Justice Gorsuch, Contra J.D. Vance, Emphatically Disputes That America Is a Christian Nation

Justice Neil Gorsuch’s emphatic comments this weekend rejecting the notion that America is a Christian nation offer a bracing view of how the jurist views the nation’s foundations.“We were founded for religious pluralism and the opportunity to practice your own faith in your own way,” is how Justice Gorsuch put it to PBS’s Margaret Hoover on “Firing Line” on Sunday. He added that “we were never supposed to be a nation that was about one race or one religion” and that “it’s demonstrably not true that we came from the same religion.”Justice Gorsuch also told Ms. Hoover that “we have a First Amendment, for crying out loud. No established religion. Everybody has a freedom of religion. Everybody has the freedom of speech. We are all equal under law, okay?” The justice, who hails from Colorado, was nominated to the high bench in 2017 by President Trump to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. Prior to that he rode the Tenth United States Appeals Circuit.The Framers began the First Amendment by asserting that Congress shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion.” It was a way, in the Founders view, to protect established churches and churches that were not established by law. The Amendment prohibits the Congress from disestablishing a religion as well as establishing one. Justice Antonin Scalia once sketched this argument to an audience at Yeshiva University. In any event, a different vision of America was propounded by Vice President J.D. Vance at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in December. He declared that America “always will be, by the grace of God, a Christian nation.”Mr. Vance tells the Washington Post this month that “I do think in a very foundational sense the country is a Christian nation” and urges a “return to the Christian foundation of the country.” This month Mr. Vance published a memoir, “Communion,” that details his journey to the Catholic faith.Mr. Vance explained at Turning Points that “I’m not saying you have to be a Christian to be an American. I’m saying something simpler and truer: Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond. Across that history, our country’s major debates have always centered on how we could best as a people please God.”The Constitution’s First Amendment ordains that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Cornell’s Legal Information Institute notes that this clause “not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another.”Justice Gorsuch notes, though, that Christianity is composed of a medley of creeds. Amish and Quakers settled the British colonies, and one Catholic, Charles Carroll, signed the Declaration of Independence. Founding Fathers like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were Deists, meaning that they were more compelled by the Enlightenment claims of reason than traditional Christina theology.The parchment’s most absolute prohibition comes in Article VI, with the command that “No religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” In the early years of the American Republic, 10 out of the 13 colonies — excepting Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, and Delaware — had established, taxpayer-funded churches. The last state to disestablish was Massachusetts in 1833. In 1790 President Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island: “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants — while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.”The Treaty of Tripoli, signed by President John Adams in 1797 to protect shipping from Barbary pirates, asserts that “as the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen — and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.”Justice Gorsuch emerged as one of the high court’s most stalwart defenders of religious liberty. In 2023 he wrote the majority opinion in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which held that state anti-discrimination laws cannot require designers, in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs, to create works that recognize same-sex marriages. In 2021 Justice Gorsuch wrote a concurrence joined by Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas that argued for the overturning of Employment Division v. Smith, which held that a state could deny unemployment benefits to a person fired for violating a state prohibition on the use of peyote even if the drug was part of a religious ritual. Smith mandates that states have no obligation to accommodate otherwise illegal activity on religious grounds.The occasion for Justice Gorsuch’s appearance on PBS was to promote his new children’s book, “Heroes of 1776.” Justice Gorsuch told Ms. Hoover that “I do think young people, when they’re exposed to these ideas, when they’re exposed to these heroes in our past, will find inspiration from them and can do great things because of them.”

Justice Gorsuch, Contra J.D. Vance, Emphatically Disputes That America Is a Christian Nation

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