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February 23, 2012
Article by Clifford Orwin, professor of political science, classic and Jewish studies at the University of Toronto, as well as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
Published Wednesday, February 22, 2012
In establishing an Office of Religious Freedom, the present government is not placing religious freedom above other human rights, for the simple reason that to do so is impossible. To think that religious freedom is liable to being placed above other human rights is to misunderstand what is meant by religious freedom (and therefore to misunderstand its relationship to these other rights).
To defend religious freedom no more implies its superiority to other human rights than to defend any such right implies its superiority to others. Properly understood (and there’s no reason to conclude that the present government understands it improperly) freedom of religion implies the other basic human rights. All are aspects of the autonomy of the individual, so to defend any is to defend that autonomy, and therefore (in principle) all the others. To establish an Office of Religious Freedom is therefore wholly without prejudice to any other human freedom.