Keynoting the International Religious Freedom 2025 Summit in Washington on Wednesday, Vice President J.D. Vance pledged ongoing support and enthusiasm for America’s first freedom.
“This administration is intent on not just restoring but expanding the achievements of the first four years and certainly of the last two weeks,” Vance declared.
“In recent years, too often has our nation’s international engagement on religious liberty issues been corrupted and distorted to the point of absurdity. How did America get to the point where we’re sending hundreds of thousands of dollars abroad that are dedicated to spreading atheism all over the globe? That is not what leadership on protecting the rights of the faithful looks like, and it ends with this administration.”
In his first administration, President Trump signed numerous executive orders advancing religious freedom across numerous federal agencies, affirmed the posting and distribution of religious symbols and literature, assured the fair treatment of religious organizations when dealing with the government, liberated groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor from onerous and discriminatory policies, and unapologetically directed the Justice Department to protect religious liberty at every level.
On Wednesday, Vice President Vance observed, “One of the wonderful apparent paradoxes of religion is that in connecting us to the sacred and to the universal, it deepens our commitment … to our neighbors, to our obligations to one another, to the individual communities that all of us call home.”
He continued:
The Vice President called the defense of religious liberty a “no-brainer,” but acknowledged that what many faith-filled Americans have grown to expect is actually a very rare right and privilege around the world.
While the new administration is providing assurance that religious liberty will be protected, there are numerous pending cases of concern.
A Louisiana law requiring public K-12 schools to post the Ten Commandments is blocked while a court battle unfolds.
This past November a Christian woman prevailed in a $12 million lawsuit after she was denied a religious exemption over being forced to take the COVID-19 vaccine as an employee of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
On a promising note, this past January the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of several groups challenging a New York law (SB 660) that prohibits “discrimination based on an employee’s or a dependent’s reproductive health decision making.”
Americans are wise to stand guard against threats of spiritual tyranny, which often come incrementally and under the guise of a supposed enlightened and liberated radical agenda that threatens to rob from our nation its many sacrificially obtained religious freedoms.
Image from Getty.
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