The White House on Thursday launched a new initiative aimed at promoting religious tolerance and understanding, an effort to tamp down the possibility of anti-Muslim sentiment after high-profile terrorist attacks staged by Muslims.
“Know your neighbor” is a celebration of “America’s tradition of religious pluralism,” the Obama administration explained in a statement.
Thursday afternoon, the White House “will bring together leaders from a broad array of religious traditions and civil society,” non-government organizations and federal agencies “to celebrate our traditions of religious inclusion, freedom and cooperation among those with different beliefs,” the statement read.
Cecilia Munoz, White House director of the domestic policy, and Vanita Gupta, principal deputy assistant attorney general who leads Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, will address the group gathered in the White House auditorium.
The “know your neighbor” initiative is the effort of 15 nonprofits and religious groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Sikh Coalition, hoping to “combat discrimination and hate crimes against religious minorities and promote pluralism and inclusion,” the White House statement read.
The campaign “seeks to promote dialogue and improve understanding among Americans of differing beliefs,” the nonreligious group, Center for Inquiry, stated in announcing its participation.
