Upholding Religious Liberty: A Timeless Principle

Religious Freedom, ,

This is part of Family Council’s ongoing series outlining the importance of traditional family values in society. Today’s installment focuses on the value of religious liberty.

Religious liberty is a core value woven into the fabric of our nation.

Below are a few points to consider.

Religious Liberty is a Fundamental Human Right

The free exercise of religion is a fundamental human right secured by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Religious liberty lets individuals practice their faith without fear of persecution or discrimination.

Protecting the free exercise of religion helps ensure people are able to live out their deeply held convictions in everyday life.

The Free Exercise of Religion Promotes Morality and Ethics

On August 23, 1984, President Ronald Reagan delivered a speech at the Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast in Dallas, Texas. During the speech he commented,

“Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society.”

Faith and religion help shape moral values and principles. Religious freedom ensures we’re able to follow our beliefs and pass them on to future generations.

Religion and Charity Benefit All of Society

In 2016 researchers writing in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research and Religion published a study examining economic contributions of religious institutions. Researchers estimated “religion” in America contributes at least $378 billion to the U.S. economy annually — and possibly as much as $1.2 trillion or more.

Religious freedom allows individuals to provide a source of support and comfort in their communities. It lets people and groups engage in charity and service motivated by their faith.

Religious liberty also helps build a healthy society, because it lets people of different faiths live out their beliefs peacefully and respectfully without government interference.

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Senate Committee Passes Good Religious Freedom Measure

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On Wednesday the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill strengthening Arkansas’ religious freedom laws.

H.B. 1615, the Conscience Protection Act by Rep. Robin Lundstrum (R — Elm Springs) and Sen. Gary Stubblefield (R — Branch), makes important clarifications to the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The bill also helps prohibit religious discrimination against individuals, business owners, and organizations that want to follow their deeply held religious convictions.

In 2015 Gov. Hutchinson signed Arkansas’ Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law. That good law has been on the books for the past eight years — but it needs to be improved upon.

Over the past decade, we have seen wedding venues, bakeries, photography studios, and florist shops come under fire, because their owners wanted to operate according to their deeply held convictions.

Our laws must protect religious liberty as much as possible. H.B. 1615 improves on good state law to help prevent the government from burdening the free exercise of religion in Arkansas.

If enacted, H.B. 1615 would provide Arkansans with some of the best religious freedom protections in the nation.

H.B. 1615 has already passed in the Arkansas House of Representatives, where it received very strong support. The bill now goes to the entire Arkansas Senate for a vote.

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JPMorgan Chase loses SEC challenge, must allow shareholders to consider viewpoint diversity proposal

Religious Freedom

The following is a press release from our friends at Alliance Defending Freedom.

Nation’s largest bank sought to avoid shareholder transparency on politicized debanking, called upon to participate in ADF Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index

Wednesday, Mar 29, 2023

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has ruled against JPMorgan Chase’s attempt to exclude a shareholder resolution on viewpoint diversity from its ballot for its annual shareholder meeting. Chase shareholders will now have an opportunity to review and vote on a proposal aimed at ensuring equal treatment of the financial giant’s customers regardless of their religious and political beliefs.

Submitted by the Bahnsen Family Trust, the proposal directs Chase’s board of directors to evaluate and issue a report on the bank’s disturbing trend of politicized debanking. After Chase requested permission from the SEC to exclude the resolution, attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom and Boyden Gray & Associates filed a response urging the SEC to deny Chase’s request and allow the resolution to go through to shareholders.

In the past two years, Chase has denied payments or canceled accounts associated with people and organizations who hold mainstream American values, such as former Ambassador Sam Brownback, the Arkansas Family Council, and Defense of Liberty. Now that the SEC has denied Chase’s request to exclude the proposal, it will be included in the company’s proxy materials for its upcoming shareholder meeting on May 16.

“Major banks like Chase shouldn’t be hiding from their shareholders, and the SEC’s decision is a much-needed step toward transparency,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President for Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco. “Chase needs to rebuild trust with its shareholders and clients, but that can’t happen unless it answers basic questions about treating everyone equally regardless of their political or religious views. Chase’s recent behavior suggests a pattern of politically motivated debanking. The company needs to change course and assure its shareholders and customers that it respects everyone’s freedom to participate in the marketplace without fear of political or anti-religious bias.”

The SEC ruling comes amid a rising wave of opposition to Chase’s engagement in cancel culture through politicized debanking. Chase was featured prominently in the “Statement on Debanking and Free Speech,” signed in November of last year by a group of nearly 60 financial professionals. Last week, Nebraska State Treasurer John Murante led a group of 14 colleagues in a letter to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon calling on him to address and correct the issue by adopting policies recommended by ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Score 2022 Business Index and providing necessary shareholder transparency by participating in the survey portion of the 2023 Business Index.

Citing analysis from the 2022 Business Index, where Chase scored just 15% overall, the Bahnsen Family Trust proposal also calls on Chase to adopt those policies and participate in the survey. Along with criticizing Chase’s actions as “an affront to public trust,” the proposal highlights the vague and subjective terms-of-use policies (including terms like “hate speech” and “intolerance”) that allow companies like Chase unbridled discretion to discriminate against customers for their views.

“Chase’s fiduciary duty to shareholders and respect for civil liberties should cause it to eschew demands to debank certain industries, groups, and individuals for political reasons,” said David Bahnsen, founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of The Bahnsen Group and a member of the Viewpoint Diversity Score advisory council. “That’s common sense, and that’s the aim of our proposal. The SEC did the right thing in allowing our proposal to reach the ballot, and we look forward to meaningful engagement with Chase leadership and our fellow shareholders around this crucial topic.”

Jonathan Berry of Boyden Gray & Associates assisted ADF in defending the proposal at the SEC. Find out more about Viewpoint Diversity Score and the Business Index at www.ViewpointDiversityScore.org.

Alliance Defending Freedom is an alliance-building, non-profit legal organization committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and the sanctity of life.

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