From the U.S. State Department Website
Remarks Samuel D. Brownback
Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Taipei Religious Freedom Conference
Taipei, Taiwan
March 11, 2019
Millions of people around the world, billions of people around the world just simply yearn to be free. They just want to practice their faith and freedom. We come from all sorts of faith tradition. As I look out on this crowd, I see people dressed in different religious garb, that we probably don’t agree on a lot of theological things, but they do agree on religious freedom and the needs to protect religious freedom for all. This is something we can all agree upon. This is something we can all pursue. This is something we have to do. I believe, a gathering like this throughout the world, can ensure for millions of others that they will be free from persecution in practicing their faith, which is what we are after is a freedom to do that, and I believe they will.
I am delighted to be here in Taiwan. As a U.S. official, Taiwan is a democratic success story, a reliable partner, and a force for good in the world. We count ourselves fortunate to have Taiwan as a friend and partner in promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific region. As a former U.S. Senator and Governor of the State of Kansas, I have long admired Taiwan and its accomplishments from afar, and I am delighted to finally have the opportunity to visit Taiwan in person. It is a pleasure to be here with you.
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As you have heard this is a first. Governments haven’t in the past physically come together in support of religious freedom, and yet we have here. Let’s give them a big round of applause for pulling this off. Thank you.
We are going to have a couple days of wonderful programs. One of the first things I want to recognize right at the outset, because I hope he is somebody you will get to know and I hope somebody you will work with to build on what the type of work is that Greg Mitchell over here..Greg please stand up. Greg is at the International Religious Freedom Roundtable. In Washington, D.C., every Tuesday that I am in town, I meet with the religious freedom activists. And these are people from all over the world, they usually have over 100 people who come together to talk about the current issues of religious freedom that are on the agenda. Greg hosts that meeting. It is a great meeting together between government and civil society of the topic of religious freedom of what we can do in basically two categories: the increase in religious freedom and the increase in respect in the non-religious as well. We should not just tolerate each other. A good friend of mine says, tolerance is too low of a bar. We need to keep respecting each other. We need to have an authentic relationship with one another. I hope you talk with him about how to start one of those in your country with your group of civil society religious activists, so that we can have religious freedom in your nation growing, and have activists there to push it and to increase that level of respect for one another, whatever our faiths and convictions are.
