Attorney General Pam Bondi vows to preserve religious freedom against 'emerging threats'
Attorney General Pam Bondi vows to preserve religious freedom against 'emerging threats' Some critics worry the commission lacks a diversity of thought, and a small number of people walked out of the attorney general's speech in protest.
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Trump tells Christians they won't have to vote after this election
The GOP presidential nominee delivered the comments during a keynote speech at Turning Point Action's Believers' Summit.
President Donald Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission with a May 1 executive order.
The commission met for the first time at the Museum of the Bible on June 16 in Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON −U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said religious liberty has 'come under attack' in the nation during the inaugural meeting of President Donald Trump's Religious Liberty Commission.
The commission met at the Museum of the Bible and Bondi referenced Trump's May 1 executive order, which established the panel and said Americans must work to 'preserve (religious freedom) against emerging threats.'
'The federal government became complicit in sheltering these threats, becoming the greatest threat itself,' Bondi said before listing events under former President Joe Biden's administration.
She mentioned the nearly two-dozen anti-abortion activists whom Trump pardoned in January and claimed Biden 'marked Easter Sunday, the holiest day in the Christian calendar, as Transgender Day of Visibility.' As USA TODAY previously reported, the latter commemoration has long been celebrated on March 31, and Easter also landing on that date in 2024 was coincidental.
Bondi said the administration has dropped cases that stemmed from the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, under which anti-abortion activists have been arrested, and has supported the 'rights of parents to protect their children from transgender books" in public schools. The Supreme Court has yet to rule on a case involving the latter issue.
Bondi's message didn't sit well with Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons of Interfaith Alliance, who was one of a half dozen people who left the museum's theater during what he described as Bondi's 'very extreme' remarks.
'To see the attorney general use her short remarks to just act aggrieved was disturbing, but expected,' he said.
Graves-Fitzsimmons was already skeptical of the commission before June 16, and he found the meeting affirmed his suspicion by having 'very little diversity of thought.'
A theme among numerous speakers was a belief that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment doesn't prevent the government from promoting religion and that it can and should do so.
South Texas College of Law professor Josh Blackman said posting the Ten Commandments in a public school classroom, for example, does not violate the clause. Mark David Hall, a Regent University professor who served as a witness at the meeting, said the founders didn't believe religion must be 'scrubbed from the public square.'
Such sentiments reflect what Graves-Fitzsimmons described as the commission's 'misuse of religious liberty.'
'I think most Americans believe separation of church and state is good for both, and their voices aren't being heard at all by this commission,' he said.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik supported what he described as the Supreme Court's shift to a 'more accurate' understanding of religious freedom in recent years.
Several speakers referenced legal concepts and court cases that they hoped would be revisited in the years to come. Alliance Defending Freedom President Kristen Waggoner, for example, supported challenges to the so-called Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches from getting involved in politics.
Bondi, who previously led the inaugural meeting of the 'Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,' said the Department of Justice will use 'every legal and constitutional tool available' to uphold religious liberty.
'Let this commission serve as a reminder – elections have consequences,' Bondi said. 'And this president and this administration are fully committed to restoring and defending religious liberty for all Americans.'
The commission's next meeting will be held in September.
BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment Reporting Fellow at USA TODAY. Reach her at bjfrank@usatoday.com.
USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
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