How Conservative Christians Co-Opted the Rhetoric of Religious Freedom

By Adopting the Language of Individual Rights, Evangelicals Cast Themselves as a Beleaguered Minority

Today, just about everyone—including lobbyists, state legislators, and Supreme Court litigants—assumes that freedom of religion naturally means opposition to same-sex marriage and reproductive rights, and sits in tension with anti-discrimination and civil rights laws.

But such associations with the idea of “freedom of religion” are neither natural nor inevitable. Not so very long ago, Americans were more likely to invoke religious freedom to support the very causes, including legal access to abortion, that Christian conservatives now oppose in its name. Such a transition in the meaning of religious freedom is …