Roger Trigg on the Importance of Religious Freedom

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February 13, 2012 | This video has been excerpted from the Berkley Center's event Equality, Freedom, & Religion

Does the US government have the right to force religious schools and colleges to offer forms of birth-control in their employee healthcare plans which violate tenets of their morality? Should Christian couples in the UK be barred from fostering children if their religion forbids them to teach the moral acceptance of homosexual practice? All human rights are valuable and worthy of protection, and yet in recent years the right to put religious belief into practice has taken a backseat to the pursuit of other social priorities.

Philosopher and Religious Freedom Project scholar Roger Trigg addressed these important and controversial issues as he discusses his new book, Equality, Freedom, and Religion (Oxford, 2012), which raises the question of whether any freedom can be preserved for long if the basic human right to freedom of religious belief and practice is subordinated to other social concerns (particularly to the pursuit of equality). Responding to the book will be William Galston, Brookings Institute scholar and former policy advisor to President Clinton, and Helen Alvaré, professor of law at George Mason University and regular commentator on issues of law and religion.

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