On Monday Rep. Mary Bentley (R – Perryville) and Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R – Branch) filed H.C.R. 1005 declaring January 16, 2023, “Religious Freedom Day” in Arkansas.
The concurrent resolution recognizes the role that the free exercise of religion and the freedom of conscience have played throughout our nation’s history.
The measure quotes multiple U.S. presidents, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said in 1935,
[I]n the conflict of policies and of political systems, which the world today witnesses, the United States has held for its own guidance and for the guidance of other nations if they will accept it, this great torch of liberty of human thought, liberty of human conscience. We will never lower it.
January 16 marks the 237th anniversary of the enactment of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom that Thomas Jefferson drafted in 1786. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom is widely considered the forerunner of the First Amendment.
