He stated the following:
“Religious freedom is indeed under attack,” Elder Christofferson told an audience in the Marriott Center at Brigham Young University. “I am convinced that those who question the value or even the legitimacy of religious freedom do not understand that it is woven into the very soul of America.”Religious participation in public life is not only part of American history and a constitutionally protected freedom, it’s also good for our nation,” he said. “All laws and government policies are based on values — religious or otherwise.
They recognize corrosive social forces that threaten faith, family and freedom. Critics now openly ask whether religion belongs in American public life at all,
Some even claim, with no sense of history, that religious people and institutions violate the constitutional separation of church and state if they bring their beliefs into the public square.
Repeating the pattern set by their Puritan forebears, early Latter-day Saints fled from state to state — eventually settling in the Great Basin — in the hope of building Zion in the wilderness, set the terms of the national debates over slavery, emancipation and the Civil War.
“Recently it has become popular to argue that the freedom of religion is really only the right to worship rather than the right to freely exercise your faith in your daily life — as if religion should be kept in the closet or some other private place,
There are concerted efforts to shame and intimidate believers who have traditional moral values and to suppress religious viewpoints and practices regarding marriage, family, gender and sexuality. Worst of all, government sometimes joins in these efforts.
His Conclusion:
We live in challenging times. Religious freedom is indeed under fire. And things may get worse before they get better. But these are our times. This is our moment to defend our fundamental freedoms,
