Religious freedom is at a crossroads in US foreign policy
It is both ironic and tragic that the Department of State has implemented a massive reorganization, which may have troubling implications for America’s international religious freedom policy.
As recently approved, the reorganization subordinates the International Religious Freedom Office to the agenda and operational authority of the human rights bureau, foreshadowing a return of religious liberty to its former bureaucratic isolation.
If this move stands, it may harm international religious freedom policy during the Trump administration, and provide a dangerous precedent that the next progressive secretary of State will certainly exploit.
Here’s the irony: In his first term, Trump issued an executive order accurately declaring that religious freedom is a “moral and national security imperative,” and ordering steps to strengthen America’s largely ineffective international religious freedom policy.
That policy, which was established in 1998 by the International Religious Freedom Act, had languished within the State Department’s liberal bureaucracy since its passage.
It began to flourish under Trump’s international religious freedom ambassador, Sam Brownback, when the International Religious Freedom Office was elevated out of the bureaucracy and finally given a degree of authority and responsibility commensurate with its foreign policy significance.
The tragedy is that the vast potential of this policy, both for the global victims of cruel religious persecution and for the national security of the United States, may again go unfulfilled with the International Religious Freedom Office and the ambassador returned to their former station within the State Department’s vast bureaucracy.
To understand why this is so, a bit of history is in order. The International Religious Freedom Act created the position of ambassador at large for international religious freedom, with the mission of “advancing religious freedom” as America’s founders understood it — an inalienable right that warranted protection for all peaceful religious individuals and communities.
Democrats have long rejected this understanding. In 1998, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made the claim that international religious freedom creates an illegitimate “hierarchy of human rights,” enabling religious freedom to endanger other human rights.
Albright placed the international religious freedom ambassador and the office under the human rights bureau; State’s repository of progressive rights, such as abortion and gay marriage. It remained there for almost two decades.
In 2016, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) cosponsored amendments to the International Religious Freedom Act to fix the problem by increasing the authority of the ambassador at large.
No longer embedded in the human rights bureau, the ambassador was now “to report directly to the secretary of State,” with the authority “to coordinate international religious freedom policies” throughout the government. These changes coincided with Trump’s first election and set the stage for Ambassador Brownback.
Brownback used his authority to demonstrate the practical “moral and national security” role that U.S. international religious freedom policy can play.
He enticed scores of foreign ministers and thousands of civil society leaders to Washington to learn why the U.S. was committed to international religious freedom and how it could benefit their own nations.
They heard the case that religious freedom is an inalienable right and at the core of human dignity, that it combats terrorism, that it can limit the powers of government and discourage external aggression, that nations committed to respecting religious freedom prosper significantly more than nations that do not.
Brownback traveled the world to make these arguments. He roundly condemned the worst persecutors, including China’s Xi Jinping, Iran’s theocratic Ayatollahs, ISIS and Taliban terrorists and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
He demonstrated that a bold and robust U.S. international religious freedom policy can benefit human rights and human dignity for everyone, and can benefit America’s national security.
Under the last administration, however, Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that human rights were “co-equal,” that is, that there are no inalienable rights. The enhanced authority of Biden’s international religious freedom ambassador, given him by the 2016 International Religious Freedom Act amendments, was undercut.
But Republican concessions to Democrats in the amendments, namely placing the rights of “atheists and humanists” in the International Religious Freedom Act, were vigorously pursued by Blinken’s human rights bureau. Programs promoting atheism were funded under the auspices of “religious freedom.”
Earlier this year, Trump named religious freedom champion Marco Rubio as his secretary of State, and the future of international religious freedom seemed bright again.
And, the final rollout of the reorganization has revealed the designation of an undersecretary for Foreign Assistance, Humanitarian Affairs and Religious Freedom, a leadership position which had not previously existed in that form.
But these salutary developments do not change the fact that the international religious freedom ambassador and his office should not have been moved back under the human rights bureau. It is unclear how the reorganization is compatible with the 2016 International Religious Freedom Act amendments.
What, then, can be done?
First, State Department leadership must preserve the full authority of the international religious freedom ambassador given him by law amid these sweeping structural changes. The value of the ambassador’s work to America and the world was clearly demonstrated by Brownback.
Second, such a massive reorganization should be followed by a mandatory, comprehensive assessment at six months of its efficacy across State’s major functions and policy areas. When that time comes, the liabilities of placing the International Religious Freedom Office back in the human rights bureau should be scrutinized by House and Senate committees with jurisdiction.
If the operational authority of the International Religious Freedom Office has been compromised and its ability to shape foreign policy limited by bureaucracy, then the office should be returned to its place directly under the secretary of State.
Finally, history suggests that the precedent this reorganization is establishing may pave the way for a future administration to sideline U.S. international religious freedom policy yet again.
State Department leadership must proceed with extreme caution in this reorganization to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors, who all-too-often weakened U.S. international religious freedom policy by isolating it within the State Department’s enormous bureaucracy.
Thomas Farr was the first director of the Office of International Religious Freedom, serving under Ambassadors Robert Seiple (Clinton) and John Hanford (Bush). He is president emeritus of the Religious Freedom Institute. David Trimble is president of the Religious Freedom Institute.