The following is excerpted from the Deseret News. To read the full article, CLICK HERE. 

Thirty years since the passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, religious liberty rights remain essential, but they’re increasingly devalued and misunderstood, according to Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma.

For some lawmakers and community leaders, issues like ending anti-LGBTQ discrimination and protecting abortion rights now take precedence over defending people of faith, which puts religious freedom’s future at risk, Lankford said Thursday during a webinar on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act hosted by the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation.

“There are some folks whose highest value is abortion or sexual orientation and gender identity issues — that trumps everything else. And they’d say, ‘If you disagree with my opinion on those things, you need to be silent and you need to be isolated,’” he said.

To defend religious freedom today requires consistently making the case that conscience rights benefit everyone, said Lankford and other panelists.

“Elected officials on both the left and right have constituents who need (the Religious Freedom Restoration Act) in order to live out their religious beliefs,” said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket. “Preserving its basic structure really is important for everyone.”

Religious freedom and gay rights

In 1993, when the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed, there was a stronger consensus around the value of faith-based protections.

Democrats, Republicans and a wide variety of faith groups, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, worked together on the law, which passed the House unanimously on a voice vote and the Senate 97-3, as the Deseret News previously reported.

But by the late 1990s, it was already becoming more difficult to pass faith-related laws. Early debates about legalizing same-sex marriage and ending anti-LGBTQ discrimination exposed how difficult it can be to protect religious freedom and LGBTQ civil rights at the same time.

Today, some Americans worry that religious liberty laws are causing harm, Lankford said.

To read the full article, CLICK HERE.