{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/releases?ContentRecord_id=ED2954DB-551E-471A-BA75-FD38D37176AA", "Hatch Hits Back at U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' Attack on Religious Liberty", "2016-09-26", "2016", "2016-09", "Republican", "House", "UT", "Orrin Hatch", "H000338", "www.hatch.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Washington, D.C.\u2014Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the senior Republican in the United States Senate, and a principal author of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, responded in a letter today to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights\u2019 controversial report on discrimination and religious liberty, which contained statements that have outraged proponents of religious freedom.\r\n\u00a0Hatch wrote,\u00a0\u201cthe report adopts a stunted and distorted version of religious liberty, suggesting that claims of religious conscience are little more than a cloak for bigotry and hatred.\u00a0 I reject the false picture of religious liberty presented.\u201d\r\n\u00a0In the letter Senator Hatch also referenced a series of 8 speeches he delivered to the Senate on religious liberty, which can be found here:\r\n\u00a0\r\n1\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 basic principles of religious liberty;\r\n2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the history of religious liberty;\r\n3\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 status and substance of religious liberty;\r\n4\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the balance between faith and public life;\r\n5\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 contemporary threats to religious liberty;\r\n6\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 threats to religious liberty abroad; and\r\n7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the importance of religious liberty to Democracy\r\n8\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 the way forward for religious liberty\r\n\u00a0\r\nThe full letter is below.\r\n\u00a0\r\nChairman Castro\r\nU.S. Commission on Civil Rights\r\n1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Suite 1150\r\nWashington, DC 20425\r\nDear Chairman Castro:\r\n\r\nI reviewed, with both interest and deep concern, the Commission\u2019s report titled Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties.\r\nThe report\u2019s asserted focus is the \u201cappropriate balance between religious liberty and nondiscrimination principles.\u201d\u00a0 That effort must begin with an honest consideration of each side of the scale.\u00a0 In my view, the report fails to do that. \u00a0\r\nTo begin, a majority of the Commission appears to believe that, in all but the narrowest of circumstances, the civil right to freedom from discrimination trumps the constitutional right to freely exercise religion.\u00a0 In embracing this position, however, the report adopts a stunted and distorted version of religious liberty, suggesting that claims of religious conscience are little more than a cloak for bigotry and hatred.\u00a0 I reject the false picture of religious liberty presented in the report.\r\nThe report also fails properly to account for the primacy of religious liberty in our nation\u2019s history, founding principles, and legal commitments. Remarkably, the report\u2019s title does not even mention the term \u201creligious liberty,\u201d but rather subsumes it as one of a number of \u201ccivil liberties\u201d that, one supposes, are of varying significance.\r\nIndeed, I cannot find any discussion in the report of the central status that religious liberty has always had in American society and law.\u00a0 James Madison identified the free exercise of religion according to conviction and conscience as an inalienable right.\u00a0 He further explained that religious exercise \u201cis precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of civil society.\u201d\u00a0 As Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg wrote, to America\u2019s founders, religious liberty was preeminent among fundamental rights.\u00a0 More recently, the Congress of the United States unanimously declared in the International Religious Freedom Act that religious liberty \u201cundergirds the very origin and existence of the United States.\u201d\r\nIn a series of Senate floor speeches one year ago, I detailed additional evidence for the primacy of religious liberty in American life.\u00a0 This evidence includes declarations and treaties such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1975 Helsinki Accords, and the 1992 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.\u00a0 In annual proclamations, Presidents of both parties have said that religious liberty is essential to our dignity as human beings and that no freedom is more fundamental than the right to practice one\u2019s religious beliefs.\r\nIn those Senate speeches, I also outlined the substance of religious liberty.\u00a0 It includes behavior as well as belief, in public as well as in private, and collectively as well as individually.\u00a0 This understanding of religious liberty is clearly presented in both the domestic and international commitments the United States has made throughout its history.\r\nThe Commission\u2019s report, however, fails to acknowledge any of this.\u00a0 To the contrary, the report appears to make every effort to confine, narrow, and limit religious liberty.\u00a0 It would have religious liberty apply to belief but not behavior, to be exercised individually in private rather than collectively in public.\r\nAnd although the report professes to seek a \u201cbalance\u201d between religious liberty and nondiscrimination principles, its findings and recommendations undermine any attempt at \u201cbalance.\u201d\u00a0 The very first finding states that \u201cprotections ensuring nondiscrimination\u201d\u2014including mere \u201cpolicies\u201d\u2014are \u201cof preeminent importance in American jurisprudence.\u201d\u00a0 Constitutional rights, it seems, or at least the constitutional right to freedom of religion, must take a back seat to policies identified in statute and regulation.\u00a0 I cannot think of another context in which advocates seriously assert those priorities.\r\nFinally, I am troubled by the anti-religious sentiments in several of the supplementary statements in the report. In one statement, you say that religious liberty has become a \u201ccode word\u201d for \u201cdiscrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy,\u201d and other forms of \u201cintolerance.\u201d You then tie contemporary religious liberty claims to the shameful legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. This is false equivalence in the extreme. Today\u2019s sincere believers are not seeking to subjugate vast swaths of fellow Americans beneath the rod of government oppression. Rather, they are seeking room to live out their faith in a society that is fast abandoning traditional views on marriage and sexuality.\r\nBecause the Commission\u2019s report is based on a briefing before the Commission, it is possible that the Commission was not presented with a comprehensive picture of the history and status of religious liberty in our nation.\u00a0 If so, then perhaps part of the fault lies with how the briefing was organized.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the serious and timely topic of reconciling nondiscrimination principles with freedom of religion cannot adequately be addressed without a more accurate understanding of religious liberty.\r\nAs you can tell, I feel strongly about religious liberty.\u00a0 It is an essential and defining part of our nation\u2019s heritage and identity and I am committed to defending it.\r\nSincerely,\r\nSenator Orrin Hatch", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/releases?ContentRecord_id=ED2954DB-551E-471A-BA75-FD38D37176AA"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.839505810290575, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}