Letter from Archbishop Lori to President Obama, Senator Hatch, and House Speaker Ryan regarding Religious Liberty (2016)

Joint Letter from Archbishop William E. Lori, Chairman, USCCB Ad Hoc Committee on Religious Liberty and other faith leaders to President Barack Obama, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, and House Speaker Paul Ryan regarding Religious Liberty, October 7, 2016

Dear Mr. President, Senator Hatch, and Speaker Ryan: 

We are a diverse group of American faith leaders from all political, religious and ideological perspectives. We write to you as the authorities responsible for appointing members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

We wish to express our deep concern that the Commission has issued a report, Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Non-Discrimination Principles with Civil Liberties, that stigmatizes tens of millions of religious Americans, their communities, and their faith-based institutions, and threatens the religious freedom of all our citizens.

The Commission asserts in its Findings that religious organizations “use the pretext of religious doctrines to discriminate.”

We understand that people of good faith can disagree about the relationship between religious liberty and antidiscrimination laws in our country, and how that relationship should best be structured. These questions have to do with issues critical to the common good such as marriage, the family, contraception, abortion, and the source of human dignity.

Letter-to-President-Senator-Hatch-Speaker-Ryan-FINAL-dated-October-7.pdf