If you wanted to create a parody commission on religious liberty that actually undermined the stated goal, you’d be hard-pressed to top the actual White House Religious Liberty Commission that held its first meeting Monday (June 16). Although the phrase “religious liberty” appears in the title of the commission, it’s really advancing Christian Nationalism and working against true religious liberty for all.
President Donald Trump announced the creation of the commission last month during a Christian Nationalist event at the White House Rose Garden. As if we needed the government to tell us to pray, he held a “National Day of Prayer” event to launch this new initiative. And if that were not bad enough, Trump then stuffed the commission with a bunch of rightwing figures with similar viewpoints, leaving out anyone who recognizes that church-state separation is essential to protecting actual religious liberty for all people.
On Monday, the commission members offered comments and heard from several witnesses who all matched the ideological slant of the members. From where they met to who they invited to what they discussed, the commission clearly demonstrated they weren’t seeking ways to advance religious liberty but to instead use government coercion to push religion. So this issue of A Public Witness goes inside the commission’s first meeting to warn about this effort to turn religious liberty upside down.
Setting the Stage
In the beginning, it was clear the new “religious liberty” commission would be problematic. Trump named Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to chair the commission, which he said Patrick had encouraged him to create. Patrick has called the U.S. “a Christian nation” and claimed “there is no separation of church and state.” He even argued, “We were a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution.” At the Rose Garden event announcing the commission, Patrick falsely claimed Trump talks about Jesus more than all other presidents (starting the new commission off with a sloppy lie was an early warning sign).
The rest of this piece is only available to paid subscribers of the Word&Way newsletter A Public Witness. Subscribe today to read this essay and all previous issues and receive future ones in your inbox.
