religion and freedom

Updated March 2025

About four hundred years ago, a series of minor religious sects fled persecution in the Old World to establish better lives, with the prospect of real freedom of worship. In fact, freedom from all forms of oppression was a significant driver of migration to the New World. At roughly the same time, the ideals of the Enlightenment were taking hold. Where the values converged, social and civic outcomes were an example and influence around the world. Where they diverged, such as the separation of church and state, the simmering conflict challenged the peace of the new democracies, resisted the elevation of rights, and left simmering divisions scientific research and education.

American culture is still shaped today by the core Christian values of those early immigrants. The cultural traits of “good honest living” and “hard work” flow out of the Protestant values carried with those early Christian colonizers. It was this hard working ethic that always surprised adversaries of the new American democracy, their ability to “put the shoulder to the wheel” gave the country spectacular productivity and made it a formidable adversary.

Unfortunately, these religious and spiritual values also came with other pernicious traits. Some sects, like the Mennonites, closed themselves off from outside heathens and they remain mostly closed and deeply anachronistic communities to this day. Others looked outward, and sought to shape the broader culture and policies of the new country to their Christian values. This continues today with a strong domestic influence and a global reach, through the efforts of evangelical mega-churches and the Mormons.

In contrast with the growing geographic reach of some churches, the overall levels of adherence to religious worship has been on a steady decline the whole time. In the early 20th century, more than 70% of Americans considered themselves strongly religious, now only about 30% of US citizens consider themselves strongly attached to a religion. It’s this combination of increased power, yet declining membership that has set the stage for conflict. Religious groups now have more influence for a smaller, more fanatic set of values.

A flaw of democracy, is its ability to inflict the will of the majority on weak minorities, hence the need for a strong suite of rights protections. It was for this reason that protections for religious freedom were written into the US constitution. A pioneering feat in 1791 to prevent persecution of the minor sects from spreading from Europe to America. Unfortunately, we now know, the cohesive organization of the faithful gives them out sized power at the ballot box, when compared to the diverse voting habits of their secular neighbours. American conservatives have been able to trigger predictable, mass voting of the religious block by pressing just a few hot-button issues, that galvanize their religious values.

Today, many of the political conflicts in the US have underpinnings in Christian opposition to other people's basic rights; LGBT rights, abortion, drug policy, racism, immigration. When looking for solutions, it’s very hard to tell a believer, that some of the things they do to express their religion, violate other people's fundamental rights. It’s even harder to to tell someone, who feels they have a supreme being on their side, that human rights actually have priority over their belief system.

The constitutional right to abortion in Roe vs. Wade has now been struck down by the conservative Supreme Court, but a new law in the State of Maine moved to block the oppression of minority rights. The State voted to halt secular government funding for religious schools. The Christian leanings of the Supreme Court made the State Legislature focus more on preserving rights rather than curbing religion. Protecting gender rights of students became a prerequisite to qualify for State funding. Religious schools quickly dropped requests for funding, rather than compromise there ability to discriminate against admitting LGBT students. As of January 2025, Trump has now used presidential power to decree there are only two genders, male and female.

On a global scale, many countries are outspoken that authoritarian religious power in Afghanistan, Iran, Indonesia, and Syria continues to curb the rights and freedoms of sectarian minorities, secular females, and LGBTQ citizens, but the US and Western nations must not be silent about the religious root causes of their own culture wars. Today, rather than working to protect their own religious freedoms, Christians in America are actively moving to curb the rights of secular people. A remaining flaw in the fabric of civics is allowing a powerful religious block to restrict the rights of secular and minority citizens. As secular governments have attempted to push back with an oblique focus on the oppressed rather than the aggressors, Christian Nationalists are escalating the opposition to overtly support fascist candidates and values. On this continuum, Elon Musk giving a fascist salute was shocking, but not a surprise, and no one should have any doubt that all this is only possible in an atmosphere of pervasive disinformation in public discourse. (see our Public Trust discussion paper here. 15 minute read)

Ultimately we must clearly define the nature of the rights and civics crimes in these situations. The power of organized religions has always made this politically difficult, but we now have clear evidence of the vulnerability of core institutions of democracy. It has taken centuries to unfetter the values of the Enlightenment and of fact and science from sectarian oppression. We can now see how quickly those gains can be reversed in a world of global communication, misinformation, and extremist values. We're on the path to comprehensive human rights and we must continue to refine and strengthen them, but we cannot allow the votes of the faithful to oppress the rights and freedoms of secular citizens. To clear the path for the continued elevation of society, we must define the offences of religious overreach and supplement our rights protections with curbs against these offences. Definition is the beginning of a solution. The right to worship, must be balanced by the right to freedom from religion. The faithful cannot interfere with the choices of secular citizens.

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