2020 Medley #1: Religious Freedom Day and Vouchers
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY
January 16 was Religious Freedom Day.
In 1993 President George H. W. Bush declared January 16 to be Religious Freedom Day. On January 16, 1786, the Virginia House of Delegates, under the leadership of James Madison, passed Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. In 1992, on that date, Virginia Governor L. Douglas Wilder signed the first proclamation to that effect for the Commonwealth of Virginia.
The Virginia Statute was the first document to prohibit a state-sponsored church in the new United States. The statute declared “that Almighty God hath created the mind free” and that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
It went on to state that “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry…or otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief.”
The Virginia Statute gave birth to the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom.
Meanwhile, 234 years later…
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…we find that the current administration, likely at the behest of its evangelical CONTINUE READING: 2020 Medley #1: Religious Freedom Day and Vouchers | Live Long and Prosper
