The 1st Amendment of the Constitution reads this:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” is oft considered a guarantee of religious freedom.

I have also previously spoken about identity rights regarding religion.

Religious freedom is truly a contentious issue, with the decrying of religious freedom on one side and abusers of it on another. As I’ve mentioned before, it in part becomes contentious around the holidays when complaints of the fabled “War on Christmas” (and, once again, I do mean fabled!) arise again. Meanwhile, the current federal regime has brought hope to those who wish to see the meaning of religious freedom expanded.

So what should religious freedom really mean?

Obviously, it does mean that one is allowed to follow any faith they wish, whether it be Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism, or one of many others. It also means that you are free to practice that faith- to partake of its rituals, prayers, tenets, and so on. You are, of course, also free to interpret them in certain ways.

What I believe it does not, or at least should not, mean is that you may impose your faith or its tenets on another person.

I’ll cut right to one of the chases. If you, for example, believe that homosexuality is a sin under your religion, that’s technically fine, even if I would disagree with you. You are thus entitled, then, to also refuse to engage in acts directly related to homosexuality as a matter of personal choice. What you are NOT permitted to do is force others, whether directly or in effect, to denounce or renounce homosexuality.

This also means that you should not be permitted to wield your religion as a weapon against the basic livelihoods of those who are LGBTQ+. For those of you thinking about cake, marriages, and children as you read this, I think you know what I’m going to say. Religious freedom is not and should not be a license to discriminate.

“But James, don’t business owners have the right to refuse service to anyone?”

Yes and no. The concern, really, is your reasons for refusing service to someone. You have every right to refuse to serve someone, but you should not be allowed to do because of their sexuality, gender/gender identity/gender expression, national origin, race, ethnicity, age (with exceptions), or disability, even if your religion (or rather, you think or have been told your religion) holds that you should.

The other chase to cut to also regards sex-related decisions. There’s a weird war against sexual-choice rights going on, which is rather absurd and contradictory on its own. Religious freedom is not a license to make sex-related decisions for someone else. You might disagree with the idea of premarital sex, for example. That’s fine. You do not get to impose that disagreement or policies based on that disagreement upon others.

Finally, of course, you cannot force your religion as a whole upon others. This is a foundational principle which allows someone to not say the Pledge (or at least not all of it), and for not allowing teacher-held prayer or religious text-reading sessions to the exclusion of other religions’ texts. You cannot force someone to pray or attend church. And your religious freedom does not extend to the use of violence to promote or exercise your faith.