Williamsburg Charter
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The Williamsburg Charter is a document that was drafted in 1986 by several Americans, each a member of a prominent religious community and/or non-religious philosophy in the United States.[citation needed] The Charter was signed by 100 nationally prominent figures on June 22, 1988, in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of Virginia's call for a Bill of Rights.[citation needed] Among the signers were Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; the late Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court William Rehnquist; the late activist Coretta Scott King (wife of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.) and Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.[1] The lead drafter was Os Guinness.[according to whom?][citation needed]
The document affirms the need for a lively and reasoned debate on the role of religion in the public life of the United States.[editorializing][citation needed] Its primary focus is on the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause, contained within the first amendment of the United States Constitution,[citation needed] and the goal of the writers is to "affirm both their cardinal assumptions and the reasons for their crucial national importance".[2][better source needed] The writers believe that the problems surrounding the religion clauses can only be solved by first understanding the nature of the clauses.[according to whom?] Among the points raised in the charter is that non-religious hostility towards religion is just as dangerous to a democracy as religious hostility towards non-religion or to other religions.[original research?][citation needed]
Further reading
[edit]- "The Williamsburg Charter on the 1st Amendment (1988)". ReligiousTolerance.org. 2022-01-25 [1988]. Archived from the original on 2022-01-25. Retrieved 26 May 2025. Note, this is a web cover page to the full document, which is available from it, via links. This website itself contains neither the full text, nor the list of signatories.
References
[edit]- ^ "The Williamsburg Charter on the 1st Amendment (1988)". ReligiousTolerance.org. 2022-01-25 [1988]. Archived from the original on 2022-01-25. Retrieved 26 May 2025.[non-primary source needed] Note, this is a web cover page to the full document, which is available from it, via links. This website itself contains neither the full text, nor the list of signatories.
- ^ "The Williamsburg Charter, 1988". CLCLibrary-org-works.angelfire.com. 1988. Retrieved 26 May 2025.[non-primary source needed] Note, web page presents the full document and list of signatories, but it does not appear to be supported by the usual bona fides associated with quality publications. (The publishing organisation and its location, etc., are unknown, so the accurate rendering of the document is presently a matter of faith.)