April 26, 2011 – New York – Richard Foltin, AJC’s Director of National and Legislative Affairs, delivered a major address in support of religious freedom at the 7th World Congress of the International Religious Liberty Association, an affiliate of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

Close to 900 religious leaders, academics, and attorneys from 65 countries, as well as high-ranking Latin American government officials, including the president of the Dominican Republic, attended the conference, which took place in Punta Cana, DR.

Addressing the subject of “Secular, Not Secularist: A Framework for Protecting Religious Liberty,” Foltin emphasized that a state built on avowedly secular principles, understood as religious neutrality, is the best protector of religious freedom.  At the same time, he noted, there is no doubt that secular society poses a challenge to religious belief and observance.  Whether there will be conflict or partnership between secularism and religious freedom depends, in large part, on how the term “secular” is defined.

“If, as opposed to religious neutrality, ‘secular’ is taken to mean that the state has a point of view that rejects or denies religion, seeks to exclude religious voices from participation in the debates of our day, and gives no regard to the existential reality of religiously observant people whose faiths may at times bring them into conflict with civil law, then we have a very severe challenge to religious freedom indeed,” Foltin said. 

However, “even if there are elements of our society who would like to move in that direction, this description of American law and society as, in effect, more ‘secularist’ than secular is far from reality,” he continued. 

And, as to those who claim that “a secular state necessarily entails…a threat to religious freedom,” they are cutting the ground away from an element of the American constitutional structure, separation of church and state, that is one of the greatest securers of religious freedom,” said Foltin.

Foltin also pointed out that one of the most difficult conceptual challenges for a state that aspires to religious neutrality is when individuals or organizations seek exceptions to laws of general application that would compel them to violate their religious beliefs.

This issue has been the focus of considerable public discussion in the United States this year. While recognizing that certain interests asserted by the state will be so important that an exemption cannot be allowed even for religious reasons, Foltin called for regulators to bring a spirit of forbearance to their task.

In conclusion, Foltin called for a return to “a better and more faithful vision of what it means to have a secular state, namely one that protects freedom of religion (including the freedom not to have a religion, or have religious precepts imposed), that is neutral on, and does not allow itself to become an instrument for the teaching, or endorsement of, religious beliefs—while at the same time, respecting the special role that religious belief plays in the role of religious individuals and communities, and that accommodates those religious beliefs to the greatest extent feasible given the interests of the state and of third parties.” 

In a separate session devoted to the U.S. role in promoting international religious freedom, Foltin spoke about the role of NGOs in adopting the International Religious Freedom Act.  AJC played a leadership role in that effort. Felice Gaer, director of AJC’s Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, served as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom established by the act.

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