Imagine you’re a religious minority, living under a government that has forbidden you to share the message of your faith in public places, without expressed permission from the authorities. If you violate this prohibition, you could be jailed.
Or imagine you’re barred from your home altogether because of your religious identity. The government has decided that, because you are the wrong religion, you must be banned.
No, these scenarios are not projections of our country’s potential future, but they are also not hypotheticals. They were reality for many who lived in the American colonies before the Revolutionary War, when eight of the 13 colonies had an established church and people were legally required to follow specific religious customs.
Members of disfavored religious groups were targets. In Virginia, for example, citizens were required to work in the Anglican church and to pay taxes to support it. Members of other religious denominations were permitted to meet and preach apart from the Anglican church only after obtaining permission from the government.
Some situations were far more extreme. Shortly after Quakers arrived in Massachusetts in the 1650s, they were banned from the colony because of their religious beliefs and forced to flee. In 1659, several who came back were executed.
The United States was born into a world where the church and state were indelibly intertwined. In England, the crown was — and still is, as any fan of Netflix’s “The Crown” can tell you — both the head of the government and the head of the church.
Historically, anyone willing to stand between God and the king risked paying a high price for doing so. Thomas Becket, for whom Becket Law where I work is named, was murdered by the king’s knights on the steps of Canterbury Cathedral on behalf of a king wearisome that his political operative-turned-priest would dare to serve God before his king.
Thomas Jefferson wanted to prevent the inevitable disasters of allowing the government and religion to be intertwined, because the government should never be able to dictate what a person believes about God or dictate matters of conscience. So he drafted a measure for the Virginia General Assembly to consider what would free the people of state-controlled religion and ensure true religious freedom.
“Almighty God hath created the mind free,” Jefferson wrote. “The impious presumption of legislators and rulers … have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others.”
Under Virginia’s new law, however, no one could be compelled by the government to worship in a specific way or support a particular church, or to “otherwise suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief.” Instead, Virginians were now free to profess, practice and live by whatever faith they chose.
The Virginia General Assembly adopted what is known as the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom on Jan. 16, 1786, 231 years ago. The president has recognized this day with an annual proclamation for more than 20 years, and this year Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., will reintroduce a resolution honoring Religious Freedom Day and affirming the importance of protecting this fundamental right from government intrusion.
Before Jefferson’s statute, the colonies were actually well on their way to continuing the tradition of mixing government and religion. But Virginia’s passage of Jefferson’s bill instead charted the course for what eventually became the First Amendment.
This year, quite fittingly, Religious Freedom Day coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. As we honor the work of this courageous minister who peacefully spearheaded the civil rights movement, his famous words remain true: For the U.S. to be a great nation, freedom must ring true for everyone. Ensuring this freedom will hasten the day “when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”
In the centuries since the Constitution was adopted in in 1789, we have continued to wrestle with how to protect the free exercise of religion. A wide and diverse number of religious people, including Catholics, Amish, Sikhs, Muslims, native Americans, Jews, Protestants and Mormons have at various points throughout our history been challenged by the government, public opinion, or both in their freedom to live by their beliefs as equals within our communities.
And every time, the First Amendment has been there to protect them. Congress has also passed additional laws to further ensure this vital right and, where necessary, exemptions for religious believers to protect them from being forced by the government to violate their beliefs.
In times of governmental challenge or negative popular opinion, the religious have been shielded by these crucial protections. Labels change and dynamics come and go, but fundamental human rights do not: What it means to be human is timeless. When we protect religious freedom for one faith, it is protected for all.
Amy Vitale is a fellow at Becket Law, a non-partisan law firm that defends religious liberty for all faiths domestically and abroad. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
