Sen. Hatch on Preserving Religious Freedom "As Social Reality and Constitutional Principle"

Sen. Orrin Hatch has been a great proponent of religious freedom, leading the sponsorship of statutes like RFRA and RLUIPA. He just gave the keynote address at the annual symposium of BYU's international law and religion center, where he spoke about both the achievement of religious liberty in America and the sobering, multiplying challenges to it.

I'm gratified that he started off with a quote from me that  "one of America’s greatest contributions to the world"--one that must be preserved and strengthened--"has been establishing religious freedom as both social reality and constitutional principle." He goes on:

Nor is religious freedom a uniquely American ideal.  In 1948, after the horror of World War II, numerous nations, including the United States, signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Article 18 of that Declaration states that every person has a fundamental right to freedom of religion, including “freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”

Here again we see the three dimensions of truly robust religious freedom: belief and behavior, private and public, individual and collective.  Genuine religious freedom exists when these three dimensions are both social reality and constitutional principle, and are understood as fundamental.

Then he talks about the threats to religious liberty today--many of us know them well, but it's a useful summary. And he ends with some thoughts on how "to strengthen religious freedom as both social reality and constitutional principle," like:

Sixth, we must affirm our own individual faith and devotion.  As community leaders, we have the ability to reach and influence broad audiences.  By publicly affirming our faith, we both show that faith does have a place in the public sphere, and show community members that their leaders place a priority on religion.  This does not mean we should become public pastors.  But it does mean we should not be shy about our own beliefs.  By demonstrating that religion is important to our own self-identity and desire to serve, we show our community members that religion is a thing of value and source of motivation.

And who knows?  Showing others how religion has changed our lives may spark a desire in them to seek greater devotion in their own lives.  There can be no greater protector of religious liberty than a society composed of individuals who actually value religion.

Right. Religious liberty protects the ability to have a vibrant, outward-looking, growing faith, but it works the other way too: as John Garvey, Steve Smith, and others have emphasized, religious liberty will be protected if (and only if) there are lots of believers and they can't be ignored. It's also crucial (and I know Sen. Harch would agree) that the manner of doing so be humble and service-oriented, never about the religious believer's "prerogatives."