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SALT LAKE CITY — The recently-aired documentary, "First Freedom: The Fight for Religious Liberty," was produced and directed by Utah local Lee Groberg.
The film for PBS was funded by two Utah foundations: the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation and the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation.
"First Freedom", which aired nationally on Dec. 18, chronicled how the most basic of human freedoms — freedom of conscience — was codified for the first time in human history by the Founding Fathers as an inalienable human right protected by law. The documentary featured re-enactments, the Founding Fathers’ own words, and profiled the lives and times of colonial Americans — including Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.
First Freedom also featured various interviews, including with Utah Valley University president Matthew Holland, as well as Cokie Roberts (senior news analyst for NPR), Jon Meacham (former editor-in-chief of Newsweek magazine) and Douglas Brinkley (professor of history at Rice University).
Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest and professor of American Religion at Dartmouth, wrote the companion book to the documentary. He said this documentary explains how the First Amendment has succeeded beyond anyone's wildest imaginations.
"It [the First Amendment] has shielded the government from religious factionalism, and by setting up a free marketplace for religion, it has ensured a lively, salubrious religious culture in the United States that is unmatched anywhere else in the world,” Balmer says.
For more information about the documentary, visit PBS.org.
