Churchgoers across the country are reasserting their fundamental rights of conscience—rights that too many political leaders have forgotten or denied. //

On Friday, President Trump said churches and houses of worship are “essential” and called on governors nationwide to allow them to open this weekend. If they don’t, Trump said he would “override” governors, citing forthcoming guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In remarks Thursday, the president criticized some governors who have “deemed liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential” but not churches. “It’s not right. So I’m correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential.” //

At the end of Thomas Jefferson’s life, in typical Jeffersonian fashion he designed his own tombstone and wrote his own epitaph: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence / of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom / and Father of the University of Virginia.”

It’s easy to see why Jefferson included the Declaration, which gave birth to a new nation, and the University of Virginia, which was—and is—a monument to his genius. But why include a state statute for religious freedom?

Because Jefferson understood what Walz, Newsom, Murphy and others have forgotten or rejected: that “our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to God.”