In May, Trump created the Religious Liberty Commission through the Department of Justice. If you’re like any rational person, you already know what this means. When an administration that boasts dozens of racists, Islamophobes, and antisemites claims they are for religious liberty, it can only mean one thing, even if it appears a little diverse on the surface: Christian nationalism. On June 16, the commission had its first meeting.
The meeting didn’t receive much, if any, news media coverage, likely because evangelicals would begin labeling it as anti-Christian if they had, despite it being promoted as a pluralist group of people. Christians, Muslims, and Jewish People are all represented in the commission, and they all share a common trait. One that even Dr. Alveda King, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s niece, shares: they’re Trumpers.
Had Dr. King not abandoned the Democratic Party in 2016 over some anti-immigrant beliefs that started on the white supremacist side of the country, we all know she wouldn’t be on the council because, for Trump and the White House, it’s not about representation, it’s about who holds similar views. Dr. King defended Trump and dismissed claims of racism against him. In 1996, she denounced her aunt, Coretta Scott King, for supporting abortion rights.
Dr. King’s political views align directly with those of the American First Policy Institute, which she chairs. Her argument that immigrants hurt the Black community has been thoroughly debunked for years. The idea persists because the false narrative is being used to drive a wedge between Black and Latino communities. The commission is riddled with people who hold very similar and misinformed beliefs based on culture wars, which are meant to sow division and hate.
During the meeting, the law was mentioned several times, including statements arguing that we should examine what “just laws” based on theology would look like. At one point, assistant professor at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law, Mark Rienzi, said, “Don’t accept the government control of Gobitis,” a case that was overturned by the Supreme Court.
The Gobitis decision in 1940 held that public schools can require their students to salute the U.S. flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance over religious objections. In 1943, the Supreme Court held that students can’t be forced to salute the U.S. flag, affirming that doing so violates First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and expression. This is a huge step in breaking down the wall that separates church and state and driving a Christian nationalist agenda.
As for other religions, they brought in members of the Religious Liberty Foundation, such as Ismail Royer, Director of the Islam and Religious Freedom Action Team for the Religious Freedom Institute. While this sounds like they’re being diverse, the Religious Freedom Institute is associated with various anti-Muslim, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-immigrant groups. In 2018, Royer penned an op-ed at the Washington Post linking his former Christian evangelical ideals with those of conservative Muslims. Royer converted to Islam in 1992.
The Religious Freedom Institute, much like its counterparts, the Alliance for Defending Freedom and the Center for Immigration Studies, both designated hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center, promote very conservative ideas, many of which are considered far-right and outright hateful toward others who don’t believe as they do. Their annual Religious Freedom Summits, held in Washington, DC, regularly feature anti-Muslim speakers.
Even having Hamza Yusuf on the commission can be problematic. Often referred to as “the West’s most influential Islamic scholar,” after rising to fame for denouncing the 9/11 attacks and saying Islam had been hijacked by radicals, he, too, harbors extreme conservative ideals. Yusuf was denounced for aligning with Trump in 2016 while the administration was banning travel from “Muslim countries” and invoking rhetoric similar to that after 9/11, villainizing Arabs.
Yusuf was also denounced again in 2017 for alienating Black Muslims, dismissing racism in the U.S., and 2019, after joining Trump’s Commission on Unalienable Rights alongside Mike Pompeo, amid Islamophobic and anti-Arab hate being perpetrated by the White House.
There’s also Sameerah Munshi, who promotes false ideas about kids being taught gender ideology in schools and has a case currently before the Supreme Court, according to the White House. She has also worked with the Coalition of Virtue and the Religious Freedom Institute, both well-known for promoting anti-LGBTQ views.
Despite appearing to embody a diverse set of views, the Religious Liberty Commission is not representative of the religious pluralism they are trying to portray.
Watch the entire 6-hour event
If you have the stomach to sit through 6 hours of white Christian nationalism, I found the three segments released by the Department of Justice in mid-June.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
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