Government Interference in Civil Society Threatens Rights of Conscience

For Immediate Release
Media Contact: Karlee Marshall | [email protected] 

WASHINGTON – Amanda Tyler, executive director of BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty), issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Justice’s announcement of criminal charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Last December, I testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee about the very threat to civil society that we are now watching unfold. My testimony then remains true today: “What begins as political retaliation against civil society organizations quickly becomes a threat to conscience rights, religious pluralism, and the foundational First Amendment protections that safeguard all people and all faith communities.”

A thriving civil society is not incidental to religious freedom – it is the condition that makes religious freedom possible. Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that monitor extremism, defend civil rights, and hold power accountable are part of the civic infrastructure that pluralism requires. When the government uses its prosecutorial authority to target civil society organizations with which it disagrees, it does not merely threaten those organizations; it narrows the civic space in which all of us – every faith community, every person – is free to operate.

We stand in solidarity with every organization that does the hard work of keeping our democracy and our pluralism alive. For faith to remain free, civil society must remain free.

Rooted in a Baptist commitment to soul liberty, BJC (Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty) is a 90-year-old organization building a movement toward a just society that cultivates and expands religious freedom for all. BJC is the home of Christians Against Christian Nationalism.