[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 22, 2019)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 195-196]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-00092]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 84 , No. 14 / Tuesday, January 22, 2019 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 195]]

                Proclamation 9836 of 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 
                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.

[[Page 196]]

                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.
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 2019-00092
Filed 1-18-19; 8:45 am]
Billing code 3295-F9-P