Faith leaders and religious freedom experts lamented the decline of religious freedom in America at the National Religious Freedom Conference on Thursday.
Multiple religious experts spoke on the status of religious freedom in America and efforts to promote it at the conference, hosted by the American Religious Freedom Project of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, declared religious freedom an "endangered species" during a rousing lunchtime address.
"We live in a time when the very freedom to express our respective faith narratives stands threatened. Friends, we’ve never been down this road before," Rodriguez said, before rattling off a list of instances where the government has intruded on groups’ religious liberty.
Many others from across the political spectrum echoed Rodriguez’s concerns.
The Obama administration has treated the religious community like "useful idiots," said Rev. Eugene Rivers, a black Pentecostal minister and policy advisor to his church’s leader. Rivers described himself as a conservative Democrat.
He lamented the administration’s lack of interest in questions of faith, especially as they relate to human rights issues.
"The current administration has a benign indifference to the question of religious liberty," Rivers said. He noted, with some surprise, that former president Ronald Reagan paid more attention to the human rights dimension of religion than "my hot paleo-liberal brother."
Rabbi Abba Cohen argued that the debate about religious freedom extends beyond just individual rights to the question about the place of religion in society.
The Supreme Court has undercut the protections afforded to religious expression in some decisions over the past two decades, prompting Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
"That extra-special protection needs to be brought back," he said, noting that statutory protections can be changed simply through a legislative act.
Many of the experts at the conference noted the pressure on conservative religious groups in the name of "equal rights."
"A new closet is being constructed" for those with traditional views of marriage and family, said Mormon Elder Lance Wickman.
Rivers argued that the arguments in favor of gay marriage are based on undermining the source of Christians’ faith: the Bible.
"We are going to go to jail on this issue," he said, to applause.
"If you play the role of the prophet, you don’t get invited into the palace," Rivers continued.
The experts also discussed ongoing efforts to fight for religious liberty.
Hannah Smith, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, discussed the ongoing lawsuits over the Obamacare regulation that requires insurance policies to cover contraception and abortifacient drugs. The Becket Fund is representing several organizations over this issue.
While the administration has issued a new rule that seeks to assuage the concerns of religious groups, Smith doubted the changes would be satisfying ultimately.
"Now we have a pared down exemption [to the mandate] that still only serves a very narrow group," she said.
"I’m not sure that we’ve gained much ground," Smith said.
However, she did express some optimism that proponents of religious freedom are making progress, listing the successes that the Becket Fund has had.
While the conference focused primarily on America, there was some discussion of the status of religious freedom internationally as well—and the discussion there was dire.
"Religious freedom is in crisis around the world," said Tim Shah, associate director of Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project.
"This is not partisan hype," he said. "This is not sectarian spin. This is really a matter of social scientific fact."
Father Chad Hatfield, chancellor of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, noted that Orthodox Christians were hurt by the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Christians in Iraq lived in relative peace during the Saddam Hussein regime, a peace that the invasion upset.
Muslim and Sikh representatives discussed their experiences living in the United States. They said they and their communities have experienced overt discrimination and violence from those who distrust them because of their looks.
The experts also discussed the challenges of balancing interfaith work with remaining distinct.
"Should we set aside differences? Of course. We have to," said Cohen. However, he noted that differing convictions on certain issues, like abortion and proselytization, might require different religious groups to part ways.
The challenge of diversity was the subject of the morning address by Rabbi Meir Soloveichik.
Drawing on the works of different Jewish thinkers, Soloveichik compared the founding of America to a covenant, "where two people come together to accomplish what neither can alone."
While the U.S. Constitution is a social contract in that is preserves individual rights, he said, the Declaration of Independence is more like a covenant, in that it binds people together in a common cause.
Together, to Soloveichik , the Declaration and Constitution embody "integration without assimilation," which is the goal of a diverse interfaith community.