Today is Religious Freedom Day!
And there are ways to participate here at Daily Kos and on social media in this, the most important national Day that most of us have never heard of.
If this is new to you, here is the short of what you need to know:
Religious Freedom Day was enacted by Congress in 1991 and been commemorated by presidential proclamation annually since 1992. And not much else happens. But this year, as you'll see below, more than a dozen organizations recently decided to seize the Day -- to begin to reassert the true meaning of religious freedom and to more aggressively challenge the distortions issued by the Christian Right.
If this intrigues you, I have written a lot about it lately, so I won't restate the rich history except to briefly remind us that Religious Freedom Day commemorates the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom—written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777, and campaigned into law by James Madison in 1786. The bill is widely regarded as the taproot of how the founders sought to reconcile the relationship between religion and government, and epitomizes how these towering figures of American constitutional history understood religious freedom. (And that makes it a problem for the Christian Right, because the bill can in no way be construed as an excuse to discriminate against anyone, or to exempt anyone from adherence to the law of the land. Any reasonably thoughtful consideration of the bill and the relevant history illuminates how much distortion the Christian Right is seeking to inject into this foundational idea of constitutional democracy.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, among other things, disestablished the official state church of the time and provided that no one can be compelled to attend any religious institution or to underwrite it with taxes. It declared in ways that set the stage for the writing of the Constitution and the First Amendment -- that individuals are free to believe as they will and that this “shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.” Religious freedom was intended for individuals to be free from coercion by government and powerful religious institutions.
The key part of the bill is:
"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities . . ."
But in this dark time, when Christian Right dominated GOP majorities in state legislatures and Christian Right legal groups are trying to roll back access to abortion and create exemptions from civil rights laws, especially marriage equality -- all in the name of religious freedom -- progressives are stirring.
More than a dozen organizations affiliated with the Coalition for Liberty and Justice have launched a social media effort to refocus the meaning of religious freedom away from the redefinition promoted by the Christian Right. The Coalition for Liberty & Justice is a broad alliance of 60 religious, secular and other organizations that works to ensure that public policy protects the religious liberty of individuals of all faiths and no faith and to oppose public policies that impose one religious viewpoint on all. Member organizations will be promoting messages of religious liberty today -- in ways that make sense for each organization.
The groups that I know plan to participate are Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Abortion Care Network, Catholics for Choice, Center for Inquiry, Get EQUAL, Institute for Science and Human Values, Merger Watch, Methodist Federation for Social Action, National Council of Jewish Women, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, New Ways Ministry, Reproductive Health Technologies Project, Secular Coalition for America, National Lesbian Law Center, National LGBTQ Taskforce, Religious Institute, Society for Humanistic Judaism, and Political Research Associates, where I am a Senior Fellow.
Now true, we are only talking here about some op-eds, blog posts and social media. But it came together in a short time and the ideas have resonated widely and more deeply than any of us thought. People were not aware of Jefferson and Madison's vision of how one's religious views or lack thereof, or no matter how might evolve -- would have no bearing on one's "civil capacities." Knowing this, our eyes and minds are open in fresh ways. And we are glad of it. That is why the Christian Right wants to ensure that this stuff never really gets out of the museum. They will serve-up all kinds of distractions. They know it is dangerous for us to connect the dots of this history. (History is powerful.)
This is a remarkable start and you can be part of it.
In particular, I hope you will join in the Tweet Storm --the focus of which will be between 2-3pm EST using two suggested hashtags:
#ReligiousFreedomIs -- is a way to invite an online conversation about what real religious freedom is as well as an opportunity to recapture the roots of the history of religious freedom in America. So we might say, for example, #ReligiousFreedomIs knowing and discussing the real history of religious freedom. http://bit.ly/...
#ReligiousFreedomIsNot -- offers a way to highlight and object to the ways that the idea of religious freedom has been distorted to take away the rights of others and to justify bigotry. So we might say #ReligiousFreedomIsNot an opportunity to take away the rights of others. http://bit.ly/...
Here are a few Twitter handles of groups likely to be active in the Tweet Storm
@AmericansUnited @Catholics4Choice @PRAEyesRight
