Part IV | Select Quotes from Church Leaders
Category C | Discrimination
Topic 13 | Conviction is not discrimination
Adhering to one’s religious convictions usually does not involve unlawful discrimination against others. One of the most frequent criticisms of religious freedom is that it is a claim for the right to discriminate against others. This is usually a distortion of religious belief and practice, and often rests on a misguided oversimplification about what constitutes unlawful discrimination.
◆ ◆ ◆
President Dallin H. Oaks: We need to work for a way to resolve differences without compromising core values.
“We have always had to work through serious political conflicts, but today too many approach that task as if their preferred outcome must entirely prevail over all others, even in our pluralistic society. We need to work for a better way—a way to resolve differences without compromising core values. We need to live together in peace and mutual respect, within our defined constitutional rights.
I have always known of the tensions experienced when persons who rely on the free exercise of religion are conflicted between duties to God and duties to country. More recently, I have come to understand better the distress of persons who feel that others are invoking constitutional rights like free exercise of religion and freedom of speech to deny or challenge their own core beliefs and their access to basic constitutional rights. I deeply regret that these two groups have been drawn into conflict with one another.”
- Dallin H. Oaks, Going Forward with Religious Freedom and Nondiscrimination, Joseph Smith Lecture, University of Virginia (Dec. 12, 2021), https://www.religiousfreedomlibrary.org/documents/going-forward-with-religious-freedom-nondiscrimination.