(Cross posted from MyDD)
Freedom of conscience is not only a value, it is the fundamental American value that superceeds all other political values. The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights have freedom of conscience as the fundamental building block of all our rights.
Freedom Forever has a thorough survey of all of the different ways that freedom of conscience impinges on every aspect of American life. The arguments have the standard libertarian flaw of valuing liberty over all other values, but it makes an important point. Freedom of conscience is central to all of our basic freedoms.
As an aside and as a building block, the three great political values are justice, liberty and equality. Of these three fundamental values, from which all other political values are derived, justice is the greatest.
You can imagine a society with too much freedom or too much equality. It is impossible to imagine a society with too much justice.
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