For 13 years, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has shined light on situations of egregious religious persecution globally. With a mandate from the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, USCIRF has provided forthright policy recommendations to the President, State Department, and Congress on responding to regimes that persecute actively or tolerate the persecution of religious believers.

But if Congress does not reauthorize its funding soon, USCIRF will cease to exist at a time when it is needed more than ever. Reauthorization legislation passed overwhelmingly in the House and was set to pass by unanimous consent in the Senate when a single senator anonymously called it back for undisclosed reasons. It would seem that one man, Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, could cause the dissolution of the valuable religious freedom commission.

I was part of a coalition of religious and human rights organizations that worked to see the passage of IRFA in spite of the hostile climate caused by the secular myopia of U.S. foreign policy elites. One colleague in this battle, the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom director, Nina Shea, observed “Human rights has often been described in American foreign policy as the island off the mainland of foreign policy. I look at religious freedom as the drowning man in the life raft off the island, off the mainland.”

Once again, the drowning man is in danger of being pushed off his life raft. The commission would have shut down on November 18 if not for a spending bill passed by both Houses on November 17 granting it a four-week reprieve. Concerned citizens have until December 16 to stop the demise of USCIRF. (more…)