I'm Jeffrey Rosen, president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, and welcome to We the People, a weekly show of constitutional debate.

The National Constitution Center is the only institution in America chartered by Congress to disseminate information

about the U.S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis.

And today we take up the question of the week, if not the month or the year, the Constitution and religion. the

the week, if not the month or the year, the Constitution and religious liberty.

This week, Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States,

which includes a concluding stop in Philadelphia, where he will give an address at Abraham

Lincoln's Gettysburg podium in front of Independence Hall right across from the National

Constitution Center.

The Pope arrives at a time when the

constitutional debate about the origins and meaning of religious liberty in the

United States has reached a fever pitch. As we discussed on this show a few weeks

ago, there are currently several lawsuits

challenging the Affordable Care Act's contraception mandate and recently the

Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of religious objectors setting up a circuit split and increasing the likelihood

that the Supreme Court will consider the issue soon.

Today we focus on the aftermath of the Supreme Court's ruling this summer in the Obergefeld

case, which recognized a right to marry for same-sex

couples. Our listeners of course are familiar with the story of Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis

who was briefly jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, and there's also

been movement in Congress.

Some Republicans have introduced the First Amendment Defense Act, which would prohibit the

...