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Religious Freedom Toolkit

Part IV | Select Quotes from Church Leaders

Category D | Human Rights

Topic 21 | Human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated

Human rights instruments, beginning with the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted at a World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, emphasize that human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated. Freedom of religion or belief should be understood as part of the tapestry of fundamental human rights.

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Elder Neil L. Andersen: Religious freedom encourages broader freedoms.  

“[R]eligious freedom encourages broader freedoms. Significant empirical evidence points to a strong correlation between the presence of religious freedom and other freedoms, along with a variety of positive social and economic outcomes ranging from better health care to higher incomes for women. Religious freedom, freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom of speech tend to ‘rise or fall together.’”

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Elder D. Todd Christofferson: The right to freedom of religion is an encompassing right. 

“The right to the freedom of religion or belief is an encompassing right that can be taken away directly or indirectly, and thus: You cannot have religious freedom without the freedom of worship; the freedom of association; the freedom of expression and opinion; the freedom of assembly; protection from arbitrary arrest and detention; protection from interference in home and family; and you cannot have religious freedom without equal protection under the law.

I agree, and I submit that the opposite is also true: you cannot have (or long enjoy) these other vital freedoms and rights without freedom of religion or belief. All of these rights and liberties are mutually supportive, but the root freedom giving life to all the others is the freedom of religion.”

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Elder Gerrit W. Gong: Nations and societies that uphold religious freedom are more likely to enjoy a wealth of other liberties.  

“Rights, such as Freedom of Religion or Belief and Freedom of Expression, are appropriately viewed as a package. Indeed: ‘the same principle which would trample upon religious freedom rights, would trample on rights of freedom of expression, and a host of other rights that collectively makeup the core human dignity of the individual.'

Contrary to sometimes popular belief, experience shows nations and societies that uphold religious freedom rights are more likely, rather than less likely, to enjoy a wealth of other liberties.”

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Elder D. Todd Christofferson: Religious freedom is at the core of an “ecosystem” of freedom.  

“But religious freedom does not exist in isolation. I also fear that many in our modern secular societies have forgotten that religious freedom undergirds and is inseparably connected to all the other freedoms we cherish. It is the core right in what might be thought of as an ‘ecosystem’ of freedom. As religious freedom goes, so go many other precious rights.”

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