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Article: Proclamation 7640--Religious Freedom Day, 2003.
- Article from:
- Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents
- Article date:
- January 20, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 U.S. Government Printing Office. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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January 15, 2003
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Each year on January 16, we celebrate Religious Freedom Day in commemoration of the passage of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom by the Virginia General Assembly, which occurred on this day in 1786. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, this historic law provided the inspiration and the framework for the religious freedom clauses in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
The religious freedom provisions of our Constitution--the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause--open the first of the ten amendments that make up the Bill of ...