Obama Administration Hostile to Religious Freedom at Home, Indifferent Abroad

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — On National Religious Freedom Day, Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins made the following comments, and also wrote an op-ed for the Christian Post, regarding the topic of religious liberty in the U.S. and worldwide:

“Our persecuted brothers and sisters should continually be in our prayers. But praying is not enough. We need to be financially supporting the vital ministries that are helping persecuted and imprisoned Christians around the globe. We must also call upon our governmental leaders to advocate for those who are being persecuted for their faith.

“Despite the president’s claim yesterday that ‘America proudly stands with people of every nation who seek to think, believe, and practice their faiths as they choose,’ the Obama administration’s record on defending Christians persecuted for their faith has been embarrassingly weak. Under Mr. Obama’s watch, the State Department’s international religious freedom department has ‘missed some of the biggest crises of our day,’ according to leading advocate for the persecuted Nina Shea.

“This international indifference to religious freedom should not surprise us when here at home we see hostility toward religious freedom from the Obama administration. As FRC has documented extensively, erosions of religious liberty in American public life and in our military are increasing.

“These policies flow from a truncated view of religious liberty. In his own words, President Obama has repeatedly expressed his support for the freedom of worship, not the freedom of religion. The freedom of worship is the ability to choose the church, if any, you want to attend on Sunday morning. The freedom of religion is the ability to live your life according to the religious teachings of your choice.

“On January 16, we will commemorate our annual ‘Religious Freedom Day.’ Let’s hope, work, and pray that our ‘first freedom,’ religious liberty, will not only remain our first freedom, but become a freedom that people around the world will experience,” Perkins concluded.