Friend:

“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” President George Washington wrote those famous words in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1790. A year before the First Amendment was ratified, our first president was sharing his view of how religious freedom would work in this new country.

As AU’s Rob Boston describes it, Washington wanted to make it clear that the United States would be different, a place where “government-sanctioned religious bigotry would be a thing of the past.”

However, you and I both know that we’re still working hard to achieve that goal – just as we are still striving to reach all of America’s founding ideals. Lifetimes have been spent pursuing the vision of equality etched into our national character by the very first lines of the Declaration of Independence. The same can be said for the centuries-old fight to live and believe as we choose and be treated equally under our laws.

Americans United recently lost two champions of religious freedom, activists who worked hand in hand with us to defend the separation of religion and government. Charles Sumner, a founding member of two AU chapters, truly was a lifelong advocate. Charles started working on this issue in 1949 and continued until 2021 – an astonishing 72 years of spirited activism.

Ronald B. Flowers, a professor emeritus of religion at Texas Christian University (TCU), was a former member of AU’s Board of Trustees, and an expert on church-state separation, authoring two essential books for students of church-state law. Our movement was lucky to have both of these incredible activists bring their passion to the cause of religious freedom.

So on this Fourth of July Weekend, I hope you’ll join me in celebrating not only America’s independence, but the lives of every activist whose work has brought our country that much closer to embodying the ideals laid down at our founding.

With hope and determination,