Religious freedom is a fundamental freedom that runs deeper and reaches farther than many realize.

What Americans Know About Religious Freedom

Most Americans know that religious freedom is one of the most basic freedoms guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Frequently called the “first freedom,” freedom of religion is prominent in the American founding documents and gives rise to many other freedoms.

It is a fundamental human right — one that is now protected in the laws of many nations around the world and in global compacts like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Americans generally recognize and revere religious freedom as one of the unalienable freedoms they can claim.

Yet despite Americans’ awareness of religious freedom and a common perception that it is something of profound worth, research suggests that many Americans aren’t entirely clear about what it means. As a result, they also don’t fully understand why it is so critical and what it requires.

Studies do suggest that most Americans grasp the basic concept. For the average citizen, religious freedom is the right enjoyed by many in the free world to believe the things about God and about moral truth that they choose to believe, as well as the right to honor those beliefs in worship, if they want to. Intuitively, this makes sense. It would not be right for someone to be coerced in matters of religious belief or morality, or prohibited from worshipping according to their conscience.

But while these private and inward activities are vital parts of religious freedom, they do not encompass the whole of it. Religious freedom is actually much broader and deeper than this description suggests. More fundamentally,

“Religious freedom — akin to “freedom of conscience” — is the human right to think and believe and also to express and act upon what one deeply believes according to the dictates of his or her moral conscience.  

This freedom applies to those
who adhere to religious beliefs and those who do not.

(Gingrich took CNN’s John King to task for opening
the debate with a question about the explosive allegation
by the former Speaker of the House’s ex-wife
that he wanted an “open marriage.”)The full picture of religious freedom reveals a deep liberty that goes much further than the right to believe as one chooses and that extends well beyond the right to private devotion in one’s place of worship or home. Indeed, religious freedom is not merely interior and private, to be enjoyed internally in our minds and in the privacy of personal life. It also incorporates the right to act according to one’s moral beliefs and convictions. And more than the freedom to worship privately, it is the right to to live one’s faith freely and in public.

(Mitt and Ann Romney with Grandchildren)

Beliefs lead to actions, and freedom to believe, without the ability to act on that belief within the bounds of law, is no freedom at all. Most will agree that moral and religious beliefs don’t mean much if they don’t influence the way we live.

In other words, we expect religious beliefs to influence the way that people behave, how they raise families and how they treat others. And indeed, religious freedom protects the right of individuals to act in line with their religious beliefs and moral convictions. Religious freedom does not merely enable us to contemplate our convictions; it enables us to execute them.

Mitt and Ann Romney Family

Because of this, religion cannot be confined to the sphere of private life. Certainly religious freedom protects the rights of individuals to observe their religion within the walls of private spaces. But religious and moral speech is also protected in the free air of the public domain. Whether in the town hall, in the newspaper column, on the Internet or elsewhere in the public sphere, people with moral convictions are entitled by their religious freedom to share those convictions, to reason and persuade, and to advocate their vision for society.

Research suggests, in fact, that religious people in the United States contribute to, enrich and improve society. They tend to demonstrate a disproportionate level of social virtues like neighborliness, generosity, service and civic engagement. Hence it is not only required by religious freedom for religious people and their voices to be welcome in the public sphere; it strengthens the civic fabric of society.[2]

Practicing and Protecting Religious Freedom

“And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.” 2 Ne. 25: 26

“Strengthening The Family – Spiritually”