Trump's Religious Liberty Commission Concludes The Wall Between Church And State Would Work Better As A Bridge, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That The Two Were Still Apart

The Filing

WASHINGTON. Calling it a long-overdue correction to a misunderstanding that had persisted for roughly two centuries, the Justice Department's Religious Liberty Commission on Friday presented President Trump with a 224-page draft report recommending that the United States stop separating church and state and begin, in the document's words, building bridges between them.

The report, which commission members handed to the president in the Oval Office, observes that the phrase "wall of separation between church and state" appears neither in the First Amendment nor anywhere else in the Constitution, a finding the document treats as freshly damning despite the wall having served as the standard metaphor for the Establishment Clause since 1802. To address the oversight, the commission recommends that the Justice Department issue guidance promoting what it calls an originalist understanding of how the Constitution views religion and government, an understanding under which the clause forbidding an established church is reread as an encouragement to establish closer relations.

Among the report's specific proposals are federal "Know Your Rights" posters for schools and workplaces, government hotlines for reporting religious liberty violations, and a new Presidential Medal of Religious Liberty, to be awarded by the president to recipients of the president's choosing. The commission further recommends installing exhibits and markers at historic sites celebrating the role of religion in American history, a category of signage the administration has been adding to the national parks at roughly the same pace it has been removing the other kind.

"We saved religion, it was going down," Trump told supporters at a Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering hours after receiving the document, crediting his administration with rescuing the world's largest faith traditions from a collapse that available membership figures had not independently detected. A source within the administration confirmed that the wall, long understood to shield houses of worship from government interference as much as the reverse, would be replaced with a structure permitting traffic in only the more convenient direction.

The draft now enters a 15-day public comment period, during which Americans of any faith, or none, are invited to submit objections the commission will be under no obligation to read.

At press time, the commission had recommended a First Freedom Hero Award for whichever official first noticed that the Constitution does not contain the word "wall."

Who Benefits

§Donald Trump, who gains a fresh achievement to announce, a new medal to bestow on people of his choosing, and renewed devotion from a base he has just informed he personally rescued their religion.
§The Religious Liberty Commission, whose members see their long campaign against the Establishment Clause elevated into proposed federal policy bearing the Justice Department's name.
§The conservative Christian legal movement, positioned to gain official guidance recasting the separation of church and state as a clerical error in need of correction.
§The Justice Department's political leadership, handed new authority to define the proper relationship between government and religion, along with a hotline through which to enforce it.
§The Faith and Freedom Coalition, granted a marquee presidential endorsement delivered live at its own gathering.
§Future medal recipients, a class of honorees the president alone will select.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment