Obama removes Religious Freedom Section from Its Human Rights reports 

"State Department To Downplay Religious Oppression" Investors Daily

Rights: The U.S. government no longer includes religious freedom in its annual Human Rights Report. We won't embarrass anyone by pointing to burnt out churches abroad while suppressing religious liberty at home.

The declared reason for dropping the coverage is to avoid duplicating another document, the annual Report on International ReligiousFreedom. We suspect the reason is that an administration that's been apologetic about our leadership role in world affairs no longer wants to offend those nations who tolerate or even foster assaults on religious liberty, even as the administration suppresses it at home.

The Pew Research Center has produced two studies showing that 70% of the world's population lives in countries where religious freedomis severely restricted, either by governments or by hostile groups allowed to run amok by indifferent or hostile leaders.

Religious liberty was considered so important by our Founders that it was written into the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in a country populated by those fleeing the religious oppression of governments.

We considered religious liberty a bedrock of freedom and democracy and, as stated in our Declaration of Independence, we believed we were endowed with Unalienable rights by our Creator, not by men or governments.

The U.S. in recent years has grown increasingly indifferent to the lack of religious tolerance around the world as it has taken an increasingly violent turn.

Christians in places like Nigeria and Iraq, along with Coptic Christians in Egypt, have been subject to ruthless persecution by those for whom religious tolerance and freedom are a threat.

As 2011 began with a New Year's attack on an Egyptian Coptic Christian church that killed 21 worshippers, it ended with attacks on two Nigerian churches that killed 35 and injured at least 57.

While such attacks are officially condemned, they are part of a campaign of violence and suicide bombings for which 34% of Nigerian respondents in a Pew Global Attitudes Project poll expressed support.

Such violent attacks on Christian churches in Nigeria mirror the Oct. 31 attack on Our Lady of Salvation in Baghdad in which 68 people were murdered.