by Paul Braterman
I first learnt of Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission, which delivered its draft report on June 26, from a post in Hemant Mehta’s Friendly Atheist, where he describes it as a clown show and as “a blueprint to end church-state separation.” Mehta is far too optimistic. The commission’s report is much more than that. The final report, we are promised, “will equip all Americans with the knowledge and support needed to defend their Constitutional rights.” The draft shows us what these words really mean. It contains recommendations that would greatly aid the Administration in its campaigns against independence of thought, suppress discussion of Palestinian rights, encourage proselytizing in the workplace, and grant protected status to conspiracy theories put forward in the name of religion.
There’s worse.
The very first recommendation reads
Instruct the Department of Justice to issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.
There is so much wrong with this, that one hardly knows where to start. The Department of Justice is part of the Administration, and has no business issuing guidance on the “proper understanding” of any part of the Constitution, let alone the complex subject of church-state relations. The fact that the Commissioners, who include in their number influential scholars, prelates, and opinion shapers, were willing to put their name to this recommendation shows, more clearly than any other single recent event, that the United States as a Constitutional Republic is all but dead.
The strategy involved is obviously far beyond the mental capacity of the man who sits in the Oval Office, but fully in accord with the thinking of his entourage, and in particular of Russell Vought, whose 2022 article, Renewing American’s Purpose referred to the United States as “post-constitutional,” complained as an example about the role of career officials (remember that this includes all the scientists) in the Centers for Disease Control, and demanded that governmental activities be brought under strict centralized supervision.
The specific recommendations are very much as would be expected, given the choice of Commissioners, and lay out the plan to hold the MAGA coalition together in the approaching post-Trump era.
(For a more sympathetic report on the Commission, treating Department of Justice assertions as established fact, see https://www.christianpost.com/news/wh-religious-liberty-commission-delivers-trump-report-on-threats.html)
I will start by discussing the backgrounds of the individual Commissioners, and what this tells us about the purpose of the exercise (the one Commissioner who did not behave as expected was thrown off). With this background, I will briefly comment on some of the specific recommendations, and what they would imply. The Commission made a total of 12 recommendations, which I discuss briefly, and list in full at the end of this piece.
The Chair of the Commission is Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, whose views include support for legislation requiring display of the Ten Commandments in Texas schools, and preventing those schools from requiring that students read writings by prominent civil rights figures, such as Susan B. Anthony, Cesar Chavez, and Martin Luther King Jr, in social studies classes. He also supports the inclusion of creationism in the school curriculum, and is a member of a church committed to the 2000 Faith and Message of the Southern Baptist Convention, which states that “Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God’s creation.” and “We should speak on behalf of the unborn and contend for the sanctity of all human life from conception to natural death.”
Ben Carson, Vice-Chair, is an extremely accomplished surgeon. He was HUD Secretary during Trump’s first term, and appointed National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing in September 2025. He maintains that accepting evolution is incompatible with God and with morality, and is encouraged by Lucifer. He is the founder of the American Cornerstone Institute, a right-wing think tank that describes America as built on faith. When I visited the site on July 5, it featured an article in favor of Voter ID, and a video of Carson interviewing Dr Oz about “the MAHA campaign to heal America.” CNN describes Carson as having had an extensive relationship with Mannatech, which claims that its natural healing products can cure multiple diseases, and was successfully sued for this by Greg Abbott, then Attorney-General and now Governor of Texas. In a 2024 book, Carson favors a nation-wide ban on abortion and also cuts to federal assistance for single mothers.
Two Commissioners are Catholic prelates; Robert Barron, Catholic Bishop of Winona–Rochester, and Timothy M. Dolan, Cardinal Archbishop of New York (now retired). Robert Barron’s Word on Fire website carries an article in which he explicitly rejects the distinction between private morality and public policy, comparing someone who regards abortion as wrong but not a matter for legislation to the absurdity of someone who thought slavery was wrong, but opposed its legal abolition. Timothy Nolan delivered the first benediction at President Trump’s 2017 inauguration, and the opening prayer at the 2020 Republican convention. He opposed the requirement that employers (and later insurers), cover birth control, as violation of conscience. On Fox News, he described Charlie Kirk as a modern day St Paul.
The Commission includes three other religious leaders. Of these, two (Franklin Graham and Paula White) will be well-known to readers, and are, more than any other individuals, directly responsible for the MAGAfication of Evangelical Christianity in the US. Paula White features prominently in the well-known photoshoots of Trump being prayed over, has been in contact with Trump since 2002, described him as raised up by God, and his Supreme Court appointments as “scaring the literal hell out of demonic spirits”, and called on angels to come from Africa and South America to undo the result of the 2020 Presidential Election (they failed to show up).
The remaining religious leader, Meir Soloveichik, is a Modern Orthodox Rabbi , with a PhD in religion from Princeton. He gave the opening invocation at the 2012 Republican Convention, and in 2024 was appointed by Mitch McConnell to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. He is Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University. His many articles include “The Real Israel Lobby: It’s the American people,” The Weekly Standard (February 2013), which tells us that love for Israel is founded “on the conviction that Israel is indeed an island of liberty in a region that is an ocean of hostility to America and the American idea. As such, Israel’s endurance represents a triumph of the American vision — a vision that was, in part, inspired by the Bible, the book bequeathed to the world by Ancient Israel.”
Ryan T. Anderson has worked for the Heritage Foundation, and is now president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, (EPPC) which describes itself as “D.C.’s premier institute working to apply the riches of the Jewish and Christian traditions to contemporary questions of law, culture, and politics, in pursuit of America’s continued civic and cultural renewal.” He is co-author of the EPPC’s deeply flawed attack on the safety of mifepristone, 
published without peer-review, and co-author of What is Marriage, which argues against same-sex marriage on the grounds that the defining feature of marriage is reproduction.
Kelly Shackelford is head of First Liberty Institute, which is an adviser to Project 2025, and litigates First Amendment issues from a right-wing perspective. Among its achievements are persuading the Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District to allow the school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, to continue publicly praying in the field immediately after matches. This decision marked the abandonment of the Lemon test for what activities would violate the Establishment Clause of the US constitution, the clause that prohibits government from sponsoring a religion. This test had played important part in cases such as Kitzmiller v Dover Area School Board, and according to Judge Jones, who decided that case, its abandonment will increasingly blur the distinction between government and religion.
Allyson Ho is a highly esteemed appellate lawyer, who clerked for Sandra Day O’Connor. She is now best known for representing companies, and has argued before the Supreme Court on their behalf. We may well be hearing more about her. She has done pro bono work for First Liberty Institute, on which see above.
Phil McGraw (“Doctor Phil”) rose to prominence through his appearances on Oprah Winfrey’s show, and subsequently his own, using her Harpo Studios, which attracted millions of viewers. I remember him from that period as advocating “tough love,” a dangerous concept. He has worked with lawyers (this is how he met Oprah) on trial rehearsals, and founded the telehealth company Doctor on Demand, which offers online consultations. His more unusual ventures include launching, in 2003, a brand of weight-loss supplements that was suspended in 2004 and led to subsequent litigation because of misleading advertising. He endorsed Donald Trump at his 2024 Madison Square Garden rally, and broadcast video footage of himself embedded with ICE officers in Chicago in January 2025. In November 2024, over a year into Israel’s actions in Gaza, he described his support for Israel as “goodversus evil,” and described professors and students opposing Israeli actions as “absolutely supporting terrorist organizations.
Eric Metaxas has a degree in English from Yale. He is a successful right-wing commentator and talk-show host, where I have come across him helping Stephen Meyer promote the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design. He is a firm supporter of Donald Trump, and his many children’s books include Donald Builds the Wall and Donald Drains the Swamp. He maintained that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen, that Trump would be inaugurated, and that those responsible would go to jail. He told Trump on his show that God was with him in the fight to overthrow the election result, and told Charlie Kirk that this was a battle worth dying for. In March 2021, he told people not to get the Covid vaccine, in a tweet that was subsequently deleted. He passed on the false claim that the vaccines contained fetal tissue, and argued that “Americans need to understand that if the government, or everybody, is telling you you have to do something, we don’t have dissent, no dissent, you need to understand that’s not the American way, folks. And if only to be a rebel, you need to say, ‘I’m not going to do that.’”
Caroline Michelle Prejean Boller is in some ways the most interesting appointee to the Commission, not least for having been thrown off it by the Chair. After having trained as a special needs teacher, she became Miss California 2009, and attracted attention by vocal opposition to same-sex marriage, which is perhaps one reason why she was appointed. She was a member of Trump’s Campaign Advisory Board in 2020, and appeared on Fox News. In August 2021, she opposed masking in schools on the grounds that the Covid pandemic was over (it wasn’t; the third wave was moving towards its peak), and equated drag shows with grooming. She had been raised as an Evangelical Christian, but was received into the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil 2025, just two weeks before her appointment to the Commission. She was removed in February 2026, on the grounds of having hijacked a Commission hearing on anti-Semitism, after insisting that criticism of Israel does not constitute anti-Semitism and that Catholics as a group are not Zionists, and asking witnesses complaining of anti-Semitism if they were willing to condemn what Israel was doing in Gaza. After her removal, the Muslim adviser to the Commission resigned, expressing regret for having granted it any legitimacy.
Some things about this list are immediately obvious. Of the original thirteen members (now twelve), five are religious leaders by profession, which might influence their perspective. Four of these five have taken part in Republican or Trump-promoting events, while the fifth (Robert Barron), anticipating Trump by some days, responded on June 29 to the recent primary victories of left-leaning Democrats by raising the specter of Communism and its attacks on religion. (Notice that the in the link I give here is to a seemingly approving article in The Signal, a right-wing publication founded by the Heritage Foundation, and controlled by it until 2024.) At least eleven of the thirteen are involved with the Republican Party, have taken part in Republican activities, or have declared their support for Trump. There are a number of other strategically chosen concerns. Unconditional support for Israel is linked to the claim that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism and amounts to support of terrorism. The charge of anti-Semitism has played a major role in Trump’s attack on the Universities, while equating criticism with approval of terrorism paves the way for very wide restrictions on expression. (The UK gives us a shocking example of this, with the legally dubious proscribing of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, followed by the prosecution as terrorism supporters of people holding up placards in protest.) Of all the specific recommendations, the one regarding anti-Semitism is the most frightening, since it not only enables criticism of Israel to be treated as suppression of religious freedom, but instructs the provision of “civic education” by the Administration. We have the claim, one of Soloveichik’s repeated themes, that the US was founded on biblical principles. This can be used to justify any intrusion of the Bible into governmental sphere, as well as adding weight to the doctrine of an unbreakable US-Israel alliance, thus making criticism of Irael appear unpatriotic.
There is opposition to same-sex marriage. This is a deliberate running together of two separate functions of marriage. First, a three-way contract between the parties and Government, since there is a public interest in the existence of stable partnerships, particularly but not exclusively when children are involved. Secondly, as a sacrament. This is a matter for the Churches, some but not all of which refuse to solemnify same-sex marriage. And they are within their rights to do so, much as the Catholic Church is within its rights when refusing to solemnify the marriage of divorcees, although in both cases we can debate the wisdom of their decision. There is a further agenda here; strengthening the position of officials who refuse to register same-sex marriage, and by implication all employees refusing to do their jobs on the basis of a personal religious objection. This is behind many of the recommendations listed below, especially (10) and (11), which are particularly fatuous given the wide-ranging vaccinations that every member of the US Armed Forces will have received on enlistment. Consider also the commissioners’ beliefs about elections, and promotion of the claim that the 2020 Presidential election outcome was illegitimate. Patrick offered a reward for notifications of fraud in the 2020 election, and encouraged Trump in his refusal to concede. Relatedly, Carson on the American Cornerstone Institute website has recently claimed that Voter ID is popular, mentioning large numbers of illegal immigrants and the possibility of fraud; in context, that is denying in advance. Franklin Graham said, regarding Trump’s 2016 victory, that “God showed up,” and compared the Republican senators who voted for Trump’s impeachment after the 2021 assault on the Capitol to Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus. I have already mentioned Eric Metaxas’ and Paula White’s reactions to 2020. Four Commissioners endorse creationism. As already mentioned, Patrick and Carson are creationists, as is Graham, with Carson regarding evolution science as diabolical. Paula White’s views on the subject, as on many traditional theological concerns, remains obscure. Metaxas accepts an ancient Earth, but believes in Intelligent Design and frequently has its supporters on his show. The subject is particularly relevant in the context of the Commission, since if its recommendations are acted on, and in view of what I have already said about the demise of the Lemon test, it is only a matter before some school board or individual teacher insists that their religious beliefs entitle them to teach creationism in the science class. Much more could be said about the specific recommendations, which I list below. For brevity, I will merely point out the gross intrusion (Recommendations 2 and 7) of official propaganda into schools and the workplace, the provision (Recommendation 4) of a hot line for students to inform on their teachers, the assertion (Recommendation 5) of the right of the Administration to distinguish between proper and improper judicial reasoning, and the repeal (Recommendation 9) of the Johnson Amendment, agreed by Congress in 1954 without dissent, that prohibits religious organizations from explicitly endorsing candidates in elections (remember that the charitable status of such organizations renders donations to them tax-deductible; so repeal of this amendment would provide a Federal subsidy for partisan political activity). And plenty more besides. Just look. The full recommendations are as follows: |
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More surprisingly, we have lots of support for fringe medicine, or direct attacks on the medical establishment. So we have both Carson and McGraw involved with mis-sold supplements. McGraw in his 2024 book We’ve Got Issues: How You Can Stand Strong for America’s Soul and Sanity maintains that medical science was weakened by its response to Covid [Disclosure; that’s just a detail I noticed while browsing Amazon’s free sample; I have not bought the book], whereas in fact a stupendous feat of rapid vaccine development saved millions of lives, and Carson’s American Cornerstone Foundation supports (February 27 1) Instruct the Department of Justice to issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.
2) The Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shall issue “Know Your Rights” Posters for students, parents, public school teachers and administrators, religious leaders, religious institutions, healthcare workers, and military servicemembers.
3) Any public official who alleges a person under their supervision has improperly engaged in religious expression must provide a written explanation of the alleged violation to the person accused within 30 days of any action and explain that charge based upon a specific constitutional provision or provision of law.
4) Instruct the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, to create religious liberty violation reporting hotlines/online portals for students, parents, teachers, healthcare workers, and others to obtain support in the face of religious liberty violations and promote public awareness of existing reporting channels.
5) Nominate and confirm federal judges with the courage to decide religious liberty cases on the merits where warranted, rather than engage in improper judicial avoidance.
6) Ask the Department of Justice to create a religious liberty task force to track and prioritize litigation protecting religious liberty.
7) Combat anti-Semitism through enforcement of civil rights laws, litigation of credible allegations of anti-Semitic discrimination and violence, and civic education.
8) Protect religious Americans from government-led litigation targeting their free exercise.
9) Repeal the Johnson Amendment.
10) Order the Department of War to streamline and improve the religious accommodation process.
11) Continue efforts to restore the retirement or re-enlistment eligibility for service members who lost employment, health insurance, pensions, and other benefits because of their religious beliefs about the COVID-19 vaccine.
12) Honor the courage of religious liberty heroes through creating a Presidential Medal of Religious Liberty and First Freedom Hero Awards to recognize Americans who stand up for religious freedom and play an indispensable role in protecting citizens’ Constitutional rights.
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