Written by Don Byrd
In an op-ed for CGNews, the Baptist Joint Committee’s Holly Hollman and Hoda Elshishtawy of the Muslim Public Affairs Council explain why religious liberty is essential to democracy and provides common ground between them. Here is a snippet:
In many respects, religious liberty serves as a baseline for democratic participation. Religious liberty — and consensus on its importance — creates the conditions for people of all religions (or no religion) to influence lawmakers on various policy concerns. A mutual commitment to the right of religious liberty for all allows people of faith or of none to share their opinions, agree or disagree and attempt to persuade others about various matters related to the public welfare. In this sense, religious liberty is fundamental not merely for its own sake, but also because it facilitates robust democratic debate.
In the rest of the piece, Hoda and Holly explain how their faith informs their views on religious liberty. Read the whole thing.
