RFI Announces Side Event on ‘Tolerance for Tradition’ at Berlin Ministerial

October 4, 2024, Washington, D.C. – The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) is pleased to announce an event, to be held next week on the margins of the Berlin Ministerial of the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance titled, “FoRB and Tolerance for Tradition: The Challenge for the Pluralistic West.” This gathering will highlight growing religious freedom threats in Europe and North America facing those who uphold the orthodox teachings of their faith on marriage, sexuality, family, and human nature.

“Religion is the human search for truths about a greater-than-human source of being and ultimate meaning, and living out those truths once discovered in private and public life,” said RFI President David Trimble. “Religious freedom must protect the exercise of both aspects of religion, regardless of whether the underlying convictions are characterized as conservative, progressive, or somewhere in between. But it cannot be that religious freedom ends where traditional views on sex, marriage, human nature, and human dignity begin,” Trimble added.

Cultural norms rooted in the convergence of individual autonomy and human sexuality are now so prevalent in the West that dissenters regularly encounter significant pressure to abandon convictions that contradict those norms. Western democracies to varying degrees protect freedom of religion in law, but these dissenters are all-too-often denied such legal protection in practice. For example, religious communities in the West that believe that the proper context for sexual expression and the normative anchor of the family is marriage, defined as the union of one man and one woman, are at tremendous risk of cultural intimidation and legal coercion.

These fraught matters are ripe for careful deliberation, and this event will provide a space for doing just that.

The event will be held October 9, 2024, from 4:00-5:30 PM CEST at the Embassy of Hungary located at Unter den Linden 76, 10117 Berlin, Germany.

Speakers will include:

Dr. José Luis Bazán, Legal Adviser for Migration & Asylum and for International Religious Freedom, Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE, Brussels)
Márk Aurél Érszegi, Special Advisor for Religion and Diplomacy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary
Anja Hoffmann, Executive Director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe)
Todd Huizinga, Senior Fellow for Europe, RFI
Dr. Katharina von Schnurbein, European Commission Coordinator on Combating Antisemitism and Fostering Jewish Life
Marcela Szymanski, Head of International Advocacy at Aid to the Church in Need and member, IRFBA Council of Experts
David Trimble, President, RFI
Eugene Yapp, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Malaysia and member, IRFBA Council of Experts

The Religious Freedom Institute (RFI) works to secure religious freedom for everyone, everywhere. RFI is a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, D.C.