{"id":353076,"date":"2010-02-23T03:00:14","date_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opiniojuris.org\/?p=11424"},"modified":"2010-02-23T03:00:14","modified_gmt":"2010-02-23T08:00:14","slug":"obama-reduces-the-%e2%80%9cfreedom-of-religion%e2%80%9d-to-the-%e2%80%9cfreedom-of-worship%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/353076","title":{"rendered":"Obama Reduces the \u201cFreedom of Religion\u201d to the \u201cFreedom of Worship\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>by Julian Ku <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So says <a  href=\"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/onthesquare\/2010\/02\/why-ldquofreedom-of-worshiprdquo-is-not-enough\">Ashley Samuelson of the Becket Institute<\/a>. \u00a0I&#8217;m not sure there has been a policy shift yet, but it is worth watching.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFreedom of worship\u201d first appeared in a high profile speech in Obama\u2019s remarks at the memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood shooting last November, a few months after his Cairo speech. Speaking to the crowd gathered to commemorate the victims, President Obama said, \u201cWe&#8217;re a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses.\u201d Given the religious tension that marked the tragic incident, it was not an insignificant event at which to unveil a new way of referring to our First Freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Shortly after his remarks at Ft. Hood, President Obama left for his trip to Asia, where he repeatedly referred to \u201cfreedom of worship,\u201d and not once to \u201cfreedom of religion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Not long after his return, \u201cfreedom of worship\u201d appeared in two prominent speeches delivered by Secretary Clinton. In her address to Georgetown University outlining the Obama Administration\u2019s human rights agenda she used \u201cfreedom of worship\u201d three times, \u201cfreedom of religion,\u201d not once. About a month later, in an address to Senators on internet freedom at the Newseum, the phrase popped up in her lingo once again.<\/p>\n<p>To anyone who closely follows prominent discussion of religious freedom in the diplomatic and political arena, this linguistic shift is troubling.<\/p>\n<p>The reason is simple. Any person of faith knows that religious exercise is about a lot more than freedom of worship. It\u2019s about the right to dress according to one\u2019s religious dictates, to preach openly, to evangelize, to engage in the public square. Everyone knows that religious Jews keep kosher, religious Quakers don\u2019t go to war, and religious Muslim women wear headscarves\u2014yet \u201cfreedom of worship\u201d would protect none of these acts of faith.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/opiniojurisfeed\/~4\/lgLmKBJy8sg\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Julian Ku So says Ashley Samuelson of the Becket Institute. \u00a0I&#8217;m not sure there has been a policy shift yet, but it is worth watching. \u201cFreedom of worship\u201d first appeared in a high profile speech in Obama\u2019s remarks at the memorial for the victims of the Fort Hood shooting last November, a few months [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-353076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}