Faith and Government Leaders Set Aside Differences to Defend and Promote Religious Freedom in America
Leaders of widely diverse U.S. faith communities, religious-freedom policy experts, and a bipartisan group of elected officials will gather to strategize and build consensus for the defense and promotion of religious freedom across the country. The 2013 National Religious Freedom Conference will focus on bipartisan and multi-faith initiatives to mobilize faith communities to promote religious freedom, develop religious freedom caucuses in the 50 state legislatures, and support legislative protections for religious liberty and conscience rights. Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, the preeminent voice of Hispanic Evangelicals, will give a special noontime address on the imperative of preserving robust religious freedoms in an increasingly diverse America. The award dinner will honor William Galston of the Brookings Institution with the 2013 American Religious Freedom Award, marking the 20th anniversary of the landmark, overwhelmingly bipartisan Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law Galston was instrumental in shepherding to passage as an advisor to President Clinton.
The one-day, invitation-only conference is hosted by the American Religious Freedom Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a program devoted to protecting and strengthening all Americans’ First-Amendment rights to the free exercise of religion. The program brings together individuals and organizations of all religious faiths, regardless of ideology or political affiliation. Representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Latter-day Saint, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish Orthodox, Seventh-day Adventist, Muslim and Sikh faith communities will participate in the conference.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Georgetown Four Seasons Hotel, Salons A and B
2800 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20007
8:45 a.m. Opening Address
Rabbi Dr. Meir Soloveichik, Director, Zahava and Moshael Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought, Yeshiva University
9:30 a.m. Legislative Panel: Engaging Government Leaders to Protect Core Liberties
Honorable Rebecca Hamilton, Oklahoma House of Representatives
Jennifer Kraska, Executive Director, Colorado Catholic Conference
Honorable Curt McKenzie, Idaho State Senate
Alan J. Reinach, Executive Director, Church State Council
Gene C. Schaerr, Chair, Nationwide Appellate Litigation Practice, Winston & Strawn LLP
**9:30 a.m. Media Q&A with Top Religious Leaders**
10:30 a.m. Religious Leaders Roundtable: Many Faiths, One America
Raymond Arroyo, EWTN News Director and Host of “The World Over Live”
Rabbi Abba Cohen, Vice President for Federal Affairs, Agudath Israel
The Very Reverend Dr. Chad Hatfield, Chancellor/CEO and Professor of Missiology, St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary
Reverend Eugene F. Rivers III, Pastor, Azusa Christian Community; Senior Policy Advisor to the Presiding Bishop, Church of God in Christ
Amardeep Singh, Director of Programs, Sikh Coalition
Elder Lance B. Wickman, General Counsel, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Shaykha Reima Yosif, Founding President, Al-Rawiya Foundation
1:00 p.m. Special Address: Renewing Religious Freedom for 21st-Century Diversity
Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
1:30 p.m. Joint Panel: Threats to Religious Freedom in the U.S. & Europe: Concerns of Majority and Minority Communities*
Dr. David Little, Retired T.J. Dermot Dunphy Professor of the Practice in Religion, Ethnicity, and International Conflict, Harvard Divinity School
Jasjit Singh, Executive Director, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Hannah Smith, Senior Counsel, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty
Dr. Roger Trigg, Senior Research Fellow in the Ian Ramsey Centre, University of Oxford; Scholar of the Religious Freedom Project, Berkley Center
*Panel session sponsored in collaboration with The Religious Freedom Project of Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs
7:30 p.m. National Religious Freedom Award Dinner
William A. Galston (Award Recipient), Senior Fellow, Governance Studies, and The Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in Governance Studies, Brookings Institution
Dr. Barry C. Black (Invocation), Chaplain, United States Senate
Matthew J. Franck (Master of Ceremonies), Director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, Witherspoon Institute
Dr. Richard Land (Award Presenter), President, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; President-elect, Southern Evangelical Seminary
Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett (Keynote Address), President, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice
Robust protections for religious liberty and individual rights of conscience have been the foundation for America’s two centuries of peaceful religious pluralism and diversity. Today some politicized factions are calling these freedoms into question. A united front from all faiths, parties, and ideologies on the issue of religious freedom ensures that every American enjoys the blessings of liberty equally.