What is religious liberty like around the world? | Montse Alvarado | Constitutional Conversations

0:00 so as we think about religious freedom here in this country it’s I think it might be a little easy to get complacent about what that is a little bit like the goldfish in the bowl where they don’t they might not know that the water is even there well how is the water in other countries what’s what’s it like and what is it that we ought to to notice and maybe cherish you think about a little more carefully here in this

0:20 country wow that’s absolutely true we we are not aware of the kind of discrimination and coercion that you see in the rest of the world I always like to talk about this one standard that Pew Research puts out every year it’s the status of religious freedom around the world and they said this year that 83% of people in in our world on earth are

0:41 under some kind of religious persecution by their government so they don’t live in free countries not like ours where you have freedom of speech freedom of assembly where you can stay and worship and believe in whatever it is that you want to believe in with whatever way God moves you or it doesn’t move you you are free to do that in this country some

1:01 examples of that that are egregious canceling Christmas that happened in Cuba many years ago the Pope’s visit was something that was just controversial because people didn’t know how to worship anymore because they weren’t allowed to do it churches were these beautiful buildings where no one went to worship you have other examples of that

1:22 in Mexico religious groups weren’t allowed to own property so if a religious school wanted to exist it had to ask members of the community to buy the building and own it without and and let lend it to a religious community they weren’t actually allowed to own property EWTN which is a very well-known business and a religious business that

1:44 has TV radio stations wouldn’t exist and probably wasn’t allowed to exist in Mexico so those are just a couple of examples but there are many many places around the world where you you worship in fear or you weren’t don’t worship at all and I say here’s why that’s important if you think well why why should I care about that maybe you’re you’re not religious or maybe you feel

2:04 like your religion is not being persecuted the best way to think about it is to think about well what really does matter to you what’s really important to you right any of who you are and what you believe and what you think is okay to do and what you think you wouldn’t do and then imagine living under a government that didn’t let you live and think and have that identity it’s really kind of a chilling idea the the wonderful thing

2:25 about being Americans is that most of us really do get to walk around and exist in that kind of freedom but it’s important to realize it doesn’t come from nowhere it comes from having a bill of rights that protects the ability of you to think what you think and your neighbor to think what she thinks and to give the government the requirement to be kind of hands-off and let us all come to those views about what do we think

2:46 we’re really supposed to do in the world what do we believe how do we believe it how do we act on it that’s the freedom that we’re talking about and so whether you’re religious are not religious the idea of handing that over to the government and letting the government control us on those things should be a very scary idea to all of us