Oaks speech given at BYU-Idaho on 13 October 2009

13 October 2009 Transcript of Elder Dallin H. Oaks speech given at
BYU-Idaho on 13 October 2009.

My dear young friends, I am pleased to speak to this BYU-Idaho
audience. I am conscious that I am also speaking to many in other
places. In this time of the Internet, what we say in one place is
instantly put before a wider audience, including many to whom we do
not intend to speak. That complicates my task, so I ask your
understanding as I speak to a very diverse audience.

In choosing my subject I have relied on an old military maxim that
when there is a battle underway, persons who desire to join the fray
should "march to the sound of the guns."[i] So it is that I invite you
to march with me as I speak about religious freedom under the United
States Constitution. There is a battle over the meaning of that
freedom. The contest is of eternal importance, and it is your
generation that must understand the issues and make the efforts to
prevail.

I.

An 1833 revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith declared that the Lord
established the United States Constitution by wise men whom he raised
up for that very purpose (Doctrine and Covenants 101:80). The Lord
also declared that this constitution "should be maintained for the
rights and protection of all flesh" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:77;
emphasis added).

In 1833, when almost all people in the world were still ruled by kings
or tyrants, few could see how the infant United States Constitution
could be divinely designed "for the rights and protection of all
flesh." Today, 176 years after that revelation, almost every nation in
the world has adopted a written constitution, and the United States
Constitution profoundly influenced all of them. Truly, this nation's
most important export is its constitution, whose great principles
stand as a model "for the rights and protection of all flesh." On the
vital human right of religious freedom, however, many constitutions
fall short of the protections that are needed, so we are grateful that
the United States government seeks to encourage religious freedom all
over the world.[ii]

II.

To illustrate the importance of basic human rights in other countries,
I refer to some recent history in Mongolia, which shows that the
religious freedom we have taken for granted in the United States must
be won by dangerous sacrifice in some other nations.

Following the perestroika movement in the Soviet Union, popular
demonstrations in Mongolia forced the Communist government to resign
in March 1990. Other political parties were legalized, but the first
Mongolian elections gave the Communists a majority in the new
parliament, and the old repressive attitudes persisted in all
government departments. The full functioning of a democratic process
and the full enjoyment of the people's needed freedoms do not occur
without a struggle. In Mongolia, the freedoms of speech, press and
religion — a principal feature of the inspired United States
Constitution — remained unfulfilled.

In that precarious environment, a 42-year-old married woman, Oyun
Altangerel, a department head in the state library, courageously took
some actions that would prove historic. Acting against official
pressure, she organized a "Democratic Association Branch Council."
This 12-member group, the first of its kind, spoke out for democracy
and proposed that state employees have the freedoms of worship, belief
and expression, including the right to belong to a political party of
their choice.

When Oyun and others were fired from their state employment, Oyun
began a hunger strike in the state library. Within three hours she was
joined by 20 others, mostly women, and their hunger strike, which
continued for five days, became a public demonstration that took their
grievances to the people of Mongolia. This demonstration, backed by
major democratic movement leaders, encouraged other government
employees to organize similar democratic councils. These dangerous
actions expanded into a national anti-government movement that voiced
powerful support for the basic human freedoms of speech, press and
religion. Eventually the government accepted the demands, and in the
adoption of a democratic constitution two years later Mongolia took a
major step toward a free society.

For Latter-day Saints, this birth of constitutional government in
Mongolia has special interest. Less than two years after the historic
hunger strike, we sent our first missionaries to Mongolia. In 1992
these couples began their meetings in the state library, where Oyun
was working. The following year, she showed her courage again by being
baptized into this newly arrived Christian church. Her only child, a
22-year-old son, was baptized two years later. Today, the Mongolian
members of our Church number 9,000, reportedly the largest group of
Christians in the country. A few months ago we organized our first
stake in Mongolia. Called as the stake president was Sister Oyun's
son, Odgerel. He had studied for a year at BYU-Hawaii, and his wife,
Ariuna, a former missionary in Utah, graduated there.[iii]

III.

One of the great fundamentals of our inspired constitution, relied on
by Oyun of Mongolia and countless others struggling for freedom in
many countries in the world, is the principle that the people are the
source of government power. This principle of popular sovereignty was
first written and applied on the American continent over 200 years
ago. A group of colonies won independence from a king, and their
representatives had the unique opportunity of establishing a new
government. They did this by creating the first written constitution
that has survived to govern a modern nation. The United States
Constitution declared the source of government power, delegated that
power to a government, and regulated its exercise.

Along with many other religious people, we affirm that God is the
ultimate source of power and that, under Him, it is the people's
inherent right to decide their form of government. Sovereign power is
not inherent in a state or nation just because its leaders have the
power that comes from force of arms. And sovereign power does not come
from the divine right of a king, who grants his subjects such power as
he pleases or is forced to concede, as in Magna Carta. As the preamble
to our constitution states: "We the People of the United States . . .
do ordain and establish this Constitution."

This principle of sovereignty in the people explains the meaning of
God's revelation that He established the Constitution of the United
States "that every man may act . . . according to the moral agency
which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his
own sins in the day of judgment" (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78). In
other words, the most desirable condition for the effective exercise
of God-given moral agency is a condition of maximum freedom and
responsibility — the opposite of slavery or political oppression.
With freedom we can be accountable for our own actions and cannot
blame our conditions on our bondage to another. This is the condition
the Lord praised in the Book of Mormon, where the people — not a king
— established the laws and were governed by them (see Mosiah
29:23–26). This popular sovereignty necessarily implies popular
responsibility. Instead of blaming their troubles on a king or tyrant,
all citizens are responsible to share the burdens of governing, "that
every man might bear his part" (Mosiah 29:34).

IV.

"For the rights and protection of all flesh" the United State
Constitution includes in its First Amendment the guarantees of free
exercise of religion and free speech and press. Without these great
fundamentals of the Constitution, America could not have served as the
host nation for the restoration of the gospel, which began just three
decades after the Bill of Rights was ratified.

The First Amendment reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
The prohibition against "an establishment of religion" was intended to
separate churches and government, to prevent a national church of the
kind still found in Europe. In the interest of time I will say no more
about the establishment of religion, but only concentrate on the
direction that the United States shall have no law "prohibiting the
free exercise" of religion.

The guarantee of the free exercise of religion, which I will call
religious freedom, is the first expression in the First Amendment to
the United States Constitution. As noted by many, this "pre-eminent
place" identifies freedom of religion as "a cornerstone of American
democracy."[iv] The American colonies were originally settled by
people who, for the most part, had come to this continent to be able
to practice their religious faith without persecution, and their
successors deliberately placed religious freedom first in the nation's
Bill of Rights. So it is that our national law formally declares: "The
right to freedom of religion undergirds the very origin and existence
of the United States."[v]

The free "exercise" of religion obviously involves both the right to
choose religious beliefs and affiliations and the right to "exercise"
or practice those beliefs. But in a nation with citizens of many
different religious beliefs, the right of some to act upon their
religious principles must be qualified by the government's
responsibility to protect the health and safety of all. Otherwise, for
example, the government could not protect its citizens' person or
property from neighbors whose intentions include taking human life or
stealing in circumstances rationalized on the basis of their religious
beliefs.

The inherent conflict between the precious religious freedom of the
people and the legitimate regulatory responsibilities of the
government is the central issue of religious freedom. Here are just a
few examples of current controversial public issues that involve this
conflict: laws governing marriage and adoption; laws regulating the
activities of church-related organizations like BYU-Idaho in
furtherance of their religious missions — activities such as who they
will serve or employ; and laws prohibiting discrimination in
employment or work conditions against persons with unpopular religious
beliefs or practices.

The problems are not simple, and over the years the United States
Supreme Court, which has the ultimate responsibility of interpreting
the meaning of the lofty and general provisions of the Constitution,
has struggled to identify principles that can guide its decisions when
government action is claimed to violate someone's free exercise of
religion. As would be expected, most of the battles over the extent of
religious freedom have involved government efforts to impose upon the
practices of small groups like Mormons. Not surprisingly, government
officials sometimes seem more tolerant toward the religious practices
of large groups of voters.

Unpopular minority religions are especially dependent upon a
constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion. We are
fortunate to have such a guarantee in the United States, but many
nations do not. The importance of that guarantee in the United States
should make us ever diligent to defend it. And it is in need of being
defended. During my lifetime I have seen a significant deterioration
in the respect accorded to religion in our public life, and I believe
that the vitality of religious freedom is in danger of being weakened
accordingly.

Religious belief is obviously protected against government action. The
practice of that belief must have some limits, as I suggested earlier.
But unless the guarantee of free exercise of religion gives a
religious actor greater protection against government prohibitions
than are already guaranteed to all actors by other provisions of the
constitution (like freedom of speech), what is the special value of
religious freedom? Surely the First Amendment guarantee of free
exercise of religion was intended to grant more freedom to religious
action than to other kinds of action. Treating actions based on
religious belief the same as actions based on other systems of belief
should not be enough to satisfy the special place of religion in the
United States Constitution.

V.

Religious freedom has always been at risk. It was repression of
religious belief and practice that drove the Pilgrim fathers and other
dissenters to the shores of this continent. Even today, leaders in all
too many nations use state power to repress religious believers.

The greatest infringements of religious freedom occur when the
exercise of religion collides with other powerful forces in society.
Among the most threatening collisions in the United States today are
(1) the rising strength of those who seek to silence religious voices
in public debates, and (2) perceived conflicts between religious
freedom and the popular appeal of newly alleged civil rights.

As I address this audience of young adults, I invite your careful
attention to what I say on these subjects, because I am describing
conditions you will face and challenges you must confront.

Silencing Religious Voices in the Public Square

A writer for The Christian Science Monitor predicts that the coming
century will be "very secular and religiously antagonistic," with
intolerance of Christianity "ris[ing] to levels many of us have not
believed possible in our lifetimes."[vi] Other wise observers have
noted the ever-growing, relentless attack on the Christian religion by
forces who reject the existence or authority of God.[vii] The extent
and nature of religious devotion in this nation is changing. The tide
of public opinion in favor of religion is receding, and this probably
portends public pressures for laws that will impinge on religious
freedom.

Atheism has always been hostile to religion, such as in its arguments
that freedom of or for religion should include freedom from religion.
Atheism's threat rises as its proponents grow in numbers and
aggressiveness. "By some counts," a recent article in The Economist
declares, "there are at least 500 [million] declared non-believers in
the world — enough to make atheism the fourth-biggest
religion."[viii] And atheism's spokesmen are aggressive, as recent
publications show.[ix] As noted by John A. Howard of the Howard Center
for Family, Religion, and Society, these voices "have developed great
skills in demonizing those who disagree with them, turning their
opponents into objects of fear, hatred and scorn."[x]

Such forces — atheists and others — would intimidate persons with
religious-based points of view from influencing or making the laws of
their state or nation. Noted author and legal commentator Hugh Hewitt
described the current circumstance this way:

"There is a growing anti-religious bigotry in the United States. . . .

"For three decades people of faith have watched a systematic and very
effective effort waged in the courts and the media to drive them from
the public square and to delegitimize their participation in politics
as somehow threatening."[xi]

For example, a prominent gay-rights spokesman gave this explanation
for his objection to our Church's position on California's Proposition
8:

"I'm not intending it to harm the religion. I think they do wonderful
things. Nicest people. . . . My single goal is to get them out of the
same-sex marriage business and back to helping hurricane
victims."[xii]

Aside from the obvious fact that this objection would deny free speech
as well as religious freedom to members of our Church and its
coalition partners, there are other reasons why the public square must
be open to religious ideas and religious persons. As Richard John
Neuhaus said many years ago, "In a democracy that is free and robust,
an opinion is no more disqualified for being 'religious' than for
being atheistic, or psychoanalytic, or Marxist, or just plain
dumb."[xiii]

Religious Freedom Diluted by Other "Civil Rights"

A second threat to religious freedom is from those who perceive it to
be in conflict with the newly alleged "civil right" of same-gender
couples to enjoy the privileges of marriage.

We have endured a wave of media-reported charges that the Mormons are
trying to "deny" people or "strip" people of their "rights." After a
significant majority of California voters (seven million — over 52
percent) approved Proposition 8's limiting marriage to a man and a
woman, some opponents characterized the vote as denying people their
civil rights. In fact, the Proposition 8 battle was not about civil
rights, but about what equal rights demand and what religious rights
protect. At no time did anyone question or jeopardize the civil right
of Proposition 8 opponents to vote or speak their views.

The real issue in the Proposition 8 debate — an issue that will not
go away in years to come and for whose resolution it is critical that
we protect everyone's freedom of speech and the equally important
freedom to stand for religious beliefs — is whether the opponents of
Proposition 8 should be allowed to change the vital institution of
marriage itself.

The marriage union of a man and a woman has been the teaching of the
Judeo-Christian scriptures and the core legal definition and practice
of marriage in Western culture for thousands of years. Those who seek
to change the foundation of marriage should not be allowed to pretend
that those who defend the ancient order are trampling on civil rights.
The supporters of Proposition 8 were exercising their constitutional
right to defend the institution of marriage — an institution of
transcendent importance that they, along with countless others of many
persuasions, feel conscientiously obliged to protect.

Religious freedom needs defending against the claims of newly asserted
human rights. The so-called "Yogyakarta Principles," published by an
international human rights group, call for governments to assure that
all persons have the right to practice their religious beliefs
regardless of sexual orientation or identity.[xiv] This apparently
proposes that governments require church practices and their doctrines
to ignore gender differences. Any such effort to have governments
invade religion to override religious doctrines or practices should be
resisted by all believers. At the same time, all who conduct such
resistance should frame their advocacy and their personal relations so
that they are never seen as being doctrinaire opponents of the very
real civil rights (such as free speech) of their adversaries or any
other disadvantaged group.

VI.

And now, in conclusion, I offer five points of counsel on how
Latter-day Saints should conduct themselves to enhance religious
freedom in this period of turmoil and challenge.

First, we must speak with love, always showing patience, understanding
and compassion toward our adversaries. We are under command to love
our neighbor (Luke 10:27), to forgive all men (Doctrine and Covenants
64:10), to do good to them who despitefully use us (Matthew 5:44) and
to conduct our teaching in mildness and meekness (Doctrine and
Covenants 38:41).

Even as we seek to speak with love, we must not be surprised when our
positions are ridiculed and we are persecuted and reviled. As the
Savior said, "so persecuted they the prophets which were before you"
(Matthew 5:12). And modern revelation commands us not to revile
against revilers (Doctrine and Covenants 19:30).

Second, we must not be deterred or coerced into silence by the kinds
of intimidation I have described. We must insist on our constitutional
right and duty to exercise our religion, to vote our consciences on
public issues and to participate in elections and debates in the
public square and the halls of justice. These are the rights of all
citizens and they are also the rights of religious leaders. While our
church rarely speaks on public issues, it does so by exception on what
the First Presidency defines as significant moral issues, which could
surely include laws affecting the fundamental legal/cultural/moral
environment of our communities and nations.

We must also insist on this companion condition of democratic
government: when churches and their members or any other group act or
speak out on public issues, win or lose, they have a right to expect
freedom from retaliation.

Along with many others, we were disappointed with what we experienced
in the aftermath of California's adoption of Proposition 8, including
vandalism of church facilities and harassment of church members by
firings and boycotts of member businesses and by retaliation against
donors. Mormons were the targets of most of this, but it also hit
other churches in the pro-8 coalition and other persons who could be
identified as supporters. Fortunately, some recognized such
retaliation for what it was. A full-page ad in the New York Times
branded this "violence and intimidation" against religious
organizations and individual believers "simply because they supported
Proposition 8 [as] an outrage that must stop." [xv] The fact that this
ad was signed by some leaders who had no history of friendship for our
faith only added to its force.

It is important to note that while this aggressive intimidation in
connection with the Proposition 8 election was primarily directed at
religious persons and symbols, it was not anti-religious as such.
These incidents were expressions of outrage against those who
disagreed with the gay-rights position and had prevailed in a public
contest. As such, these incidents of "violence and intimidation" are
not so much anti-religious as anti-democratic. In their effect they
are like the well-known and widely condemned voter-intimidation of
blacks in the South that produced corrective federal civil-rights
legislation.

Third, we must insist on our freedom to preach the doctrines of our
faith. Why do I make this obvious point? Religious people who share
our moral convictions feel some intimidation. Fortunately, our leaders
do not refrain from stating and explaining our position that
homosexual behavior is sinful. Last summer Elder M. Russell Ballard
spoke these words to a BYU audience:

"We follow Jesus Christ by living the law of chastity. God gave this
commandment, and He has never revoked or changed it. This law is clear
and simple. No one is to engage in sexual relationships outside the
bounds the Lord has set. This applies to homosexual behavior of any
kind and to heterosexual relationships outside marriage. It is a sin
to violate the law of chastity.

"We follow Jesus Christ by adhering to God's law of marriage, which is
marriage between one man and one woman. This commandment has been in
place from the very beginning."[xvi]

We will continue to teach what our Heavenly Father has commanded us to
teach, and trust that the precious free exercise of religion remains
strong enough to guarantee our right to exercise this most basic
freedom.

Fourth, as advocates of the obvious truth that persons with religious
positions or motivations have the right to express their religious
views in public, we must nevertheless be wise in our political
participation. Preachers have been prime movers in the civil rights
movement from the earliest advocates of abolition, but even the civil
rights of religionists must be exercised legally and wisely.

As Latter-day Saints, we should never be reticent to declare and act
upon the sure foundations of our faith. The call of conscience —
whether religious or otherwise — requires no secular justification.
At the same time, religious persons will often be most persuasive in
political discourse by framing arguments and positions in ways that
are respectful of those who do not share their religious beliefs and
that contribute to the reasoned discussion and compromise that is
essential in a pluralistic society.[xvii]

Fifth and finally, Latter-day Saints must be careful never to support
or act upon the idea that a person must subscribe to some particular
set of religious beliefs in order to qualify for a public office. The
framers of our constitution included a provision that "no religious
Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public
Trust under the United States" (Article VI). That constitutional
principle forbids a religious test as a legal requirement, but it of
course leaves citizens free to cast their votes on the basis of any
preference they choose. But wise religious leaders and members will
never advocate religious tests for public office.

Fragile freedoms are best preserved when not employed beyond their
intended purpose. If a candidate is seen to be rejected at the ballot
box primarily because of religious belief or affiliation, the precious
free exercise of religion is weakened at its foundation, especially
when this reason for rejection has been advocated by other
religionists. Such advocacy suggests that if religionists prevail in
electing their preferred candidate this will lead to the use of
government power in support of their religious beliefs and practices.
The religion of a candidate should not be an issue in a political
campaign.

Conclusion

It was the Christian principles of human worth and dignity that made
possible the formation of the United States Constitution over 200
years ago, and only those principles in the hearts of a majority of
our diverse population can sustain that constitution today. Our
constitution's revolutionary concepts of sovereignty in the people and
significant guarantees of personal rights were, as John A. Howard has
written,

"generated by a people for whom Christianity had been for a century
and a half the compelling feature of their lives. It was Jesus who
first stated that all men are created equal [and] that every person .
. . is valued and loved by God."[xviii]

Professor Dinesh D'Souza reminds us:

"The attempt to ground respect for equality on a purely secular basis
ignores the vital contribution by Christianity to its spread. It is
folly to believe that it could survive without the continuing aid of
religious belief."[xix]

Religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the
origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the
influence of Christianity in the public square without seriously
jeopardizing our freedoms. I maintain that this is a political fact,
well qualified for argument in the public square by religious people
whose freedom to believe and act must always be protected by what is
properly called our "First Freedom," the free exercise of religion.