, the Scot-Presbyterians to the middle colonies, and Roger Williams to Rhode Island.
Each one of these groups and others knew what it was like to be hated, persecuted, outnumbered, and discriminated against. Each one knew what it was like to have a majority try to force them to deny their natural right to practice the faith they held dear.
Our Founders gave religious expression a double protection in the First Amendment. Not only do we possess freedom to exercise our beliefs but we also enjoy the freedom of speech. Our Founders’ understanding of and commitment to religious freedom was truly brilliant as well as historic.
It arose in large part from the principals delineated in the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—and its effective advocates: Madison and Jefferson. These guys were ferocious. This weekend, I was rereading Gary Will’s fabulous book, Head and Heart, in which he quotes extensively from the Jefferson’s Statute, as he refers to it. I commend all of it to you; but one line stood out in particular to me, “That almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested His supreme will that free it shall remain, by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint.”
Of course, this is entirely consistent with another of my favorite Jefferson quotes that you will find at his memorial just across the mall from where we are today: “For I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” This is what our Founders believed.
They clearly recognized that an individual’s relationship to God is a natural right and precedes the existence of the state, and is not subject to state control. These concepts were placed into our Constitution and laws and formed a national consensus that has greatly militated against religious hostility and violence—and has helped us to this day to be one of the world’s most diverse religious people.
There can be no doubt that we are stronger as a nation because of the contribution of religious Americans.
Every day across America, they feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, educate our young people, and care for the sick. They do so not because the government tells them to, but because they want to. They do these things because of their faith. Their faith provides something the state can never provide—meaning and purpose and joy in their life.
But in recent years, the cultural climate in this country—and in the West more generally—has become less hospitable to people of faith. Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack.
And it’s easy to see why. We’ve seen nuns ordered to buy contraceptives. We’ve seen U.S. Senators ask judicial and executive branch nominees about dogma—even though the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test for public office. We’ve all seen the ordeal faced so bravely by Jack Phillips.
Americans from a wide variety of backgrounds are concerned about what this changing cultural climate means for the future of religious liberty in this country.
President Trump heard this concern.
I believe this unease is one reason that he was elected. In substance, he said he respected people of faith and he promised to protect them in the free exercise of their faith. He declared we would say “Merry Christmas” again.”
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