The Other Religion Clause
Melissa Reid September/October 2026In May 2025 President Donald Trump established the Religious Liberty Commission through executive order with the mandate to advise and report to the president on opportunities to “identify emerging threats to religious liberty, uphold federal laws that protect all citizens’ full participation in a pluralistic democracy, and protect the free exercise of religion.”
During the past year, the commission held seven hearings and received testimony from more than 100 witnesses, covering such significant topics as religious liberty in the military, education, health care, and the public and private sectors, as well as the importance of protecting parental rights and faith-based institutions and combating the rise of anti-Semitism and violence against houses of worship.
In June 2026, Chair Dan Patrick, Vice Chair Ben Carson, and the members of the commission delivered a final draft report with recommendations to the president.
The Religious Liberty Commission deserves credit for recognizing that religious freedom faces genuine challenges in America. Its draft report rightly defends the rights of religious believers to live consistently with their convictions, supports stronger workplace accommodations, and recognizes the importance of church autonomy. These are significant concerns, and many faith communities—including the Seventh-day Adventist Church, for which I work—have long advocated for these protections.
Yet the commission’s report also contains a troubling flaw. In its effort to strengthen religious liberty, it appears prepared to weaken one of the very constitutional principles that has made religious liberty possible. That principle is the separation of church and state.
Lopsided Clauses
Public discussions about the First Amendment often emphasize the free exercise clause while treating the establishment clause as an obstacle to religious expression. The commission’s draft seems to move in this direction by recommending that the Department of Justice issue guidance reinterpreting the establishment clause and by questioning the traditional understanding of church-state separation.
But America’s religious freedom has never depended on one clause alone. The genius of the First Amendment lies in its dual protections. The free exercise clause shields religious belief and practice from government interference. The establishment clause prevents government from identifying itself with, endorsing, or favoring particular religious traditions.
Neither clause is complete without the other. Without free exercise, government can suppress religion. Without establishment protections, government can privilege religion—or one religion over others. America’s remarkable experiment has been to reject both extremes. A weakening of either protection ultimately weakens religious liberty itself.
Neutrality Is Not Hostility
Perhaps the report’s most concerning implication is its suggestion that advocates of meaningful church-state separation are motivated largely by hostility toward religion or by secular ideological commitments. But history tells a different story.
Some of the strongest defenders of church-state separation have been deeply religious people. Baptists championed it after experiencing persecution by established churches. Quakers supported it out of respect for liberty of conscience. Jewish communities embraced it because neutrality offered protection against religious favoritism. Seventh-day Adventists have defended it because they believe genuine faith cannot be compelled by government.
These believers were not seeking a religion-free public square. They were seeking a government that neither imposed nor preferred religion, and that distinction matters enormously.
When government remains institutionally neutral, religious communities retain their independence. They worship freely, preach boldly, establish schools, publish literature, and serve society without becoming instruments of political power. The result has been the development of one the most vibrant and diverse religious cultures in world history.
According to recent data, three quarters of Americans identify with a specific religious faith. Our country is a nation of believers, not despite church-state separation, but rather because of it.
A False Choice
Some contemporary debates create the impression that Americans must choose between supporting religion and supporting church-state separation, but that is a false choice. Government neutrality does not require hostility toward religion, nor does robust religious liberty require government endorsement of faith.
The Constitution itself demonstrates this balance. The federal government was deliberately structured without religious tests for office. The First Amendment prohibited establishment while protecting free exercise. The goal was not secularism in the modern ideological sense, but liberty of conscience for everyone.
This constitutional arrangement has served believers remarkably well. Today virtually every major faith tradition thrives in America. Churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and countless other religious communities operate freely. Religious organizations educate millions of students, provide humanitarian services, and contribute significantly to American civic life.
None of this required our government to adopt a religious identity. Instead, it has rightly chosen to leave questions of faith largely to religious communities themselves.
Preserving Balance
The commission gets so much right in its draft final report. It recommends stronger workplace protections for religious employees, supports church autonomy, and renews attention to religious liberty more broadly. But it risks protecting one dimension of religious liberty by weakening another. That would be an unfortunate mistake.
America’s constitutional tradition has never rested on maximizing government support for religion. It has rested on maintaining appropriate limits between the institutions of church and state while vigorously protecting the free exercise of religion. This framework has enabled extraordinary religious diversity to flourish.
As our society grows increasingly pluralistic, that balance becomes even more important. Citizens need not agree on theology to agree that government should neither suppress religious belief nor favor particular religious traditions.
At the time of this article’s writing, the committee’s report was still in draft form. The opportunity remains to strengthen the proposed recommendations by acknowledging this richer constitutional and historical tradition. I am hopeful that the committee will choose to revise its support of robust free exercise protections by recognizing that meaningful church-state separation has often been defended by sincere believers acting out of profound religious conviction.
That would not weaken America’s first freedom. It would honor the constitutional partnership that has protected it for the past 250 years.
Article Author: Melissa Reid
Melissa Reid is the associate editor of Liberty.