From the writings of the Founding Fathers to headlines in the news today, religious liberty has long been a “vital and vulnerable” concept in the American experiment, according
to Richard W. Garnett.
A professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame known for his expertise on the First Amendment, Garnett spoke on “Challenges to Religious Freedom in America Today” at the University of Toledo on March 26.
Garnett, whose latest book, “Two There Are: Understanding the Separation of Church and State,” will be published by Cambridge University Press, said he believes that religious
freedom, including the freedom to reject religion, “is a human right grounded in dignity and essential for human flourishing.”
He said the nation’s Founding Fathers considered religious freedom to be “a crucial prerequisite for the success of this new political experiment.”
One of the most visible flashpoints on religious liberty today is the federal mandate by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which requires employers to provide
birth control and some abortifacient drugs to employees even if such provisions violate the religious tenets of employers such as Catholic hospitals and colleges.
The resolution of the HHS mandate is still being determined in courts and administrative actions, Garnett said, but similar church-state tensions date back to the American Revolution and span a broad range of issues today.
Religious freedom controversies in the news include whether schoolchildren should be required to say the words “under God” when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; whether the Ten Commandments can be displayed in a courtroom, and if government meetings can open with prayer.
“Engaging questions like these require us to dig down a bit and to identify the foundations and the context of the freedom of religion,” Garnett said.
He cited an observation by President Bill Clinton that religious freedom is “literally our first freedom.”
“His point, to be clear, was not simply that religious liberty happens to come first in what we now have as the Bill of Rights; his point instead was that the freedom of religion was central to the founders’ vision for our new political community,” Garnett said. “To say this is not to say or claim that America is or was or should be a ‘Christian nation,’” he added.
“It’s just to observe that our Constitution was not designed to displace or defeat religion, or to displace faith with state worship. Its aim instead was to build a stable, enduring political community that would be stronger precisely because it recognized that religious freedom is foundational.”
The First Amendment’s legal structure allows the flourishing of what Pope Benedict XVI referred to with admiration as America’s “healthy secularity,” Garnett said, adding that it is
human nature to be both political and religious and “nothing in the text, history or structure of the Constitutions requires us to deny this.”
The religious freedom protections included in the Constitution were not “accidents” or “aberrations,” Garnett said, but designed to safeguard and support religion “so it can flourish” and “to protect everyone, believers and nonbelievers alike, against coercion on religious matters.”
He suggested there are three approaches toward religious liberty:
-“Freedom from religion,” which considers religion “as a social reality but regards it as somewhat of a danger to the common good.”
-“Freedom of religion,” emphasizing toleration and neutrality, and treating religion as “something that matters to many people and so the law should not single it out for special discrimination or hostility.”
-“Freedom for religion,” an approach Garnett said is most consistent with the vision of the Founding Fathers and American ideals.
“According to this approach, the search for religious truth is acknowledged as an important human activity. It’s willing to say that religion is special — so special that the government ought not to interfere with it or direct it.”
Describing religious liberty as “robust but incomplete,” Garnett urged Americans to be “proud but also vigilant.”
David Yonke is the editor and community manager of Toledo Faith & Values (ToledoFAVS.com), a website that provides nonsectarian news coverage of religion,
faith and spirituality in the Toledo area.
