Talks with Authors: Vincent Phillip Munoz on Religious Liberty and the American Founding

What did the American Founders mean when they declared religious liberty to be an “inherent,” “natural” and “inalienable” right? Does the right to religious liberty provide religious exemptions from generally applicable laws? What is wrong with a state establishment of religion? In Religious Liberty and the American Founding, Vincent Phillip Muñoz addresses these questions and others, offering a novel interpretation of Founders’ philosophy and constitutionalism of religious liberty. Drawing on early state constitutions, declarations of religious freedom, Founding-era debates, and the First Amendment’s drafting record, the book documents and articulates the Founders’ understanding of religious liberty as an inalienable natural right, uncovers what we can and cannot determine about the original meaning of the First Amendment’s Religion Clauses, and constructs a natural rights jurisprudence of religious liberty, exploring and explaining how the Founders’ principles would adjudicate First Amendment church-state issues. Contrary to what many might assume, Muñoz contends that adherence to the Founders would lead neither to consistently conservative nor consistently liberal results, but rather to a novel church-state jurisprudence that, in most cases, would return authority from the judiciary to the American people. Join us for a conversation of Professor Muñoz’s new book, with Professor Muñoz himself and moderated by Michael McConnell, the director of Stanford Law School’s Constitutional Law Center. Featuring:--Vincent Phillip Muñoz , Tocqueville Associate Professor Department of Political Science and Concurrent Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School--Moderator: Michael McConnell, Richard and Frances Mallery Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School; Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution