If religious liberty doesn\u2019t apply to small or unpopular minorities, then it isn\u2019t liberty at all but becomes another government handout to a special-interest group. We want a candidate who will argue consistently for soul freedom for everyone, even those we would argue with about everything else.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t only a Republican issue. Democrats and Republicans stood together for the Religious Freedom Restoration Act\u201d\u201dsigned by President Clinton. Perhaps it is time for Hillary Clinton to stand up for Jefferson\u2019s vision of freedom of conscience against the sexual-revolution industrial complex in her party, which too often dismisses basic protections of free exercise as a \u201cwar on women\u201d\u009d or a \u201cright to discriminate.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Likewise, a Republican who seems embarrassed about religious freedom, or who takes weeks to muster up an opinion on basic questions of whether consciences ought to be respected, will find that evangelicals will pay no mind when that candidate starts spouting \u201cGod and country\u201d\u009d talk borrowed from a 1980s-era television evangelist.<\/p>\n
Religious liberty is too important to see it become one more culture-war wedge issue.<\/p>\n