Something we need to hear in America, the former "land of the free."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said this week that Italy intends to set an example in aiding persecuted Christians around the world, insisting that "religious freedom is not a second-class right."
Meloni's statement came the day after a United Nations "expert" declared that when religious liberty clashes with LGBT rights, religious liberty must yield.
Freedom of religion or belief is compatible with equality for LGBT persons, Victor Madrigal-Borloz asserted in his June 21 address to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, as long as religious groups embrace the claims of homosexual and transgender persons.
Religious narratives that clash with the beliefs and lifestyle choices of LGBT persons, however, are "beyond the scope of the right freedom of religion or belief," Madrigal-Borloz said.
In her videotaped statement, Meloni insisted that the opposite is true.
"One point is very clear," she said. "Religious freedom is not a second-class right; it is not a freedom that comes after others or can even be set aside for the benefit of new, so-called freedoms or rights."
...
Italy's first female prime minister stated:
Religious liberty is a natural right and precedes every juridical formulation because it is written in the heart of man. It is a right proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but still today it is trodden underfoot in too many nations in the world, too often in the face of almost total indifference.
Princeton can use a man like Joel.