About Religious Freedom Day

Each year, the President declares January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” and calls upon Americans to “observe this day through appropriate events and activities in homes, schools, and places of worship.” The day is the anniversary of the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom. Thomas Jefferson drafted the legislation and considered it one of his greatest achievements. It stopped the practice of taxing people to pay for the support of the local clergy, and it protected the civil rights of people to express their religious beliefs without suffering discrimination.

The men who drafted the U.S. Constitution leaned heavily on Jefferson's statute in establishing the First Amendment's guarantee of religious freedom.

Today, that protection is as important as ever. In too many instances, public school teachers tell students they cannot include their faith in their homework assignments or classroom discussions.

The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidelines explaining students’ religious liberties. Talking about religious liberties (especially explaining students' liberties to parents) will make an administrator's job easier because it will clarify that schools need not be “religion-free zones.” It is often the case that parents who complain to school officials about what they think are violations of the “separation of church and state” do not understand the appropriate and lawful place religious expression can have at school.

Religious Freedom Day is not "celebrate-our-diversity day." Freedom means the freedom to disagree (respectfully). The main message students need to hear is that they shouldn't feel like they have to be “undercover” about their religion...that somehow they have to be “hush-hush” about their family's beliefs.