Participants:
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000390B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider,
00:06 before the break with Tina Ramirez. 00:10 We were really focusing more in on the United States 00:13 and religious liberty here, 00:14 and what's the state of the union. 00:17 And obviously it's always going to be 00:20 because of the constitution and our history, 00:23 something that defines the United States, 00:26 but I think there's a little ambiguity moving in, isn't it? 00:30 People aren't real clear. 00:31 And as you, I think privately said 00:34 this is a society where people don't always 00:38 define themselves by religious identity, 00:40 but of secularism, 00:42 but there's a good argument for secularists 00:45 to uphold religious freedom too, 00:47 because it's part of the glue 00:48 that binds society together, right? 00:51 Except possibly in one place, 00:52 I mean, one of the most religious places 00:54 we have in America right now is probably in football. 00:57 But you can't... 00:59 Well, we can say sacredly which is... 01:00 But you can't watch a game without... 01:02 I mean, yeah, but it's sacred in America in many ways. 01:04 Yes, its own religion. 01:06 But how often do you see them very honestly 01:10 and just boldly sharing their faith, 01:14 you know, in public, 01:16 I mean, that's one of few places 01:17 in public life that we see it, 01:18 where no one's going to say anything against it, you know. 01:21 It's refreshing in many ways that, 01:24 you know that anyway. 01:26 It's not all but I'm inclined to lump it in 01:30 with what the Supreme Court called not that, 01:33 but other public religious displays 01:36 calls them ceremonial deism. 01:38 Right, but what we see though 01:39 in that is that it's still part of the culture 01:41 that there is still religious aspect 01:44 to the culture in public life 01:46 that you can't completely stamp out. 01:48 And so in our culture we definitely, 01:49 you see a lot of the media 01:51 that wants to secularize the public space, 01:54 but there are certain things that, you know, 01:56 just whenever, you know, that normally... 01:58 Or another way of putting it which I, 02:00 you know, I came as a teenager the first time to the US 02:02 from another country, and in Australia, 02:05 not a very religious country anyhow, 02:07 people don't particularly want to talk about religion, 02:09 it's off the table. 02:10 But in America still to this day, 02:13 it's an acceptable topic, 02:15 so there's not public embarrassment 02:17 about religion. 02:18 But I... 02:20 Me personally, I think religion shouldn't be associated 02:23 with football games and so on, 02:25 and when I hear a preacher on... 02:27 For me on Sabbath, Saturday, 02:29 if he starts off 02:30 with a sports example, I switch off. 02:32 I figure he's mixing sacred 02:34 with profane too much for my liking. 02:35 But what I mean is, 02:36 you see a lot of professional athletes 02:38 very expressive of their faith in a way that the cultural. 02:42 The culture is generally antagonistic. 02:45 The culture doesn't want us to be public about our faith. 02:48 And so, you see these attacks on religion in public life 02:51 in many forms. 02:54 You've got the major immigration case 02:55 that went to Supreme Court 02:57 a couple of months ago of the baker. 02:58 And over whether the baker should be allowed to choose 03:04 to not perform a service for somebody 03:07 that would condone a sacrament, 03:10 a religious sacrament that violates their faith. 03:13 And so, your public expression of your faith, 03:16 can you, you know, can you do it in... 03:18 And there's a conscience issue involved. 03:20 Right, right. 03:21 At the same time it scares me, I think some of it is 03:24 what I call religious entitlement. 03:26 They're not concerned for the other person, 03:27 they're wanting to sort 03:28 of shove their view down to the customer. 03:31 Some people might see it that way, 03:32 but some people might see it as, I mean, ultimately, 03:35 if you have... 03:39 You should not be forced to perform an act 03:42 that would violate your conscience 03:43 about a specific sacrament. 03:45 No, as a matter of principle, that's absolutely true. 03:46 No, it doesn't mean that you don't serve 03:48 the person in other ways, but it just means that, 03:50 when it comes to religious sacrament, 03:51 that's a different standard 03:53 that would be applied than a general, 03:54 you know, general cake for any other purpose. 03:56 And I think that's the challenge 03:57 is that in the public space 03:59 we see a lot of conflict 04:05 or, you know, confrontation occurring 04:07 when you have equal opportunity, 04:11 certain rights coming into conflict 04:12 like marriage rights, 04:13 and other sexual orientation rights. 04:15 And so we're gonna see 04:16 more and more of that in the future. 04:17 Well, yes, 04:19 the conflict of rights, absolutely. 04:20 You've had an interesting career so far 04:22 and it's hardly over, just beginning I guess. 04:25 But you know, 04:26 you worked closely in Washington. 04:28 Explain some of the mechanisms we have that you've seen 04:31 and where we are now on government support 04:35 and protection of religious liberty. 04:37 Right, most people are probably not aware 04:39 that the United States government 04:40 actually has a pretty robust policy 04:42 for protecting religious freedom 04:44 internationally and globally. 04:46 And so in 1998 04:47 we had the International Religious Freedom Act, 04:50 ARFA, 04:51 that's what it's called for short of 1998, 04:53 there was a bill to reinforce ARFA that was, 04:56 that was passed last year in 2017, 04:58 the Frank Wolf Religious Freedom Act. 05:02 Yes, I never thought of it as a follow on to that. 05:05 It basically bolstered the original ARFA Act of 1998, 05:09 but under ARFA what it did, 05:10 it has established a State Department office 05:13 focused on religious freedom internationally, 05:15 and so now every embassy in every United States embassy 05:19 in the world provides a report specifically 05:21 on that country's respect for religious freedom 05:25 as a human right. 05:27 And it's, I mean, it's a very extensive report, 05:29 you can look it up on the State Department's website, 05:32 and then in addition there was an ambassador appointed 05:36 to oversee that office. 05:38 And we've had several ambassadors 05:40 in that position over the last almost 20 years now. 05:43 And then in the coming weeks we'll see the newest ambassador 05:48 that President Trump has appointed, 05:51 be confirmed by the US Senate. 05:52 So that's gonna be Sam Brownback, 05:54 the current governor of Kansas. 05:56 Then in addition to that, 05:57 we also have under ARFA was established a commission 06:01 that's an independent body that reports to Congress 06:06 and provides recommendations on what countries 06:08 based on the State Department reports 06:10 should be sanctioned 06:12 because the violations or religious freedom 06:14 are so egregious. 06:15 Now the commission that was, that reports to Congress, 06:18 but it was within the State Department, isn't it? 06:20 No, it's not within the State Department. 06:21 I always thought it was, I don't know. 06:22 No, no, so the State Department has its own office 06:24 and then the commission is just an independent body. 06:27 It's not necessarily a government agency even, 06:29 it's just an independent government commission. 06:31 Yeah, I know there was a little... 06:33 It wasn't the direct line of communication, 06:35 but I did think they were 06:37 within the department, let's go. 06:38 Yeah, so they report to Congress 06:40 and they provide a report over the year. 06:41 Yeah, like ombudsmen almost. 06:42 Usually I think in May, May or June 06:44 is when the reports come out, 06:45 the State Department's report 06:47 just came out on who they're going to name 06:49 as countries of particular concern. 06:51 And once they've named a country 06:53 as a country of particular concern or a CPC, 06:56 then that country requires that the State Department, 06:58 Secretary State take certain actions 07:01 including sanctions but it could be other actions 07:03 to help that country move 07:05 from an egregious violator of religious freedom 07:07 into a better position. 07:09 So the goal was really to try to get countries to... 07:13 Remove themselves from the... 07:15 Yeah, to move towards greater respect 07:16 for religious freedom, 07:18 but we've had ARFA since 1998, 07:20 it's almost 20 years. 07:21 And we haven't really seen 07:25 a large change in many countries, 07:27 we've had certain things happen but then, 07:29 in top of all of that you have Congress 07:31 and you have what they do. 07:32 And so the US Congress has many members 07:35 that are very active in religious freedom. 07:37 And when I was there obviously, you know, that I helped found 07:40 and direct the International Religious Freedom 07:42 caucus that included members from both sides of the aisle, 07:46 so half Republican, half Democrat that focused 07:49 on religious freedom issues. 07:50 Now there's a congressional subcommittee 07:52 on religious freedom, wasn't that too? 07:54 Yes, there's a subcommittee that handles human rights. 07:57 What was Congressman Frank's... 08:03 He was a chair of some...? 08:04 The caucus. The caucus, okay. 08:06 Yeah, yeah, so that was the caucus 08:07 that we started and we started it in 2017, 08:09 so it's been going for over 10 years now. 08:11 So who is dealing with that now? 08:14 So the current chairs of the international religions 08:17 from caucus in Congress, 08:19 our Congressmen Gus Bilirakis of Tampa, Florida, 08:22 and then on the Republican side and then Vaughn Vargus 08:25 and Emanuel Cleaver on the Democratic side. 08:29 And they're both, 08:31 they're all great members of Congress, 08:32 they've done a lot of great things. 08:33 Emanuel Cleaver was a former Methodist minister, 08:36 so he was always a lot of fun to work with and... 08:38 Yeah, I'm aware of him. 08:40 And Vargus has a very large Iraqi Christian population, 08:42 so they're both very active on this. 08:44 So, you know, the US is like 08:46 all human structures or conglomerations, 08:49 you know, it has its ups and downs, 08:51 but structurally I think it's great 08:53 that we have the ambassador, we have the commission 08:58 and then supporting groups in Congress. 09:02 So we have a mechanism, 09:04 even though at various times... 09:06 I remember one secretary of state went to China 09:09 and said openly that the civil liberties 09:12 were not really gonna be on the front burner 09:14 of that visit. 09:16 Secretary Flynn. Well, I didn't know the name. 09:17 You know, that was unfortunate, 09:19 but in the long run and in the aggregate the US 09:22 I think is clearly taking a lead in civil 09:24 and religious liberties pushing other countries. 09:27 And I can definitely tell you that in the time 09:29 that I worked on these issues under former President Bush 09:33 and then under President Obama, 09:34 now under President Trump, with the US Congress 09:37 that there has been a difference 09:41 in how each administration handles it. 09:43 So ultimately what you see 09:46 is that when it's a priority of the administration, 09:49 there is a lot more emphasis in the embassies 09:52 on addressing problems quickly and succinctly. 09:55 But when the administration doesn't make it 09:56 a high priority, it isn't taking it seriously 09:59 and it takes a lot longer to get people out of prison 10:01 or to address dangerous laws in certain countries. 10:04 So it makes it very difficult for the people 10:06 who are being persecuted or suffering on the ground. 10:08 I think that under President Bush 10:10 it was a high priority, under President Obama 10:11 it was not one of his top priorities, 10:13 he had a lot of other issues like women's rights 10:15 and other rights that were more important. 10:17 And under President Trump we haven't really seen 10:20 where that will play out, 10:21 we know that it's a priority in the UN 10:24 but not necessarily, 10:25 we're not sure into his administration 10:27 where that would fall. 10:30 There's a lot of talk of late 10:32 about making America great again, 10:34 different people mean different things by that. 10:37 But when America's greatness is truly analyzed, 10:41 it must be recognized to start military, 10:44 it's not necessarily economic, it's the greatness of ideas. 10:50 And one of the greatest ideas 10:52 that has characterized the United States 10:54 from the beginning, is it not always realized, 10:58 but a constantly restated affirmation 11:01 of the universal rights of man, and in particular, 11:05 the right of people to religious freedom. 11:08 Of course, true religious freedom 11:10 only comes directly from God, 11:11 He gives and no man can take away. 11:14 But for a country in a Constitution 11:16 to acknowledge this abiding reality 11:19 is what has made 11:21 and will continue to keep the United States great. 11:25 That is something that needs to be realized 11:27 and no matter what the government does 11:29 and how it projects itself, 11:30 it must be kept great for religious liberty. 11:35 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2018-03-29