Good afternoon. It is a great pleasure to be here with you today, and I am genuinely looking forward to our time together. It is my hope that we will have the chance to explore widely, think deeply, and, hopefully, have some fun while we are doing it.
I'd like to begin with a true story from many years ago, when I was a young lawyer working on Capitol Hill for then Senator Joe Biden, who of course eventually became Vice President Biden. At that time there was a legislative aide who worked for another senator who happened to be pursuing me. And thanks to this young man, I was on the receiving end of one of the more creative "pickup lines" ever to come my way.
What single question would you ask of God? I thought long and hard. At first I considered some of the obvious ones: How can we eliminate poverty? How can we achieve world peace? But as I pondered it, I concluded that we probably already knew the answer to those "big" questions--what we lack is the will to do what needs to be done.
In the end, I decided that I would use my precious encounter with Deity to ask a very personal question. The query I decided I would pose to God if I had the opportunity was "What will be the greatest moral challenge of my life, and will I be equal to it? Will I meet it?"
I would like to suggest to you today that perhaps the great moral challenge of our time is, will we find a way to defend and extend the blessing of religious freedom--or, more broadly, freedom of religion, conscience, and belief--in a world where it is surely in peril? The reason I consider this to be such a central question is that I am convinced that freedom of religion, conscience, and belief is truly the wellspring freedom from which so many of our other cherished fundamental rights derive. Indeed, it has often been referred to as the first freedom--not only because it is the first freedom protected in the First Amendment of our revered Bill of Rights, but because it is the source from which so many of the precious rights we revere flow.
Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, equal protection of the law--I think a strong argument can be made that each one of these pillars of a democratic, tolerant, rights-respecting, and pluralistic society is anchored in the bedrock protection for freedom of religion, and so I would argue that its defense is truly one of the great challenges of our time. And I would argue that its defense is not merely a moral imperative but a pragmatic one as well.
Several years ago, I traveled to Berlin to participate in the OSCE's 10-year anniversary conference examining the problem of anti-Semitism in the EU, which, as I'm sure many of you know, has seen an alarming rise in recent years. It was a sobering and discouraging conference in many ways, but an experience I had while there also reinforced my conviction that history is not kind to, nor does it ultimately reward, those who trample on the religious rights and freedoms of others.
This truth was vividly underscored while on a brief tour of Berlin during a break from the conference. I was struck by the comment of the tour guide that when the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685, thousands of persecuted Huguenots fled from France to the city of Berlin, where they started many of the industries and trades that became the backbone of that region's economy. You will recall that the Edict of Nantes, signed in 1598 by Henry IV of France, had granted the Calvinist Huguenots substantial rights in a nation that was overwhelmingly Catholic.
One might view the Edict of Nantes as an early advancement of the right to freedom of religion, and its revocation was a huge step backwards, but the key point I want to make is that by driving the Huguenots out of their land, it was the French who suffered economically and in other ways from their departure, and the land that gave them refuge benefited.
I don't think it is too much of a stretch to see some analogies to the controversies of today regarding refugees and immigrants seeking to come to our country, and the hot controversies surrounding President Trump's recent executive orders and whether they are simply a proper exercise of executive authority regarding protecting U.S. security and controlling our nation's borders or whether they are a constitutionally flawed form of religious discrimination. Perhaps we can talk about that further during the question-and-answer period, but the point I would like to emphasize here, as illustrated by the case of the Huguenots' fleeing to Berlin, is that protecting religious liberty is not just the right thing to do; it is almost always, in the long run, the smart thing to do as well.
In fact, I have come to believe that our historically unique and very bold idea in the United States to provide for both the separation of church and state and the unfettered free exercise of religion really was sort of the secret sauce that made our grand American experiment so extraordinarily successful. But while the broad and capacious understanding of religious freedom may have been distinctive to the American experience in the late 1700s, the fact is that now, freedom of conscience and belief is a universal value endorsed by the majority of countries in Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as in subsequent covenants. Like every other human right, religious freedom is a birthright of humanity, and we are increasingly coming to recognize that it is a pivotal right without which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to successfully address some of our gravest threats globally.
So what do we mean by the term "freedom of religion and belief"? In Article 18 of the UD, it is outlined as follows:
"Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
This is a powerful, broad, generous, and encompassing definition of freedom of religion and belief, and in the ICCPR it is further elaborated upon to extend this right even further. There we find protection from coercion that impairs someone's ability to have or adopt the belief of their choice. The ICCPR limits the circumstances under which freedom of religion and belief can be infringed upon for broader public purposes and further discusses protections for parents in educating their children in their religious convictions and protections for minority religious communities.
It is an impressive international legal commitment to this fundamental right, but if we recast it in more human and less legal terminology, we might say that freedom of religion, conscience, and belief means nothing less than the right of each of us to think as we please, believe or not believe as our conscience leads, and to live out our beliefs openly, peacefully, and without fear.
It seems simple enough, and yet, as I'm sure you are all aware, this basic human right is honored more in the breach than in its observance. According to recent studies by the Pew Foundation, more than 75 percent of the world's population lives in countries that significantly restrict freedom of religion and belief. And this is not just a regrettable affront to our values and aspirations for the world to be a nicer place; it poses a real and growing threat to our own freedoms and even to our national security. If you pause to briefly consider the countries and regions in the world that pose the greatest risks to American security, you will find that in almost every case, they are characterized by severe violations of religious freedom.
Studies by Pew Research Foundation and others have found a strong correlation between the robust protection of religious freedom and other social goods such as stability, prosperity, democracy, and, interestingly, higher socioeconomic status for women.
The flip side of this coin is very worrying. Societies that restrict religious freedom become potential breeding grounds for instability, social tension, and violent extremism. Just look at the headlines. From Pakistan to Iran, Saudi Arabia to China, North Korea to Burma, wherever we see the repression of religious freedom, it is accompanied by a host of other manifestations of repression, and these pose real risks to all of us. I strongly believe that the protection of this pivotal human right should be a profound priority of our nation not only because religious-freedom abuses violate the core of our humanity but because they do grave harm to the order and well-being of societies.
They do so politically, as religious-freedom abuses are correlated with the absence of democracy and of broad political participation from religious and ethnic groups.
They do so economically, as religious persecution destabilizes communities and marginalizes the persecuted, causing their talents and abilities to go unrealized, robbing a nation of added productivity, and reducing a nation's ability to fight poverty and create abundance for its citizens.
They do so civically, since wherever religious freedom is dishonored, the benefit of religion in molding people's character is diminished and with it the self-discipline necessary to handle the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
And finally, they do so socially, since whenever religious freedom is abused, peace and tolerance become ever more elusive. If you think about it, it is the ultimate marker of a mature society when people of different beliefs and convictions can, on a fully equal basis, inhabit the public square side by side with one another.
To reiterate what I said earlier, protecting religious freedom is not only a moral and humanitarian imperative but a practical necessity, one that is key to building a safer, more stable and secure world.
During my four years serving on USCIRF, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, it was very important to me that in the midst of dealing with annual reports and recommendations to our government about which countries should be designated as CPCs--Countries of Particular Concern--and whether or not sanctions of one sort or another should be pursued--that we--that I--didn't lose sight of the very human face of religious-freedom abuses and that we kept the actual victims uppermost in our minds in all the work that we did. I'd like to share two stories that underscore the very human dimension of the topic we are discussing today.
First, I would like to tell you a bit about Vian Dakhil and the Yazidi people. Just a few months ago, the Lantos Foundation, which I head, awarded Ms. Dakhil our highest honor, the Lantos Human Rights Prize. Let me tell you a bit about her and her community.
Vian Dakhil is the only female Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament. The Yazidi faith is an ancient syncretic religion (syncretic meaning something that combines or blends elements from two or more sources). Their faith combines elements of Zoroastrianism with parts of Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. There are between 600 and 850,000 Yazidis in the world, with the vast majority of them living in the Nineveh province of Iraq.
Over two years ago, this ancient faith community became the target of a genocidal campaign at the hands of the brutal terror group ISIS--surely one of the most appalling abusers of the right of religious freedom that the world has seen. ISIS is determined to purify the land under their control of all those that don't conform to their fanatical and twisted version of Islam. Sadly, the world took little notice as thousands of Yazidis were killed and thousands more of their women and girls were captured and enslaved. Tens of thousands more fled their homes where they became trapped on Mt. Sinjar, where they faced death through starvation, exposure, and from the killers of ISIS.
No one was coming to save them: not the Iraqi military, not the Kurds, not the Americans. They were a small, forgotten people about to be left to a tragic fate. It was at this moment of supreme danger that Vian Dakhil stepped forward. She delivered a remarkable, impassioned, anguished speech before the Iraqi parliament, in which she sought to arouse the conscience of a callous and indifferent world.
If you have ever wondered whether one voice can make a difference, Vian Dakhil's powerful call to action that day is incontrovertible evidence that the answer is yes. Her speech went viral, and within days President Obama announced both a humanitarian and military effort to rescue the stranded and threatened Yazidi people on Mt. Sinjar.
I'd like to play for you a brief video of Vian's speech and its aftermath.
Every time I watch the video of Vian's speech, I am riveted by her searing appeal to a seemingly heedless world. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of an unseen voice attempting to shush Vian, in effect saying, "Calm down. Don't make a scene. No one wants to hear you." I am so grateful Vian would not be shushed, would not quiet down--that the cause of her people was more important to her than the niceties of parliamentary decorum. When I see her speech, I am challenged to be more impassioned in my own defense of the defenseless, to be willing to take more risks to stand up for my fellow human beings and their most basic human rights.
When I revisit that powerful moment, I find myself asking, "What if?" What if Vian had not spoken out? What if her words had not broken through the smug and distracted indifference that so often characterizes those in positions of power and influence and, quite frankly, all of us? We can never fully know what the alternate outcome would have been, but we can say with assurance that tens of thousands more lives would have been lost, and a proud and ancient faith community might have been lost to the world.
The second story I would like to share with you today is that of a young man in Saudi Arabia by the name of Raif Badawi, whom I have never met. For the crime of writing a blog advocating for greater freedom of conscience in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes scheduled to be meted out at the rate of 50 a week for 20 weeks--in all likelihood a de facto death sentence. This took place during the time I was serving on the Commission. Several of us on the Commission felt we needed to do more than simply write the standard letter to the Saudi government protesting this brutal and unwarranted punishment.
At the suggestion of my colleague Professor Robert George, we wrote to the Saudis asking them to remit this unjust sentence, but beyond that we requested that, if they would not vacate the sentence, we each be allowed to take one hundred lashes in Raif's place. We of course understood that the likelihood of the Saudis honoring our request was extremely remote, but we all felt that we should not sign the letter unless we were in fact ready to follow through and take the lashes in his stead. The process of reflection on what that might mean made the reality of the courage and suffering of people like Raif incredibly real and suddenly personal to each one of us. As word of our letter got out, we were contacted by dozens and eventually thousands of individuals from around the world who were moved by our offer and wanted to stand in solidarity with Raif, and with us, in offering to take part of his punishment.
I can't tell you how profoundly moved I was by the sincerity, humility, and earnestness of the many people who reached out to us to express their determination to stand up for the rights of this young Saudi man. These wonderful people frequently moved me to tears. Although Raif remains imprisoned in Saudi, he has not been flogged since our campaign on his behalf.
The stories I have shared with you and countless others have caused me to reflect on what it means to live a life of conscience and integrity. It can be--and indeed it is probably meant to be--a costly venture. But the defense of conscience, whether one's own or that of others, is a fight worth waging, because it is so inextricably linked to our fundamental dignity and freedom as human beings.
One of my favorite works of literature is Robert Bolt's famous play "A Man for All Seasons," about Sir Thomas More. I realize that the British author Dame Hilary Mantel has popularized a much darker accounting of Thomas more through her books, but I remain a fan of Robert Bolt's depiction of the Lord Chancellor of England.
In Bolt's depiction, we follow More as he tries to navigate the terrain between man's laws and God's laws and his ultimate duty to each. I brought my well-worn copy of the play, which I often have with me. I'd like to read two brief passages that illustrate these different and sometimes dangerous terrains.
In my work on behalf of religious freedom, I have the great privilege of fighting on behalf of remarkable men and women who, in matters of conscience and belief, have the same commitment to integrity as Bolt's Thomas More. They too believe that they hold their own selves in their own hands, and not even for the sake of their freedom or safety are they willing to open their fingers.
I'd like to close with a story I think beautifully illustrates the profound connections between religious freedom and all the other precious rights we cherish. John Wycliffe, the English philosopher, theologian, reformer, and preacher, undertook to translate the Bible from the Latin Vulgate into the common vernacular in the late 1300s, and he did so in the face of enormous opposition and even persecution from the ecclesiastical authorities of his day. Despite all, he persisted in this mission, and when his work was done, he wrote the following words in the flyleaf of that first Bible: "The translation is complete and shall make possible, government of the people, by the people and for the people." We associate those immortal words with President Lincoln on the occasion of the Gettysburg Address, but they have a more ancient patrimony.
Now, we cannot know precisely what Wycliffe meant when he wrote those words, but I believe he was illuminating for all of us the profound insight that when men and women are free to pursue and understand truth for themselves, they become empowered to build societies that honor the claims of conscience and the fundamental liberties of all people.
And so, as I close, I return to the question that I intended to ask of God: What will be the great moral challenge of my life and your life? Perhaps it will be to defend this essential human right, and it is my hope and my prayer that we will be equal to it.
Thank you.