Why defend religious freedom? | Montse Alvarado, Becket Law | BRI Constitution Conversations

0:00 welcome everyone I’m Stan swim the vice president of program and partnerships for the Bill of Rights Institute and pleased that each of you could join us today and we’re here at the Becket fund with Beckett’s president mark Rienzi and the executive director Beckett Maria Muncie Alvarado we’re delighted to have a conversation with the two of them about one of the most actively discussed

0:21 parts of our Bill of Rights the First Amendment and religious liberty specifically so welcome to both of you could we start for just a minute by could you give us a little bit of background on how Becket got started explain a little bit your founder and and the the idea that got this operation

0:42 underway I’m happy to talk about that Seamus Hasson founded the Becket fund in 1994 we’ve been around for 25 years and he decided to leave his high-paying law firm job to defend the rights of all religious believers it was motivated by his personal faith he’s a Catholic man with a wonderful family six kids and his

1:03 wife Mary and they took a leap of faith and decided that defending religious freedom was something that their faith was pushing them to do and if you’re Catholic you know that similar to the article of faith the 11th article of faith for the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints and many other faith traditions defending religious freedom

1:24 for all is important because you’re defending human dignity he likes to say that as human beings we are individuals with our eyes fixed on the transcendent fixed on that far horizon and that reality is one that we have to defend from government intrusion and government power and that journey to finding who God is and what God is is more about who

1:45 we are