August 16, 2021

Religious Freedom Must Be First and Foremost

Two authors warn against the encroachment by social media upon our first liberty.

There’s a reason why the first words of our Constitution’s First Amendment are as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” That reason? Our Founders thought religious freedom to be our most important freedom — even more important than the freedom of speech.

In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, authors Salvatore J. Cordileone and Jim Daly argue that, as they put it, “The First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty is being dismantled, and with it the profound contributions that religion makes to American unity and self-government.”

And how is this fundamentally American guarantee being attacked? By the anti-God, anti-Christian censors of social media. They write:

Today’s sexual politics function as a new kind of fundamentalism, one that presents a deep problem to a diverse and democratic society. Instead of encouraging the dialogue of democratic process, the fundamentalists seek to impose their own rigid certitude unilaterally. On matters ranging from foster care and education to gender ideology and the family, this new fundamentalism is displacing the moral convictions that once grounded U.S. culture. The result isn’t a more compassionate and liberal society; it’s a more punitive one.

Social media enables the new fundamentalism, enforced by the mysterious rules of Big Tech’s quasimonopoly. On public sidewalks, the First Amendment still theoretically protects free speech. In the new public square of the internet, power displaces liberty and conscience.

Cordileone, who heads the Catholic Archdoicese of San Francisco, and Daly, who leads Focus on the Family, note that religious liberty allows us to fight government overreach by instilling in us the virtues necessary for that fight. And while they don’t say it in so many words, they might as well: Without that fundamental freedom, the American experiment is toast. “There is a reason,” they write, “the Pledge of Allegiance places our national loyalty ‘under God.’ Without that protection, the ambitions of power tend to corrupt conscience and deform human rights.”

This struggle between religiosity and secularism, between love of God and lack of God, isn’t anything new. In 1952’s Witness, one of the great books of the 20th (or any) century, author and ardent ex-communist Whittaker Chambers posited that “communism poses the most revolutionary question in history: ‘God or man?’”

Today, nearly 70 years later, that question continues to haunt us, and the fight for freedom of religious expression is its main battlefield. If we reject God on social media platforms or anywhere else, then we do away with our primary bulwark against the awful force that, as Chambers puts it, “has been inching its ice cap over the nation” for the past century.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.