CARDUS

Home | Press Releases | Is religious freedom cause for discrimination or a foundation for diversity?

Is religious freedom cause for discrimination or a foundation for diversity?

This week, the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance’s Stanley Carlson-Thies, also a Cardus senior fellow, reported in the Center for Public Justice’s Capital Commentary on what religious freedom in the United States actually entails. “Should it be required that we all shed those convictions and identities when we interact outside of our families and places of worship and enter the public square to serve or be served?” Carlson-Thies asks. “A place to start is with a vision of the public not as uniform, but rather as diverse and heterogeneous.”

We are a society of heterogeneous convictions: multiple religions, different philosophical systems, varied identities, and contrasting convictions about many serious matters. It is not just, nor workable, to demand that we all shed those convictions and identities when we interact outside of our families and places of worship and enter the public square. Or, more accurately, it is not just, nor workable, to demand as the price of entry to the public square that those persons and organizations with countercultural minority views, people and groups out of sync with the current majority views about religion, sexuality, relationships, and life, must leave their views behind and conduct their lives and their organizations as if they agreed with the majority.

Find this article in full at the Capital Commentary website.