Growing threats against Americans’ religious exercise and identity call for a new generation of education and advocacy on behalf of religious freedom for all faiths.

President Obama extolled the virtues of our nation’s religious civil rights and liberties in this year’s Religious Freedom Day proclamation. “From many faiths and diverse beliefs,” the president said, “Americans are united by the ideals we cherish. Our shared values define who we are as a people and what we stand for as a Nation.”

Mr. Obama noted that our unified national commitment to fundamental rights for all has not come cheaply. Rather, it is due to the labors of multiple “generations of patriots” who resolutely fought “through great conflict and fierce debate…to secure and defend these freedoms.”

Among a list of troubling indicators that today’s civil rights advocates must address are studies by the independent Pew Research Center. These studies, conducted from 2006 through 2015, show a marked increase of both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion in the U.S. Other research, such as that showcased in the 2011 book The Price of Freedom Denied, demonstrates that religious hostilities typically increase in lockstep with increased government encroachments on religious freedom.

Source: Brian Grim & Brian Walsh, http://www.realclearreligion.org