Urgency here is about losing liberties, laws, and rights — not about treating Muslims, immigrants, or any group of people as a threat. Each card names a concrete freedom and a documented fact. The critique is directed at ideas, statutes, and official campaigns. Full context is on the linked pages and in the source list.
At stake
Free speech
The right to speak, publish, and criticize ideas — including religious ideas — without criminal penalty. Pew found that in 2019, 79 of 198 countries and territories (40%) had laws or policies banning blasphemy. From 1999 through 2010, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation sponsored annual resolutions at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights and its successor, the Human Rights Council, calling on states to combat “defamation of religions.” The resolutions were not binding treaties, but they were a sustained official effort to treat religious insult as a matter for legal restriction.
Source: Pew Research Center, “Four-in-ten countries and territories worldwide had blasphemy laws in 2019” (January 25, 2022)
Source: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, “The Dangerous Idea of Protecting Religions from “Defamation”: A Threat to Universal Human Rights Standards (Update Fall 2010)” (Fall 2010)
Apostasy and blasphemy
At stake
Liberty of conscience
The right to change one’s faith, or to have none, without prison or death. The same Pew analysis found that 22 countries (11%) had laws against apostasy — abandoning one’s faith — in 2019. None were in Europe or the Americas; most were in the Middle East and North Africa.
Source: Pew Research Center, “Four-in-ten countries and territories worldwide had blasphemy laws in 2019” (January 25, 2022)
Apostasy and blasphemy
At stake
Equal rights for women and girls
The legal protection of girls from marriage before adulthood. Unchained At Last reported on May 13, 2026, that after Oklahoma became the 17th state to ban child marriage, the practice remained legal in 33 other U.S. states. Its September 2025 study estimated that 314,154 minors were legally entered into marriage in the United States between 2000 and 2021.
Source: Unchained At Last, “Oklahoma just banned child marriage!” (May 13, 2026)
2000–2021 estimate: Unchained At Last, “United States' Child Marriage Problem: Study Findings 2000-2021” (September 2025 (updated September 22, 2025))
Child marriage
At stake
Bodily integrity
The right of girls and women to be free from female genital mutilation or cutting. CDC researchers estimated that as many as 513,000 girls and women in the United States could have experienced FGM/C or been at risk of experiencing it in the future, based on 2012 data published in 2016 — a three-fold increase from a 1997 estimate, largely because of a growing number of U.S. residents from countries where the practice occurs. The stake is the practice and the law, not a people: CDC also notes that many women and men from those countries who live in the United States oppose FGM/C.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)” (CDC page citing Goldberg et al., Public Health Reports, 2016 (retrieved November 2026))
Violence against women
At stake
Free speech on campus
The habit of open debate where the next generation is educated. FIRE’s 2026 Spotlight on Speech Codes surveyed written policies at 493 colleges and universities: 65 (13.2%) earned a “red light” rating for policies that clearly and substantially restrict free speech, and 342 (69.4%) earned a “yellow light” for vague or easily abused restrictions. Only 76 (15.4%) earned a “green light.” FIRE reports that red-light ratings are at an all-time low — progress that still leaves most campuses short of a clean policy.
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, “Spotlight on Speech Codes 2026” (2026 (20th edition))
At stake
One law for all
Equality under a single civil law, rather than a religious code made the official law of the land. Pew’s 2013 global survey of Muslims in 39 countries found that support for making sharia “the official law of the land” ranged from 8% in Azerbaijan to 99% in Afghanistan, with regional medians as high as 84% in South Asia and 74% in the Middle East–North Africa. Pew’s 2017 U.S. survey did not ask that question; it did find that 65% of U.S. Muslims saw no natural conflict between Islam and democracy. The civic stake is the principle: liberal democracy requires one civil law that applies equally, and the right to leave or criticize a faith. Those U.S. figures describe fellow citizens. They are not a verdict on a people.
Source: Pew Research Center, “The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society” (April 30, 2013)
U.S. 2017 contrast: Pew Research Center, “American Muslims' political and social views” (July 26, 2017)
Sharia and liberal democracy