Religious freedom is about more than attending a house of worship, it’s about being able to live according to your beliefs in all aspects of life.
That’s the message from Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who spoke with The Good Newsroom during Religious Freedom Week about how Becket defends the rights of people of all faiths to live their beliefs in the public square.
“Religious liberty is certainly about the freedom to worship or belong to whatever church or synagogue or mosque you want to,” Rienzi said. “But it’s actually about much more than that, particularly in America… Religious liberty is actually about being able to exercise your religion the way you want to do it on Saturday or Sunday or at home or whatever, but then also being able to bring it into the public square as part of this diverse, pluralistic country.”
Becket has argued and won key cases in New York defending that broader freedom. Rienzi pointed to their work during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Becket supported religious groups challenging discriminatory restrictions on worship.
“We represented an Orthodox Jewish school. And then at the Supreme Court when the Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel — a nice Catholic and Jewish combination — were at the Supreme Court pushing back against Governor Cuomo’s COVID worship restrictions,” he explained. “We were at the Supreme Court successfully arguing that that was illegal.”
Becket is also representing the Diocese of Albany in a challenge to New York State’s mandate requiring employers to cover elective abortions in insurance plans. “The Supreme Court just last week vacated the New York court rulings against the religious parties and sent it back down for them to think about again,” Rienzi said.
He emphasized that believers shouldn’t feel pressured to hide their faith in public.
“The first and most important thing I can say to your audience is what we really need is people to do it,” Rienzi said. “It’s okay if people know that you’re Christian or Catholic or Jewish or Muslim. In America, people ought to be able to bring those things with them when they go about their daily lives.”