Notre Dame Law School via AP In the image from video provided by Notre Dame Law School, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Altio speaks at the Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Summit in Rome, on July 21, 2022. Conservative defenders of religious liberty are pushing a new version of an old argument: Liberals and secularists, they contend, will not protect religious liberty in the public square. What this means, conservatives argue, is that the secular left is only willing to tolerate religious practice in private locations, such as one’s home or house of worship. But If religious believers leave those cloistered environments, they will find that the special protection religious liberty receives does not follow them. It only remains in force behind closed doors. Thus, as Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested in his recent speech in Rome , the liberty of religious individuals will not be respected by secularists “when you step outside into the public square in the light of day.” There are two fundamental flaws with this argument, leaving aside the obvious rejoinder that it doesn’t seem to comport with the reality many of us experience. When Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons follow the dictates of their […]
