Standing Religious Liberty on its Head [View all]
On June 26, the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission released its draft report, a 224-page document timed to coincide with the nation’s 250th anniversary of independence. The commission, established by executive order on May 1, 2025, was charged with examining the foundations of religious liberty in America and recommending policies to protect it.
Commission chairman Dan Patrick, the Texas lieutenant governor, told the commission’s final hearing in April that the language of the First Amendment which requires that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” does not mandate the separation of church and state. A single paragraph near the conclusion of the report offers the most revealing insight into the commission’s focus.
“The concept of a ‘wall of separation between church and state’ can wrongly imply that church and state are opposed to one another and must remain completely separate. In reality, however, church and state strengthen and support one another. Perhaps a better analogy is that religious liberty acts as a bridge between church and state.”
Read that again slowly. A commission called the Religious Liberty Commission has just redefined religious liberty to mean the opposite of what the term has meant for more than a century. The wall comes down. The bridge goes up. And the change is presented not as a radical departure but as a friendly clarification.
https://www.postalley.org/2026/07/09/standing-religious-liberty-on-its-head/
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