IRFA President Stanley Carlson-Thies contributed an article, “Religious Freedom: A Core Structural Issue of the 2012 Presidential Election,” to the Center for Public Justice’s just-released 2012 Election Series, a set of commentaries on the positions of President Barak Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in the light of the Center’s Guidelines for Government and Citizenship.

The conclusion of the article:

Religious Freedom as a Consideration in Voting

Religious freedom, of course, is only one of many important issues to consider when choosing between candidates. A voter sympathetic to the Center’s Guidelines for Government and Citizenship will not find a party nor candidate that is perfectly aligned with all of the principles. And single-issue voting is irresponsible, particularly when considering candidates for national office.

And yet religious freedom is not just another issue. It is a constitutional principle, indeed, the “first freedom,” a safeguard of conscience and a vital acknowledgement that government is not the ultimate authority. Religious exercise-protected by religious freedom-is not merely a concern of believers but a positive force in society, inspiring, sustaining, and guiding countless acts of service and hundreds of thousands of organizations dedicated to the care of others.

Religious freedom is a “structural” issue-a vital matter of boundaries, of the rightful extension and limits of government’s rules over the lives of individuals and organizations. And it is a vital matter of social architecture: Will government become so expansive in its programs and in the rules it enforces that there will be less and less opportunity for individuals and organizations to live out in their practices the religious commitments they profess with their words?