Religious-persecution bill buried by Senate

Christian Century, August 12, 1998

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 23 apparently killed, at least for the rest of the summer, a bill designed to penalize countries that engage in religious persecution. The committee removed the bill, sponsored by Don Nickles (R., Okla.), from its docket for consideration after it became apparent that at least three of the panel's ten Republicans planned to join the eight Democrats in voting to reject the measure.

Nickles's bill was a more moderate version of legislation that overwhelmingly passed the House in May. Under the House version countries found to engage in religious persecution would have been subject to automatic economic sanctions involving aid and trade. Some form of religious-persecution legislation has been a top priority of a number of social-conservative advocacy groups, such as the Family Research Council and the Christian Coalition, and has the support of a number of Roman Catholic, evangelical Protestant and Jewish leaders and groups. Other religious groups, such as the National Council of Churches, have opposed the measure.

But the bill has also divided two wings of the GOP, the social conservatives and the economic conservatives. Among the latter are the Chamber of Commerce and major farm organizations, which believe in free trade and generally oppose the use of economic sanctions.

Under Nickles's most recent version of the bill, the government would publish a list of countries declared guilty of religious persecution and would give the president a broad range of response options--from a diplomatic rebuke to strict economic sanctions. "There is not a senator who's not opposed to religious persecution," said Chuck Hagel (R., Neb.), one of the Republicans prepared to vote against the bill. "But in foreign policy, you rarely have the opportunity to choose between all good and all bad."

James M. Dunn, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee, called the yearlong national debate over the proposed legislation "a teachable moment regarding the U.S.'s role in dealing with religious persecution in other lands." Added Dunn: "We . . . know better than before that although there is universal agreement that the United States should affirm religious freedom around the world, it is much more difficult to know how to craft legislation to achieve it."