The declaration
We reject, regardless of the authority claimed for it, every teaching or interpretation that licenses slavery, genocide, collective punishment, torture, caste hierarchy, racial supremacy, marital violence, forced marriage, suppression of women, or punishment for changing or abandoning a religion.
We affirm equal dignity, freedom of conscience, consensual relationships, protection of children, equal citizenship, and the principle that no ancient command overrides another person’s rights.
What is being disavowed
No person may be treated as property, inherited, bought, sold, or required by theology to submit to an abuser.
Textual record: Leviticus 25:44–46 permits acquiring foreigners as inheritable property. 1 Peter 2:18 directs enslaved household workers to submit even to harsh masters.
Context: Ancient law and pastoral instruction; neither is accepted here as a rule for modern life.
No community may be exterminated, expelled, or punished as a whole for its ancestry, territory, or inherited belief.
Textual record: Deuteronomy 20:16–18 commands the total destruction of several named ancient peoples.
Context: A historically bounded war command, not a legitimate precedent for any present population or conflict.
Every person is free to believe, question, convert, or leave a religion without civil or religious punishment.
Textual record: Sahih al-Bukhari 3017 has been read to prescribe death for apostasy, in tension with the Qur’an’s declaration that religion is not to be compelled.
Context: A Sunni hadith whose scope is disputed; some modern readings limit its historical context to political treason.
No marriage or family structure grants permission for violence, sexual coercion, forced marriage, or unilateral control of another adult.
Textual record: Qur’an 4:34 has traditionally been translated to permit a husband to strike a disobedient wife. Manusmriti 5.148 denies women independent status.
Context: The Qur’anic verb and its application are actively disputed; Manusmriti is a secondary legal text, not a universal Hindu creed.
Birth, caste, lineage, sex, race, and family status confer no superior civil rights, occupation, education, or ownership.
Textual record: Manusmriti 10.129 discourages a Śūdra from accumulating wealth because it may trouble Brahmins.
Context: One Dharmaśāstra prescription among many; it conflicts with equal citizenship and with egalitarian currents inside Hindu traditions.
Sex or gender may not limit a person’s spiritual capacity, ordination, authority, education, or path to liberation.
Textual record: AN 8.51 subordinates senior nuns to junior monks. Digambara Jain doctrine holds that liberation cannot occur in a female body.
Context: The Buddhist rules’ antiquity is disputed; the Jain position is sect-specific and rejected by Śvetāmbara Jains.
Skin color, ethnicity, and ancestry reveal nothing about sin, virtue, intelligence, divine favor, or human worth.
Textual record: 2 Nephi 5:21 connects rebellion with a divinely imposed change in skin. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now disavows skin-color curse theories.
Context: The verse remains scripture while the institution’s official racial interpretation has changed.
No scripture can justify torture, burning, mutilation, degrading punishment, or punishment without due process.
Textual record: The Kitáb-i-Aqdas ¶62 names reciprocal burning for arson and death for murder.
Context: The same paragraph explicitly permits life imprisonment, which is material context rather than a footnote.
Documented support
Population denominator
Percentages use rounded 2020 global population estimates for five major religions and the unaffiliated. Smaller traditions are grouped by the source, so this site reports verified counts without inventing a denominator.
Verified public directory
Private signers count after verification but remain unnamed. Public organizations appear only after their authority is reviewed.
No verified public names yet.
Be among the first to submit. Pending names do not appear here and do not change the numbers above.
Methodology
verified people ÷ estimated adherents
This is the closest measure to the requested percentage, but it measures documented participation—not the unobserved beliefs of everyone in a religion.
verified constituency ÷ estimated adherents
A congregation may adopt the declaration institutionally. Its reviewed reach is shown separately because members did not necessarily sign as individuals.
submitted ≠ counted
Names, authority, official domains, duplicate submissions, and claimed constituency are reviewed before any public statistic changes.
absence of evidence ≠ disagreement
This ledger cannot rank moral worth, measure all believers, or infer opposition from silence. A representative survey would require probability sampling.
Believer, leader, skeptic, reformer