How Voting is Religious Freedom

As we head into Super Tuesday, Interfaith Alliance is starting a national conversation about religious freedom and voting. We asked voters from across the country about what it means to vote your values, given the urgent threats faced by people of all faiths and of none.

Dr. Noel Jacobs is the vice president of the Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma.

By Dr. Noel Jacobs

Our country has struggled to balance religious freedom and the separation of religion from the halls of government since before our founding. Even today, our right to vote is the only thing preventing us from losing the religious freedoms we have.

By the U.S. Constitution, our religious credentials have no bearing on the right to vote or to run for office. The ability to support the candidate of our choice is fully independent from our religious identity. Similarly, a candidate is not prevented or empowered to run based on their religious affiliation alone because there is no religious test for office.

There is freedom on both sides of the ballot box — for voters and candidates alike. That’s why participating in this election is, for me, a religious freedom issue.

I believe we preserve all our freedoms, religious and otherwise, when we are active in helping choose candidates who will protect our rights and the rights of our neighbors. This process takes effort — reading, listening to candidates, thinking through the issues, and discussing them with one another. But it’s a necessary exercise even when it’s a challenging one, because some candidates seek to mislead and, if elected, would elevate certain belief systems to the detriment of others.

Engaging in intentional conversations about voting is a form of civic engagement. Through it we build stronger connections to each other and to our government. And, by doing so, we protect religious freedom for our children, grandchildren, and the generations to come.