Christians around the world recently celebrated Easter. Jews recently commemorated Passover. These holidays are longstanding traditions in these historic faiths. They are based upon strongly held religious beliefs, beliefs upon which this country was founded.

If you ever visited the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C., you may have seen and read these words on one of the walls: “No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship of ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinion or beliefs, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion.”

These words of Thomas Jefferson have been honored and followed, at least until recently. In recent years, the principle of religious expression has indeed been challenged and attacked. People of faith have been wrongly accused to be haters.

Last year in Arizona, and this year in Indiana, legislation to offer some minimal protections to people of faith, allowing them to simply stay true to the tenets of their faith, was met with malicious attacks, unfounded accusations and threats of violence. A family in Indiana was forced to close its pizza restaurant (and lose its livelihood) as a result of an honest, faith-based answer to a hypothetical question.

Are we losing the freedom of religious expression of which Jefferson wrote? Have we abandoned one of the foundations upon which our country was founded?

Have we allowed the ideal of religious freedom to be falsely redefined as discrimination? Have those who demand tolerance actually themselves become intolerant of those who hold traditional religious beliefs?

These are questions for all of us to consider.