This past Monday, January 16, was Religious Freedom Day, commemorating the day in 1786 when the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was enacted into law. The statute was drafted by Thomas Jefferson and became the basis for the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. A congressional decree in 1993 directs the president to issue a yearly proclamation declaring January sixteenth as Religious Freedom Day.

Our Founders understood that religious freedom is the underpinning for our other freedoms; that’s why they called religious freedom our first freedom. It is now our turn to protect this freedom for future generations. Such protection begins with a personal commitment to show up, speak up, and stand up whenever and wherever this freedom is attacked.