Dear John,

As we enter our 250th year, it’s important to be aware of what our Founding Fathers were living through if you want to truly understand their intent when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

They were living through an age of rage.

Why? They had come to America to be free, but England wouldn’t allow that.

Our inalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, were just unrealized dreams for the colonists. Instead, what passed as freedom was defined by a king on the other side of the ocean.

These are the rights our Founders longed for, fought for and then sought to protect when they wrote our nation’s founding documents.

The end result of their efforts was a set of documents that, when taken as a whole, continue to stand the test of time. They are just as relevant today as when they were written nearly two and half centuries ago.

Watch Johnathan Turley, one of the most respected constitutional scholars in the country, discuss the importance of our First Amendment rights and why it’s critically important to the future of our nation to make sure they are protected for future generations.

Unfortunately, many people today believe that our Constitution goes too far, that it grants us too much freedom.

And as a result, they’ve started introducing and passing legislation to limit our freedoms, especially our First Freedom.

That’s not only wrong. It’s unconstitutional.

At First Liberty, we are committed to responding when our liberty is threatened. We are currently fighting for religious freedom in cities all across our nation.

Examples from our cases where legislation is misused to curtail religious freedom include:

• A Brandon, Mississippi ordinance was authorized to keep Gabriel Olivier from peacefully sharing his faith on a sidewalk in a public park.
• In San Luis, Arizona, city leaders shut down Gethsemani Baptist Church’s food ministry with zoning laws. It had been serving those in need for more than 25 years.
• City leaders in Bryan, Ohio used its fire code to criminally convict Pastor Chris Avell for compassionately caring for his town’s most vulnerable residents.

Attacks on religious freedom like these make it clear. If you truly believe in faith, you have to be willing to fight for it.

That’s why when faith comes under attack, we’re first in the fight to protect it.

You, John, make that possible.

Thanks to faithful supporters like you, we are not only able to respond to overzealous leaders trying to curtail our freedom. We are able to put a stop to them.

Your support provides our expert legal team with the resources they need to make sure that religious freedom remains our First Freedom, just as our Founding Fathers intended.

Thank you for your willingness to fight for faith. You are the reason the blessings of liberty will be secured for generations to come.

Grateful for you, 

Kelly

Kelly Shackelford, Esq.
President, CEO & Chief Counsel
First Liberty Institute