The idea that the U.S. Constitution promotes separation of church and state is patently untrue, according to the chair of President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission.
In fact, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick described the concept as the “biggest lie that’s been told in America since our founding.”
Patrick led the commission’s final hearing April 13, which took aim at the First Amendment’s requirement that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Lieutenant Governor of Texas Dan Patrick (L) greets Attorney General Pam Bondi (R) before she speaks during the first hearing of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission on “the importance of faith to American success” at the Museum of the Bible on June 16 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
Critics of the commission created by executive order have scoffed at the makeup and even the title of the group, noting the irony that members were handpicked by the administration to seek religious freedoms exclusively for Christian nationalists.
“President Trump’s ‘Religious Liberty’ Commission once again demonstrated that its mission isn’t about protecting religious liberty for all. Instead, today it rebuked a foundational pillar of religious liberty: the separation of church and state,” said Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Patrick’s assertion that church-state separation is a lie was an attack on democracy and on Americans’ freedom to live and believe however they choose, she said. “If this commission really cared about religious freedom, it would join Americans United in demanding a national recommitment to church-state separation as the best way to defend religious freedom for all.”
Americans United and Democracy Forward filed a federal lawsuit in February challenging the makeup of the commission on behalf of the Interfaith Alliance, Muslims for Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Hindus for Human Rights.
Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush v. Donald Trump argues the commission is incapable of fairness because every member except an Orthodox rabbi are conservative Christians who routinely proclaim the U.S. is a “Christian nation.”
A second lawsuit, Interfaith Alliance, et al., v. Trump, et al, was filed in April claiming the commission violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act and presents one-sided viewpoints. The suit asks a federal court to order the commission to publish meeting proceedings in order to comply with FACA’s transparency requirements.
During the commission’s April 13 meeting, Patrick bragged that more than half of Texas public schools already have installed Ten Commandments displays in classrooms, USA Today reported. The state law mandating the displays is being challenged in federal court.
Helen Alvare (Justice Department photo)
Concerns that school officials may interfere with the religious instruction students receive at home have “always bordered on the absurd,” said witness Helen Alvare, who teaches religion and law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law.
Alvare praised the rightward shift of the U.S. Supreme Court and its wider application of the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment. As an example, she cited a 2025 ruling siding with a group of parents in Maryland seeking to exempt their children from curriculum with LGBTQ themes.
A Freedom from Religion Foundation report on the commission’s previous meeting said the session confirmed the group is largely focused on the concerns of MAGA Christians and other right-wing evangelicals.
“Throughout the meeting, commissioners and invited witnesses focused on ideological grievances, culture-war narratives and foreign policy disputes while paying no attention to the growing influence of white Christian nationalism, the erosion of state/church separation, or the ways ‘religious liberty’ rhetoric is being used to justify discrimination and government entanglement with religion,” the foundation reported.
Carrie Prejean Boller recently complained the commission’s focus is more about support for Israel than it is about religious freedom in the United States.
She was kicked off the panel in February for not going along with the Israel-first agenda pushed by Patrick and commission influencer Paula White, the head of the White House Faith Office, Boller said on “The Tucker Carlson Show.”
The former beauty queen, longtime Trump devotee and pro-life advocate said she was surprised how much time the dialogue focused on Hamas’ 2023 attack on Israel and on Gaza.
“I look over at Dan and I’m like, ‘We’re talking about a foreign country. So, what is this hearing about? I thought this was a hearing about true antisemitism in America.’”
A Justice Department news release described Monday’s meeting: “Today’s capstone hearing of President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission contained more powerful testimony and discussion about how people of religion are under assault by the secular left,” said Chairman Dan Patrick. “It is time to set the record straight: there is no such thing as ‘separation of church and state’ in the Constitution. For too long, the anti-God left has used this phrase to suppress people of religion in our country. During all seven commission hearings, witness after witness testified that the so-called ‘separation of church and state’ was used to take their God-given religious liberty rights away.”
Patrick said next month the commission will deliver its recommendations to Trump “to ensure that Americans’ religious liberty is safeguarded against evil forces seeking to suppress them in our country.”
The second lawsuit filed against the commission seeks to block that report.
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