The North American Religious Liberty Association (NARLA) is a regional chapter of the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA). The IRLA was founded in 1893 and now has over 50 national and regional chapters around the world.
NARLA is the rebirth of the American Religious Liberty Association (ARLA) formed in the late 19th century by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
NARLA's focus is on matters pertaining to freedom of conscience. This includes supporting a broad interpretation of the First Amendment's guarantee of free exercise of religion and laws protecting religious freedom, supporting laws to advance religious liberty, and supporting the principle that religion must not be co-opted by the state through regulation or through financial entanglements.
Additionally, NARLA is associated with Liberty Magazine, a publication with a circulation of roughly 200,000, and with the radio broadcasts Freedom's Ring which is syndicated across the U.S., and Talking About Freedom, which is broadcast in the Washington, D.C., region.
Melissa Reid is the Executive Director of NARLA.
In addition to its lobbying efforts, NARLA and Liberty Magazine host an annual non-partisan dinner in Washington DC. Past speakers from include Senator Rick Santorum (2004), Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (2005), and Senator John McCain (2006).
Read more about North American Religious Liberty Association: See Also
Famous quotes containing the words north american, north, american, religious, liberty and/or association:
“The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race. Civilization is gradually sweeping from the earth the lingering vestiges of Paganism, and at the same time the shrinking forms of its unhappy worshippers.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I know no East or West, North or South, when it comes to my class fighting the battle for justice. If it is my fortune to live to see the industrial chain broken from every workingman’s child in America, and if then there is one black child in Africa in bondage, there shall I go.”
—Mother Jones (1830–1930)
“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“... a Christian has neither more nor less rights in our association than an atheist. When our platform becomes too narrow for people of all creeds and of no creeds, I myself cannot stand upon it.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)