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Attorney General Bill Barr: Religious Liberty, Not Militant Secularism, Is the Key to Governmental Neutrality and a Moral, Self-Governing Citizenry

Thank you for joining us for the First Liberty Briefing, an exclusive podcast where host Jeremy Dys—also First Liberty Senior Counsel—provides an insider’s look at the stories, cases, people and laws that have made America the world’s leader in protecting religious liberty.

In a recent speech, Attorney General Bill Barr emphasized religious liberty’s importance in our federal republic. Echoing the Founders, he maintained that religious liberty promotes individual self government and morality—needed virtues in American citizenry. Additionally, Barr explained why governmental neutrality depends upon religious liberty’s protection. Learn more at FirstLiberty.org/Briefing.

Attorney General Bill Barr: Religious LibertyAnother Trump Administration official has come out in favor of religious liberty, this time with one of the best speeches on the topic in modern memory.

Bill Barr serves the nation at Attorney General. In October of 2019, Barr delivered a speech to his law school alma mater, Notre Dame. 

The entire speech is worth reading, but his primary point was to explain that the framers of our Constitution believed self-government was only as effective as the people were moral.  Without a common moral commitment to restrain them, people will turn to tyranny to have moral restraints forcefully applied or licentiousness brought about by the complete absence of morality.  The Constitution succeeded because its framers relied upon the ethics of Judeo-Christianity in drafting it.

But, as Barr notes, the problem now is that “militant secularists” are engaged in “an unremitting assault on religion and traditional values.”  He says, “The problem is not that religion is being forced on others. The problem is that irreligion and secular values are being forced on people of faith.”

That’s what his critics fail to grasp.  To them, neutrality means government-enforced secularity.  But, the genius of the U.S. Constitution is that it guards against hostility masquerading as secularized neutrality.

America’s founding era is replete with efforts by the founding generation to preserve space for people of faith to exercise religion independent of the government’s preferences.  Such historic toleration is what is rightly called, “neutrality.”

To learn how First Liberty is protecting religious liberty for all Americans, visit FirstLiberty.org.

First Liberty Institute is the largest organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to protecting religious freedom for all Americans. Find out more here.

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