Religion and Human Rights (4): Religious Liberty is About More Than Religion

Religious liberty or the freedom of belief is a human right. It is the right to be protected against coercion in matters of religion, to be free to practice and profess a religion of your choice, in private as well as in public, to change your religion, or – which is often forgotten – to practice no religion at all and to be free from religion.

Religious liberty is an important value because it protects diversity and plurality and hence counteracts religious persecution and coercion. It makes a monopoly of one religion impossible except when culture and demography are such that there is a de facto monopoly that is not contested and it guarantees the coexistence of different and publicly competing beliefs.

In this way, it also guarantees debate and diversity in general. If there is debate and diversity on the level of religion, then why not on other levels? On top of that, religious liberty guarantees tolerance: if people can be tolerant – or are forced to be tolerant – in the field of religion, then they will probably be tolerant in other fields as well. This shows that religious liberty can be of interest to non-religious persons, not only because it protects them from the imposition of a religious belief, but also because it allows them to live in a world of tolerance and diversity. Religious liberty is therefore an integral part of a democratic society and a system of human rights that also aim at such a world.

More on religious liberty.