[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 10 (Thursday, January 17, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E60-E61]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       RELIGIOUS FREEDOM DAY 2019

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. J. FRENCH HILL

                              of arkansas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Thursday, January 17, 2019

  Mr. HILL of Arkansas. Madam Speaker, I would like to include in the 
Record the following Presidential Proclamation on Religious Freedom Day 
2019.

                     Office of the Press Secretary

               [For Immediate Release--January 15, 2019]


Religious Freedom Day, 2019
                                  ____


            BY The President of the United States Of America

                             A Proclamation

       On Religious Freedom Day, we celebrate our Nation's long-
     standing commitment to freedom of conscience and the freedom 
     to profess one's own faith. The right to religious freedom is 
     innate to the dignity of every human person and is 
     foundational to the pursuit of truth.
       The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth shared an experience 
     common to many of America's first settlers: they had fled 
     their home countries to escape religious persecution. Aware 
     of this history, our Nation's Founding Fathers readily 
     understood that a just government must respect the deep 
     yearning for truth and openness to the transcendent that are 
     part of the human spirit. For this reason, from the 
     beginning, our constitutional republic has endeavored to 
     protect a robust understanding of religious freedom. On 
     January 16, 1786, Virginia enacted the Statute for Religious 
     Freedom to protect the right of individual conscience and 
     religious exercise and to prohibit the compulsory support of 
     any church. Authored by Thomas Jefferson, the statute set 
     forth the principle that religious liberty is an inherent 
     right and not a gift of the state. Jefferson's statute served 
     as the inspiration and model for the legal architecture of 
     the conscience

[[Page E61]]

     protections in the First Amendment, drafted by James Madison 
     just a few years later.
       Unfortunately, the fundamental human right to religious 
     freedom is under attack. Efforts to circumscribe religious 
     freedom--or to separate it from adjoining civil liberties, 
     like property rights or free speech--are on the rise. Over 
     time, legislative and political attacks on religious freedom 
     have given way to actual violence. Last October, we witnessed 
     a horrific attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in 
     Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania--the deadliest attack on the Jewish 
     community in our Nation's history. Tragically, attacks on 
     people of faith and their houses of worship have increased in 
     frequency in recent years.
       My Administration is taking action to protect religious 
     liberty and to seek justice against those who seek to abridge 
     it. The Department of Justice is aggressively prosecuting 
     those who use violence or threats to interfere with the 
     religious freedom of their fellow Americans. In January of 
     2018, the Justice Department announced a religious liberty 
     update to the Justice Manual, raising the profile of 
     religious liberty cases. Also in January of 2018, the 
     Department of Health and Human Services undertook major 
     policy changes to protect religious freedom, including 
     forming a new Conscience and Religious Freedom Division 
     within the Department's Office for Civil Rights and proposing 
     a comprehensive new conscience protection regulation to 
     reinvigorate enforcement of religious freedom laws within 
     existing health care programs.
       Around the globe today, people are being persecuted for 
     their faith by authoritarian dictatorships, terrorist groups, 
     and other intolerant individuals. To address this tragic 
     reality, last July, at my request, the Secretary of State 
     convened the first-ever Ministerial to Advance Religious 
     Freedom. We are listening to the voices of those risking 
     their lives for their religious beliefs, and we are listening 
     to the families of people who have died fighting for their 
     fundamental right of conscience.
       Our Nation was founded on the premise that a just 
     government abides by the ``Laws of Nature and of Nature's 
     God.'' As the Founders recognized, the Constitution protects 
     religious freedom to secure the rights endowed to man by his 
     very nature. On this day, we recognize this history and 
     affirm our commitment to the preservation of religious 
     freedom.
       NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United 
     States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by 
     the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby 
     proclaim January 16, 2019, as Religious Freedom Day. I call 
     on all Americans to commemorate this day with events and 
     activities that remind us of our shared heritage of religious 
     liberty and that teach us how to secure this blessing both at 
     home and around the world.
       IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
     fifteenth day of January, in the year of our Lord two 
     thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the United 
     States of America the two hundred and forty-third.
                                                   Donald J. Trump

     

                          ____________________