how that brought different groups together you would not think would be in the same room. and it has. koch would like to find more of those issues. we would like we -- to think we have good ideas to add to the discussion. we would like to use our first amendment rights as an individual and a corporation to have a dialogue with other groups about issues of common interest. there are a lot of them out there. criminal justice reform is one. if you look at the issue, it is the tail end of the problem. you're talking about economic opportunity. we need to talk about the education system. we know our friends on the other side have ideas. we like to have a discussion instead of everybody going to their corners, throwing names running ads, and fundraising off each other. that is how we would like to use our first amendment rights. until his 2016 and everyone goes back to their corners. mr. rosen: an exhilarating discussion.

we have disagreed about aspects of the application of first amendment principles to situations from campaign-finance to the regulation of political speech but agreed about hate speech and centrality of the american tradition. and both mark and bill talked about something we have seen throughout the state, that there is a real value to bringing people to disagree fundamentally together. as those of us on the stage and in the audience are, listening respectfully to each other, so we can identify areas of agreement and disagreement. your job, ladies and gentlemen is to go have a drink, which you have earned, but to answer the question i just raised to the panelists. think about what each of you will do over the next year to celebrate freedom, participate in debates about it, and encourage other americans the same -- to do the same. this is about self education. educate yourself.

you have to learn about the ordinance on all sides of these debates so you can make informed decisions. that requires reading up on the history of the constitution, the cases that gave rise to it. learning about the arguments on both sides, not assuming that either is right in advance. ultimately realizing this one document is the thing that binds us. we disagree about some much in this room, but all of us agree about the centrality and power of the greatest document, the u.s. constitution. thank you for an incredible day for making this remarkable conversation possible. give them a round of applause. hooray for freedom. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> more from the national constitution center. coming up, a conversation on religious freedom. we hear from attorneys representing opposite sides of religious freedom cases before the supreme court. this is 50 minutes. >> the first amendment to the u.s. constitution states that congress shall make no law respecting an establishment to religion or prohibiting exercise thereof. they do not signal the end a rather the beginning of a spirited debate the proper

relationship between religion and the american state. in the early years of the united dates, some interpreted the first amendment to me that congress could not establish an official religion. but cities and states could. by contrast, thomas jefferson described the first amendment as a wall of separation between church and state. in everson versus the board of education, the supreme court urged that the wall must be high and impregnable. in lemon against kurtzman, the court recognized some relations between church and government relations is inevitable. arguing that the separation is a blurred, indistinct, and variable barrier depending on circumstances of a particular relationship. the first president, george washington articulated an additional approach in his letter to the synagogue, which

has been cited as the basis for the concept of religious pluralism. a definition that is more inclusive and perhaps more appropriate in today's united states than the term "tolerant." washington said it is no more than toleration that's spoken of. if the worthy indulgence of one class of people enjoys happily, the united states requires only they live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. our speakers have dedicated their careers to considering issues of the appropriate interaction between religious liberty and u.s. lost.

greg lipper is council on key cases in the u.s. supreme court. michael bursten writes about the intersection of religious believe in politics. greg is with the americans united for separation of church and state. before that, he worked at a law firm. christina ariaga is with the beckett fund. she tells me she has quite an eclectic collection of pets at home. we learned that in the green room. michael gersten is a columnist with the washington post and worked with the one foundation to defeat disease and poverty globally. there are two categories we are going to talk about today. the first are the more

traditional types of cases with the religion field. the accommodation cases. they often involve minority religion in the place of accommodation of minority religion in a majority society. there is another category in the news, which is what i would call religious accommodation to point out -- 2.0. those include hobby lobby. i know since that is in the news, it is on everybody's mind. since we have counsel on both sides of the case you're with us today, we will ask them to start off by telling us about what has happened in the area since hobby lobby against burwell. i'll start off with christina. panelist: you may wonder why my hair is messy. greg and i already got at it in the green room.

[laughter] i have been asked to talk about areas of agreement. i'm working hard on that. i am sure you hear my accent. i have not been drinking. i am cuban-american, so i feel passionate about these issues. i am the executive director at the beckett fund. one area of disagreement we have is the hobby lobby case. as you may have heard, americans united mischaracterized it as crazy evangelicals denying health care to women. that was not actually the case. i'm kidding. you never said crazy. [laughter] the greene family of hobby lobby are in -- an evangelical family. they paid their kids seven cents each for making friends. as devout christians, when they

opened their stores in 46 states employing 26,000 employees, they close on sundays. their trucks only take merchandise into they don't have any lewd cards. they offer generous benefits. they pay for everything the affordable care act requires but when the mandate was enacted, they had no objection to 16 out of the 20 drugs that the government mandated. the only objected to four. they were drugs that the government conceded may prevent implantation. the science was never argued in the case. for the family, that was a form of early abortion.