A religious liberty clinic is especially needed now because of the growing challenges to religious exercise by persons and organizations. In comments at the private dinner that followed the public event launching the clinic, University of Virginia School of Law professor Douglas Laycock, a premier defender of religious liberty, stressed that religious liberty needs to be especially safeguarded when religion is increasingly disfavored:

“A strong commitment to religious liberty reduces human suffering and reduces social conflict. It performs those functions best when it protects the liberty of all sides.

“Conflict and polarization over religion is nothing new, but the principal lines of conflict change from time to time. . . . Today, the principal line of religious conflict is between religious and secular — more especially between theologically and politically conservative believers and an array of folks on the other side — nonbelievers, nominal believers, and deeply religious but theologically liberal believers who agree with the conservatives on free exercise but disagree with them on the disputed moral issues. In part this divide tracks the left-right political split in the country, but the distinctively religious component is fundamental.

“Neither side is going away. Religion will not fade away in the face of modernization, and conservative Christians will not re-win the world for Jesus. Like Episcopalians and Baptists in the 18th century, and Protestants and Catholics in the 19th, we will have to learn to live with each other. The law of religious liberty must mediate and ameliorate this religious conflict as it mediated other religious conflicts in our past. And along the way, it must protect the many small groups and individuals whose religious needs get caught in the gears of modern government.”