It wasn’t so much that religious liberty wasn’t important to Joe “Good Catholic” Biden, but that the religions he promoted were the cults of abortion and gender confusion. Orthodox Christians took a back seat if the abortion fanatics or Rainbow Mafia demanded it be so.
Donald Trump was quite the opposite in his first term, working to bolster true religious liberty in profound ways. Yesterday, he signed an executive order to continue that work well into his second term.
Yesterday, in honor of the National Day of Prayer, Trump held a ceremony with several faith leaders in the Rose Garden to sign his order. “We’re bringing back religion in our country,” he said in his prepared remarks. “For America to be a great nation, we must always be One Nation Under God.”
With his typical humor, Trump also quipped, “‘Separation of church and state,’ they told me. I said, ‘Let’s forget about that for one time.’ We said, ‘Really? Separation? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?’ I’m not sure.” Indeed, Mark Alexander wrote about the wall of separation myth 20 years ago. I wrote about House Speaker Mike Johnson’s comments on it in 2023.
Regardless, the point of Trump’s order isn’t to establish some sort of theocracy, as leftists supposedly fear. It’s to ensure that Christians and Jews in particular are no longer persecuted in America for their faith and to counter those who “would remove religion entirely from public life.” His order begins by recounting important history regarding religious liberty in our country. The first European settlers, after all, were fleeing religious persecution.
To accomplish the president’s objectives, his order establishes the Religious Liberty Commission. He simultaneously announced its 13 members, whose term ends on our nation’s 250th birthday, July 4, 2026, unless Trump extends it. Their task:
The Commission shall produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations, and programs to increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism. Specific topics to be considered by the Commission under these categories shall include the following areas: the First Amendment rights of pastors, religious leaders, houses of worship, faith-based institutions, and religious speakers; attacks across America on houses of worship of many religions; debanking of religious entities; the First Amendment rights of teachers, students, military chaplains, service members, employers, and employees; conscience protections in the health care field and concerning vaccine mandates; parents’ authority to direct the care, upbringing, and education of their children, including the right to choose a religious education; permitting time for voluntary prayer and religious instruction at public schools; Government displays with religious imagery; and the right of all Americans to freely exercise their faith without fear or Government censorship or retaliation.
Given the Biden administration’s efforts to “squelch faith in the public square,” as another Trump EO in February put it, Trump’s objectives are welcome and needed. The government does not have to be hostile to Christianity to avoid the “establishment” of it.
