The Battle for Religious Liberty Will Be Won on the Field of Education

The first clause of the first of the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution enshrines religious liberty. The opening words of the Bill of Rights accord this honor to religious liberty because, if government were to establish a state religion or interfere with the free exercise of religion, our other precious liberties would sustain a blow. It is a short step from government’s prescribing beliefs and dictating practices concerning citizens’ fundamental duties and highest hopes to government’s depriving citizens of their property and imprisoning them for deviating from the state’s religious—or irreligious, or anti-religious—orthodoxy.

The First Amendment also underscores the intimate connection between the protection of religious liberty and the exercise of political liberty by immediately following the prohibitions on governmental establishment and state regulation of religion with guarantees of freedom of speech, press, assembly, and petition of government.

Any threat to religious liberty in America, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights teaches, endangers all liberties.