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Religious Liberty
An American Heritage

Prayer in Schools

Ten Commandments on Courtroom Walls

Nativity Scene in the Public Square

Since 1961, American courts have battled U.S. citizens seeking religious liberty — a freedom guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

Religious liberty was an important conviction driving the Founding Fathers toward separation from a government- controlled religion in England

Whether the government tells a citizen how to worship or how he is prohibited from expressing his religion in a free society — both scenarios deprive a citizen of religious liberty.

In 1952, Williams O. Douglas, a Supreme Court Justice, explained the scope of religious freedom in the following words:

"We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. We guarantee the freedom to worship as one chooses. We make room for as wide a variety of beliefs and creeds as the spiritual needs of man deem necessary. We sponsor an attitude on the part of government that shows no partiality to any one group and that lets each flourish according to the zeal of its adherents and the appeal of its dogma…To hold [that goverment may not encourage religious instruction] would be to find in the Constitution, a requirement that the government show a callous indifference to religious groups. That would be preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe...But we find no constitutional requirement which makes it necessary for government to be hostile to religion and to throw its weight against efforts to widen the effective scope of religious influence."

The American Voice Institute of Public Policy supports efforts to preserve religious liberty and restore the freedoms our Founding Fathers first established for this nation.

Each month the American Voice Institute of Public Policy reports about people in America who are on the front lines fighting for their religious liberties to be restored.

To view Religious Liberty articles that have been recently archived, Click Here.

August 2003 — To view the latest Religious Liberty Report, Click Here.

 

To view an illustrated history of Religion in America, on display at the Library of Congress, click below:

Religion and the Founding of the American Republic

 

 

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