BJC's Brent Walker Responds to Justice Department Initiative
Last night I wrote about the Department of Justice's new religious liberty initiative called the "First Freedom Project," unveiled by Attorney General Gonzales at the executive committee meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention. Today, Rev. Brent Walker, Director of the Baptist Joint Committee, offers his comments on the Project, and the religious liberty record of the administration that now proposes it:
We are happy anytime religious liberty -our first freedom - is given the positive attention that it deserves. But this administration's record on protecting religious freedom is mixed.The First Amendment has two protections for religious freedom - prohibition on religious establishments and protection for free exercise of religion. The administration has often ignored the importance of the no establishment principle by supporting attempts of governments to endorse a religious message, using tax dollars to fund pervasively religious organizations, allowing religious discrimination in hiring for federally funded projects, and going to the Supreme Court to cut back on the rights of citizens to challenge such practices.
Even in free exercise cases, although usually more sympathetic, the administration's record is not perfect. For example, when it sought to limit the ability of a small sect to ingest a mildly hallucinogenic tea in worship, the Supreme Court - with Chief Justice John Roberts authoring the opinion- rebuffed the government, 9-0.
Government should protect religion, but never promote it; accommodate religion, but never advance it. Simply put, religious liberty is most secure when government stays neutral toward religion leaving it up to the free and voluntary choices of the faithful.