Richard A. Sokerka
Frank Wolf, a former member of Congress, knows how important religious freedom is to the United States and countries around the world. “It supports human dignity, social cohesion, independent thinking, and the ability to authentically live lives that pursue truth, justice, and mercy,” he said.
And that’s why this religious freedom advocate has formed the Wilberforce Initiative’s Religious Freedom scorecard, which promotes religious freedom as a “fundamental human right.”
The “congressional scorecard” will measure the participation of members of Congress in promoting international religious freedom. “It leverages the collective will of the American people expressed through their representatives in Congress,” he said. “People of faith, need to know how their representatives are working on this vital issue of religious freedom.”
Members will be rated for sponsoring, co-sponsoring, or voting for bills and resolutions approved by the Wilberforce Initiative. A prime example is H. Con. Res. 75, a resolution introduced calling ISIS atrocities inflicted on Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities “genocide.”
That resolution, while not legally binding, would put pressure on the Obama administration to do something it has not seen fit to do — declare, as Pope Francis already has, that genocide is taking place in the Middle East and give priority to genocide victims looking to come to the U.S. as refugees.
The genocide going on has taken the percentage of Christians as part of the total Middle Eastern population down to just 5 percent today.
Religious freedom, enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, is one of America’s founding principles. We hope that Wilberforce Initiative will embolden members of Congress to promote freedom for embattled religious minorities worldwide.