• Hope for the Years Ahead
  • Elder Dallin H. Oaks
  • Utah Valley University’s Constitutional Symposium on Religious Freedom, 16 April 2014

I submit that religious leaders and religiously motivated persons should have the same privileges of speech and participation as any other persons or leaders and that churches should stand on at least as strong a footing as any other corporation when they enter the public square to participate in public policy debates. The precious constitutional right of free speech does not exclude any individual or any group, and the exercise of that right with religious speech is especially protected in view of the companion guarantee of the free exercise of religion.