Religious Americans fortunately live in a nation with a long history of maintaining safeguards against the government persecuting private citizens. But freedoms– including religious freedom– can be lost without vigilance. Various devout Americans have endured legal trials to preserve their God-given right to actively live according to their religion.
This has resulted, at least in part, from progressives attempting to build barriers keeping religion from the public square. Who are the religious warriors today knocking these barriers down?
According to various polls, such as the Fund for American Studies, 93 percent of Millennials overwhelmingly claim to support religious liberty. However, according to The Federalist, when one breaks down the poll Millennials seem to misunderstand what religious liberty entails. When given the statement:
Business owners should have the right to refuse service to people when certain practices are not in accordance with their religious beliefs.
Only 43 percent support the above statement while 53 percent oppose it. Breaking it down further only 28 percent fully support the statement while 41 percent strongly oppose. However, 93 percent “support” religious liberty. Religious liberty involves allowing spiritual individuals to live out their faith. Similar to other rights, this is not an absolute right there are limits. For example, one cannot use religion as an excuse to inflict violence on another.
As a young conservative Christian, religious liberty fundamentally influences my everyday life. Similar to other religious believers, Christians do not leave their convictions home as they go into the public square, it is a way of life. Therefore, why are religious Millennials not supportive about the various religious organizations and individuals fighting in the courts for their freedom?
One reason is the wave of equality and tolerance sweeping the millennial generation, which has caused many to choose tolerance over religious conscientious objections. Pew Research Center, reports 40 percent of millennials believe government should be able to prevent people from saying offensive things to minority groups. A devout individual objecting to taking photos at a same-sex wedding could qualify for being offensive to a minority group. Thus, Millennials either keep quiet to be perceived as “tolerant” or supposedly fight for equality.
I decided to ask some conservative Christian Millennials why they think their generation pays such little attention to religious liberty, particularly in America.
One student stated:
There is a tendency to put one’s political beliefs before their religious beliefs. Some people will only use their religion to prop up what they think about everything else.
Conservative Millennials have a tendency to discard their religious values to appease culture, like on the issue of abortion. In politics, conservatives consistently concede to culture’s vocal opposition to pro-life policies.
Another student stated:
Persecution is often a word attached to outside the U.S. thus young millennials tend to not believe that slight infringements can lead to larger infractions, so they allow these [infractions] in the name of tolerance, peace, and acceptance.
This student rightly observes that millennials have a tendency to keep the peace with secular culture as its values seep into academic institutions and the workplace. Standing with the religious baker or florist objecting to an action to preserve their conscience may result in social ostracism.
Millennials need to actively engage in the fight because slight infringements on one’s conscience can eventually affect more than just Christians. Eroding protections for conscience will compromise the freedom of all people of faiths-regardless of religion-and anyone who holds deep-seated beliefs of any kind. The targeting of religious objectors in the name of tolerance can happen to anyone.
Millennials need to remember one day they can be in a situation where they must choose between their conscience and culture. On that day religious liberty will seem like a better approach than appeasement.
Comment by LukeinNE on July 19, 2017 at 12:53 pm
The Millenial generation has a lot of shortcomings – their stance on freedom issues is a big one. That said, I think the author is off the mark on the abortion issue. While specific conclusions from various polls are disputed, the general consensus is that Millenials are at least as pro-life on abortion as their parents, and likely slightly more so.
Granted, organized feminist groups on campus are by far the loudest voice, but most people have a fairly nuanced view on the subject. Science continues to strengthen pro-life arguments on the humanity of the unborn child, and the sexual revolution, for all of the damage it has caused, has rendered the typical objection about keeping women barefoot and pregnant ludicrous.
Comment by Dawn on July 19, 2017 at 1:15 pm
Well that headline is an interesting way to spin the meaning of “freedom.” I would say that millenials and others value freedom extremely highly: intellectual freedom, spiritual, civic, political, personal. It takes “tolerance” to make freedom work. Because millenials evidently also value *other people’s freedom* as much as their own. Which this author is evidently unable to do.
Comment by Rick Plasterer on July 20, 2017 at 11:59 am
Dawn,
No one should have the “freedom” to require others to take action they believe sinful or evil.
Rick Plasterer/Staff writer
Institute on Religion and Democracy
Comment by John McAdams on July 22, 2017 at 8:53 am
Imposing ones one values on other people is not “making freedom work.” It’s just coercion. Freedom only makes sense if it can be shared equally. You want to have a gay wedding, you are free to do so. I don’t want to participate, I am free to do so.
Comment by Mark on July 22, 2017 at 7:02 am
Rick is right. A same-sex couple should have a right to buy a wedding cake, but they should not think that they have a right to demand that I bake the cake.
Comment by MarcoPolo on July 22, 2017 at 10:38 am
Thankfully, our social structure ensures that our marketplace behavior comports with ‘Standard Business Practices’ to provide equal protection to all.
If one is in the business of baking cakes for weddings, it should not matter whether the cake is for a same-sex wedding, or a traditional wedding.
I was always under the assumption that our Social structures were supposed to be based upon Secular pinnings, and NOT religious ones. Non-religion should not offend anyone!
Comment by John Paylor on July 22, 2017 at 11:09 am
Freedom and tolerance go together; they are not opposites. The problem is that Millennials, and, I suspect, the rest of us, support freedom and tolerance only for views we support. It is neither freedom nor tolerance for a speaker with whom we disagree to be shouted down and not allowed to express his views.