In the United States, religious freedom is the first of our freedoms, and the freedom to preach is very nearly at the core of religious freedom.

		John M. Templeton Jr., M.D., is on the Board of Advisors for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (www.becketfund.org) and lives outside Philadelphia.

So how could it possibly be at risk? In short, when the preaching opposes homosexual conduct or same-sex marriage, prosecutors and courts are much less inclined to protect it. The freedom to preach has already been seriously eroded abroad on this basis, and trends in America are discouraging.

Most people would find it hard to imagine a more enlightened country than Sweden. But last year, Pastor ?ke Green was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to a month in prison for the "hate crime" of preaching a sermon in which he repeated, calmly and with equanimity, the traditional Christian teaching that homosexual sex is immoral.

The Swedish Court of Appeals vacated Pastor Green's sentence on free speech grounds, but the prosecutor was not only unchastened, he was undeterred. He appealed to the Swedish Supreme Court asking it to reinstate the conviction and sentence. Thankfully, the Swedish Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the charges, again on free speech grounds.

For several years now, Canada has waged a similar campaign to silence Christian preaching on the subject of homosexuality. In 2001, Hugh Owen, a Canadian Christian, was convicted, sentenced and fined $4,500 for purchasing a newspaper ad citing Scripture verses condemning homosexuality.

Again, the Court of Appeals overturned the ruling. But ominously, the court left open the possibility that other passages of Scripture cited in different ads could still be illegal.

Still, even if the victory in Canada were as complete as in Sweden, the problem would remain: In both countries, it took months or even years to remedy what seemed to be an obvious mistake that should never have been made in the first place -- namely, fining or jailing a preacher for religious speech that doesn't threaten a riot.

Now cut to the United States. Staten Island has our First Amendment. Still, that did not deter its politicians from trying to use the New York Human Rights Law against a local pastor who had put up a billboard citing the same Scripture verses that got Mr. Owen in trouble in Canada. Authorities eventually backed down, but not before restating their point that traditional Christian preaching should be regarded as nothing more than hate speech.

A few years ago, Pennsylvania amended its own Hate Crimes Law. In fact, it amended it twice -- once with great fanfare, and once in near-silence.

With great fanfare, it added sexual orientation to the list of protected classes of people. So just as burning a cross on the front lawn of an African-American in Pennsylvania is justly considered more than simply arson, crimes motivated by antipathy to someone's sexual orientation can now trigger greater penalties.

With equal fanfare, religious leaders took comfort in the confirmation that pure speech, such as preaching, would not be covered by such hate crimes laws because of the longstanding exemption for what was termed "harassment by communication" -- harassment by pure speech, without additional conduct.

Then came the next amendment to the Hate Crimes Law, made very quietly and out of the public eye, which repealed that exemption. As a result, Pennsylvania's Hate Crimes Law is now a loaded revolver in the desk of any district attorney who wants to attempt to bring to Pennsylvania the sort of prosecutions we have seen in Sweden and Canada.

This flies in the face of the fact that William Penn made Pennsylvania a leader of liberty in his Charter of Privileges in 1701. This charter made religious liberty the first in importance to all other liberties. As a result, Pennsylvania is still covered by centuries-old law guaranteeing freedom of conscience. This guarantee was later made a constitutional right for all Americans in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.

But unfortunately, even the First Amendment has been weakened in this regard. Just over a month ago, the federal Court of Appeals in California ruled that the First Amendment was no protection for a public school student who was suspended for wearing a T-shirt to class calling homosexuality "shameful." William Penn would be ashamed as well.

Wise friends of liberty have said that "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance." It is clear that we cannot take our First Amendment rights for granted, lest some aggressive prosecutor or complicit court curtail them.