ERLC fellows urge Romania to protect religious liberty

By Tom Strode - Oct 14, 2005

The fellows of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s Research Institute adopted a resolution Sept. 21 urging the government of Romania to heed concerns about potentially restrictive church-state legislation under consideration.

The resolution called upon the Romanian Senate and other public officials to reconsider the proposed measure in light of objections raised by Baptists in the Eastern European country. The institute’s fellows commended to the government a written report from the Christian Baptist Union of Romania on the legislation.

In the report, the Romanian union’s president, Paul Negrut, included these items among objections to the legislation: (1) The separation of church and state is absent as either a principle or a specific provision; (2) the government would fund religious denominations and consolidate control over them, and (3) denominational schools would not appear to be free to provide training based upon their doctrines.

In regard to the second objection, the Baptist Union has refused to accept government aid, in contrast to other denominations in Romania.

The bill has been submitted to the Romanian Senate under an emergency plan, meaning its passage could be imminent, Negrut said in the report.

Barrett Duke, the ERLC’s vice president of public policy and director of the Research Institute, said the Romanian government’s desire “to restrict religious freedom in their country is very disheartening. One would think that after decades of oppressive, stifling communist rule, Romanian leadership would resist any effort to restrict the legitimate freedoms of the Romanian people, especially a freedom as basic and universal as religious expression.”

U.S. senators and representatives may be contacted about the Romanian religious liberty bill by phone through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121 or by email through the ERLC’s website by entering your zip code in the appropriate space in the red-bordered box above.

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