This is the question that has fueled countless essays and debates in recent years as our divides – economic, geographic, and ideological – seem to widen.

To answer that question, America’s leaders would do well to look back 240 years to the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which we commemorate every Jan. 16 as Religious Freedom Day. Religious freedom is often mischaracterized today as a culture-war flashpoint, but the truth is that the pluralistic religious freedom Jefferson championed still resonates with Americans across the political spectrum today.

Last fall, my team at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty commissioned its seventh annual Religious Freedom Index, a nationally representative poll of Americans. Year after year, it has revealed broad, bipartisan consensus: support for the right to freely choose and practice one’s religion has consistently hovered over 85% since 2019.

This year’s Index found agreement in surprising places. The questions captured public views on two major Becket victories at the Supreme Court. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court ruled that a Maryland public school board violated parents’ First Amendment right to direct the religious upbringing of their children when it revoked parental notice and opt-outs for storybooks pushing one-sided gender ideology on pre-kindergartners. Our results show that a majority of........

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