Preserving religious freedom in South Korea

OPINION:

When South Korean President Lee Jae-myung visits President Trump on Monday, the issue of religious freedom and the current threats to religious liberty in South Korea should be high on the agenda.

The United States has had a long, enduring interest in freedom for the people of the Korean Peninsula. I know this commitment is real and has involved great sacrifices by the American people. My father served in Korea in the last year of the war with Communist China and the North Korean dictatorship. That three-year conflict cost America 36,574 lives, and 103,284 Americans were wounded. South Korea remained free in large part because of American blood and resources.

Our commitment to freedom for South Korea has been consistent for 75 years (my father, as a career soldier, went back to Korea for a year in the late 1960s). We still have more than 28,000 American military troops serving in South Korea, and our commitment to support the country’s freedom remains solid and backed by investments and capabilities.

With that three-quarter century history of support for freedom, we have every right to be alarmed by recent attacks on religious liberty. The new government has launched a shocking assault on religious leaders. There have been police raids involving 1,000 or more officers and prosecutors invading the homes and religious sanctuaries of conservative leaders. The new government’s persecution of conservative leaders has led to intrusions into their personal space that make the Biden administration’s assault on the Trump personal effects (including the first lady’s personal clothing) seem minor by comparison.

Conservative religious leaders such as Yoido Full Gospel Church Rev. Younghoon Lee, Far East Broadcasting President Kim Jang-hwan and Family Federation for World Peace and Unification co-founder Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon have all been raided in a deliberate government assault on their liberties and rights to espouse their religious beliefs.

Ironically, even as the South Korean government has attacked Dr. Moon, her work for peace is increasing. She is hosting a conference focused on security and peace for Korea, threats from China and North Korea and the Taiwan situation. She has doubled the peace efforts at this time all over the world with conferences in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the United States. Despite all this, she is under attack from the new, left-wing South Korean government.

The South Korean government’s assault on religious liberty comes at a time when the left around the globe is increasingly and overtly anti-religious. There have been serious anti-religious efforts in Japan and France. There are censorship laws in Britain, Canada and several European countries that clearly infringe on the rights of people to worship freely.

Even here in the United States, there was a clear anti-religious bias in the implementation of COVID-19 restrictions. In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz initially ruled that bars could hold 50 people while churches were limited to 10 occupants. Then he issued an executive order that restaurants and bars could hold up to 50% of capacity while churches were limited to 25%.

In New York, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued rules that limited churches to as few as 10 people, even in a cathedral that could house 1,000 or more. Mr. Cuomo’s rules were so aggressively anti-religious that the U.S. Supreme Court struck them down. The justices asserted that his policy “struck at the very heart of the First Amendment guarantee of religious liberty.”

The election of Mr. Trump and House and Senate Republican majorities stopped the left’s assault on religion in America. The Trump administration is taking steps to strengthen the right to worship and the right to express religious beliefs. In a real sense, Mr. Trump’s victory in November was a major defeat for the anti-religious left. Further, the Trump administration’s work at home and abroad is strengthening the rights of freedom to worship everywhere.

The worldwide assault on religious freedom and the Trump administration’s strong rejection of religious persecution should lead the agenda during Mr. Lee’s visit with Mr. Trump.