God has optimistically endowed humans with both the ability and responsibility to make choices with the hope, indeed the confidence, that we will ultimately choose that which benefits the individual and the larger society in which those individuals live. At its best, this is precisely the hope of democracy as well. Inherent in liberal democracy is an assumption, a hope, a belief that free people will use their liberty to choose good over evil, right over wrong, virtue over vice.

For that reason the United States continues to espouse civil liberties, including that precious “first freedom” of religion, which informs the choices we must make in life.