Justice Department Launches Task Force to Advance, Defend Religious Liberty

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Monday, criticized recent attacks on religious freedom and announced the creation of a Religious Liberty Task Force that will work to “fully implement” the department’s religious liberty guidance.

The task force will be chaired by the associate attorney general and the assistant attorney general for the office of legal policy. The department issued religious liberty guidelines in October.

In remarks applauded by Christian leaders and religious liberty groups, Sessions bemoaned the hostility toward religious liberty. 

“We have gotten to the point where courts have held that morality cannot be a basis for law, where ministers are fearful to affirm, as they understand it, holy writ from the pulpit, and where one group can actively target religious groups by labeling them a hate group on the basis of their sincerely held religious beliefs,” Sessions said. “This president and this Department of Justice are determined to protect and even advance this magnificent heritage.”

The Founders, he said, realized that “an individual’s relationship to God is a natural right and precedes the existence of the state, and is not subject to state control.”

“There can be no doubt that we are stronger as a nation because of the contribution of religious Americans,” Sessions said.

Referencing specific instances of…