Church and State are Being Reunited, Thanks to SCOTUS

Summary

Amicus with Dahlia Lithwick | “Church and State are Being Reunited, Thanks to SCOTUS” (March 7, 2026)

Guest: Rachel Laser, President and CEO, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Host: Dahlia Lithwick

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the rapid reunification of church and state in America, focusing on recent Supreme Court decisions that privilege Christian nationalist perspectives and erode church-state separation. Dahlia Lithwick speaks with Rachel Laser about the legal and political strategies empowering Christian nationalism, recent shadow docket rulings, and the profound implications for democracy, religious freedom, and marginalized groups.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Rise and Roots of Christian Nationalism

Historical Context:

• Rachel Laser traces Christian nationalism’s lineage, noting its current surge is rooted in the false idea that the U.S. was founded for Christians and should continue to favor Christianity in law and policy ([06:40]).
• The 1950s saw a spike in overtly religious civic acts (“under God” added to the Pledge, “In God We Trust” on money, national motto) as a reaction to “godless communism” ([06:40]–[07:28]).
• Christian nationalism historically intensifies as a backlash to major social change (e.g., end of the white Christian majority, marriage equality, MeToo, BLM) ([07:28]).

Rachel Laser:

"Right now we're seeing a real backlash...not brand new, but it's strong and it's raging." ([07:57])

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2. Christian Nationalism’s Reach Across Government

• The ideology is now “infusing every branch of government,” most vividly in the Department of Defense (now referred by some as the “Department of War”) ([08:39]).
  • Ex-Fox News host and current Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, has initiated Christian prayer services at the Pentagon with pastors advocating extreme patriarchal views ([08:39]–[09:47]).
• Key drivers include the Trump administration and Project 2025, which openly seeks to institutionalize Christian nationalist beliefs across federal agencies ([05:50]–[06:00], [31:42]).

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3. The Supreme Court’s Decades-Long Project

Legal Precedents:

• The foundation for current doctrine was laid in key cases:
  • Marsh v. Chambers (1983): Allowed taxpayer-funded legislative prayers ([10:42]).
  • Town of Greece v. Galloway (2014), Trinity Lutheran (2017): Lowered the wall between church and state ([10:42]–[12:34]).
  • Carson v. Makin (2022): Accelerated the shift, making separation of church and state a “constitutional violation” ([12:34]).
• Rachel Laser highlights Justice Sotomayor’s warning:

  • "The court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation." —Justice Sotomayor, dissent in Carson v. Makin ([13:50])

Shift in Interpretation:

• The balance between Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, intended to protect belief without governmental favoritism, has been upended to favor maximalist religious claims, eroding protections for others ([14:09]–[15:40]).
  • Rachel Laser underscores:

    “Religious freedom is the freedom to believe as you choose so long as you don't harm others.” ([15:26])

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4. The Money and Machinery Behind the Movement

• Placement of conservative justices is credited to sustained, well-funded efforts by figures like Leonard Leo and legal organizations (Federalist Society, Alliance Defending Freedom) ([19:25]–[23:23]).
• The court’s composition changed quickly under Trump (three appointments in four years) and prior Republican presidents, replacing moderate justices with hardliners ([19:25]–[23:23]).
  • Rachel Laser points out:

    "We have seen a decades long project and an investment of ungodly amounts of money to get it to be this way..." ([19:25])

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5. Shadow Docket and Parental Rights Cases

The California Parent Outing Case

• On Monday, the Supreme Court’s conservatives, via the shadow docket, sided with Christian parents to block California policies preventing schools from outing trans kids to parents ([03:25]–[05:50], [23:23]).
• The court found parents likely to prevail, framing the issue as a violation of “free exercise” and the right to direct children’s upbringing ([23:23]).
  • This leverages prior cases like Mahmoud v. Taylor—expanding parental opt-outs to potentially absurd lengths ([25:06]–[27:00]).

Rachel Laser:

“It’s an attempt to censor curricula in schools...an effort by Christian nationalists to shape the curriculum of our public schools, which are inclusive.” ([25:28])

Critique of Shadow Docket Rulings

• Justice Kagan’s dissent excoriates this process—as rushed, dismissive, and lacking in proper legal briefing ([28:03]):

  “The court is impatient. It already knows what it thinks and insists on getting everything over quickly.” —Justice Kagan ([28:03])

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6. Emboldened Christian Nationalist Policy Across Government

• The Trump administration’s Project 2025 has catalyzed sweeping, coordinated federal policy changes:
  • Christmas messaging at agencies openly declaring “one nation, one savior” ([31:42]).
  • Christian prayer services in federal agencies and guidance inviting teachers and federal employees to pray with students/employees ([31:42]–[34:00]).
  • Executive orders, anti-Christian bias task forces, and legal maneuvering to cement a religious agenda ([31:42]).

Rachel Laser:

“We are seeing things that, for those of us that understand what America should be about, feel like they're out of the union...The Supreme Court is making advances for religious extremists that are pretty unprecedented.” ([34:00])

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7. Christian Nationalism as a Tool of Patriarchy and Social Control

• Dahlia Lithwick and Rachel Laser link the ideology’s central project—subjugation of women, minorities, and other vulnerable groups—to recent policies and rhetoric, including calls for repealing the 19th Amendment ([38:00]–[39:13], [36:35]).
  • The Christian nationalist ideal is “white, Christian, male, straight, and cisgender” ([38:22]).
  • Attacks on diversity, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, public education, and accurate science are all part of the same movement ([39:13]).
  • Rachel Laser urges:

    “If you believe in women’s equality, if you believe in racial justice...then you actually do believe in church state separation.” ([39:13])

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8. Resistance: Religious and Non-Religious Activism

• There is a surge of opposition from diverse religious groups refusing to let Christian nationalism define faith or government ([40:43]–[41:49]).
• Multi-faith, grassroots organizing is uniting Americans across lines of background and belief around the defense of church-state separation ([41:49]).
  • Rachel Laser’s caution:

    “When Christians are speaking about the problems of Christian nationalism...they must come back to the Constitution...It’s not about a favored religion. This country is about religious freedom as it's promised in our Constitution.” ([41:49])

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9. Litigation and Paths Forward

• Americans United is pursuing multiple lawsuits:
  • Four active suits against the Trump administration and agencies for anti-Christian bias task force implementations.
  • Lawsuits challenging Ten Commandments mandates in public school classrooms (Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas)—often with multi-faith and non-religious plaintiffs ([44:54]).
• Laser highlights procedural setbacks (e.g., Louisiana case temporarily dismissed as “not ripe” until harm occurs), but underscores broad public support for church-state separation—even in conservative states ([46:56]–[48:23]).
  • Students and families from diverse faiths showing up in court in defense of real religious freedom ([48:23]).
  • Hope lies in organizing, public opinion, and the Constitution itself ([48:23]–[50:37]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the scope of the crisis:
  “There is an emboldenment behind Christian nationalists that many of us in our lifetimes have never seen before… right now the Supreme Court is making advances for religious extremists that are pretty unprecedented.” —Rachel Laser ([31:42], [34:00])

• On the perversion of religious liberty:
  “Religious freedom is the freedom to believe as you choose so long as you don't harm others.” —Rachel Laser ([15:26])

• On Supreme Court overreach:
  “The court is impatient. It already knows what it thinks and insists on getting everything over quickly.” —Justice Kagan ([28:03])

• On why all justice-driven Americans should care:
  “If you believe in women’s equality, if you believe in racial justice, if you believe in LGBTQ equality…the right to read books that you want and learn in an inclusive public education—then you actually do believe in church state separation. And you should be fighting this Christian nationalist movement with all you’ve got.” —Rachel Laser ([39:13])

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Important Timestamps

• 00:59–02:14: Episode theme introduction and framing the urgency amid war headlines
• 06:08–07:27: Rachel Laser on the historical roots of Christian nationalism
• 10:42–14:09: Breakdown of key Supreme Court cases easing church-state separation
• 19:25–23:23: The money and strategy behind the right’s legal machine
• 23:23–29:28: Shadow docket ruling, parental rights, and Justice Kagan’s dissent
• 31:42–35:39: Examples of Christian nationalist policy across the federal government
• 38:22–40:43: Linking the movement to subjugation of women and minorities
• 44:54–50:37: Litigation update; stories of diverse families fighting for separation
• 50:37–51:49: Concluding words: America’s fight and the power of public organization

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Closing Reflection

This episode reveals the dangerous convergence of Supreme Court activism, federal policy, and grassroots organization behind Christian nationalism’s resurgence. Yet it offers hope rooted in a constitutional tradition of separation, a groundswell of diverse opposition, and renewed legal and civic organizing. Rachel Laser and Dahlia Lithwick leave listeners with a call to vigilance and activism: the fight for true religious freedom is urgent but winnable.

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For more information or to get involved:
au.org (Americans United for Separation of Church and State)

Transcript

[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

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[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

The Supreme Court is making advances for religious extremists that are pretty unprecedented. This is the Department of Labor's monthly prayer service. They say separation between church and state.

[Dalia Lithwick]

They told me.

[Rachel Lasser]

I said, all right, let's forget about

[Dalia Lithwick]

that for one time.

[Rachel Lasser]

Christian nationalism is about advancing traditional power structures in our society.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth invited a self described Christian nationalist pastor to lead a prayer service at the Pentagon.

[Rachel Lasser]

Do you know that God also is a God of war? We are one military, one fighting force, one nation under God.

[Dalia Lithwick]

We face an essential test whether our nations will be and remain Western nations with distinct characteristics.

[Rachel Lasser]

Christian nations. Religious freedom as it's promised in our Constitution. Church state separation is an American original. We should be so proud that it came from us.

[Dalia Lithwick]

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a couple of shadow docket orders that barely caused a ripple in the headlines. Understandably, America's newly minted war on Iran that, please remember, is an undeclared war and therefore absolutely unconstitutional, dominated and will continue to dominate the daily news. But one of those shadow docket rulings is really worth a second look on its own terms, and also because it is part of a pattern of Supreme Court jurisprudence that mirrors, amplifies, and in some ways laid a path for the ways in which the second Trump administration is conducting itself. On Monday, the court's conservatives yet again sided with a group of Christian parents, agreeing to block a series of California policies that bar schools from outing trans kids to their parents. The three liberal justices dissented. The shadow ducket ruling is the latest in a long string of decisions that privilege the rights and feelings of select, objecting Christians over the rights and interests of, well, pretty much everyone else. Yes, this is just a shadow docket ruling about California schools in a week of massive global and geopolitical upheaval. But I think it's important to note that reinstituting American Christian nationalism was the guiding principle of Project 2025. It continues to guide the Trump administration in 2026, and it also forms the backbone of much of the decision making of the conservative justices on the Roberts Court. That latter project has been decades in the making at the high court, long before it was Trump administration guidance at the Pentagon. So on this week's show, we will be shining a light on the rise of Christian nationalism as a core American political value at the court, and increasingly a core domestic and geopolitical project inside the federal government. And we're going to do that with Rachel Lasser. She's president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Rachel is a lawyer and advocate and strategist. And in December of last year, she was appointed by US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to serve on the bipartisan U.S. commission on International Religious Freedom. She's also a friend of this show and somebody I always find immensely helpful in clarifying the murk of this very complicated topic. Rachel, welcome back to amicus.

[Rachel Lasser]

Thank you. It's so nice to be back and to be with all of your unbelievably informed and wonderful listeners.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Before we survey the field of everything that's been going on, it would be incredibly helpful to root us all in the history of this movement. And so can you just take us back to. I'm going to say the word Genesis sounding very biblical. I'm going to ask you for the genesis of this idea that America is a Christian country, or, you know, the gloss is the Judeo Christian country, and that the spoils from civil rights to education to citizenship should all be directed at a certain religious group of Americans.

[Rachel Lasser]

This has, unfortunately, a longer history in our country than many are aware of. It's just that right now we're seeing this incredible surge of Christian nationalism, right, which is rooted in the lie that America was a country that was established for Christians and that our laws and policies should perpetuate that privilege. You know, it reared its ugly head in the McCarthy era when in the 1950s, there was a series of civic religion sort of advances that like our board vice chair, who's a Baptist pastor says, really laid the foundation for what we're seeing now. So in the 1950s, that's when under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. In God we Trust became the national motto instead of E Pluribus unum from many one. And In God we Trust was added to money.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Right.

[Rachel Lasser]

And that happened in response to, quote, godless communism in a scare. I think that what we're seeing right now is in reaction to massive demographic and social. Social changes that have been happening in this country. Our friend Robbie Jones wrote the book that, you know, white Christian majority ended back in 2014 in this country. That's a long time ago. That's a big change. We've seen the advent of marriage equality, the MeToo movement, the Black Lives Matter movements, and there's just been a lot of change afoot. And right now we're seeing a real backlash to that. And it's just that it's not brand new, but it's strong and it's raging

[Dalia Lithwick]

in that moment in the 1950s when you really saw it start to tick up and be kind of grafted onto political ideas. It definitely. I think Christian nationalism gets bolted to economic ideas, to ideas about geopolitics, to ideas about war. Right. So it's not just religion qua religion or religion and law.

[Rachel Lasser]

It's.

[Dalia Lithwick]

It's really bolted onto ideas of capitalism and the economy and dominion of the world, Right?

[Rachel Lasser]

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, we're really seeing that come through today as Christian nationalism is infusing every branch of government. I think maybe it's most vivid right now with the department of so called War, you know, where we're seeing literally a Christian crusader who's in charge, who's the secretary with a Christian crusade tattoo on his body, former Fox News host who is initiating prayer services, inviting his pastor, Doug Wilson, who believes Women shouldn't have the right to vote anymore, to lead prayer services that are broadcast across the agency with emails that go out inviting everyone. And you know, even in sort of this idea of fighting holy wars. So yes, it's a mentality, it's a mindset. And honestly, there are many Christians who really wouldn't call it Christian. That's why I think using Christian nationalist is really important because it's just one narrow version of Christianity. And we work every day with Christian leaders who are getting angrier and angrier that their religion is being misused to advance what is really a political agenda.

[Dalia Lithwick]

So one of the reasons we wanted to have you here this week is that in many ways the Roberts court is the proving ground for a lot of this. Right? I mean, this long before we had Betsy DeVos, long before the Heritage foundation and Kevin Roberts and Project 2025 and Pete Hegseth and his pastor Doug Wilson that you just talked about, the kind of religious right wing of the Supreme Court was way ahead of all of this with its work in Hobby Lobby and Masterpiece Cakeshop and what becomes Covid mitigation. Right. This is a decades long project at the court and I guess it finds its way into the pages of Project 2025. But I think I need you to help me understand why those cases of the inflection points. Why in terms of the court, this is a project that long predates the political moment we're in now.

[Rachel Lasser]

It's why I think so many of us are just feeling so frustrated that so many of the chess pieces have been carefully set up against us. And it's okay. Cause we're gonna play the long game too, but we can come back to that. So, yeah, I mean, this has been going on for a very long time. Even if you look at, you know, cases like Marsh vs Chambers, which is a case from 1983 where an atheist member of Nebraska's legisl legislature sued to challenge Nebraska's policy of having chaplains paid by taxpayers. Right. Say prayers. And even there we saw the beginnings of this history and tradition test. Right? The idea that, you know, these prayers have been a part of the practice and quote, fabric of our society. Right. So that's like a 1983 case, you know, continuation of it. In the Town of Greece vs Galloway, a similar case from 2014, Trinity Lutheran was like a really important case for religious extremists. That's a 2017 case. In that case, we knew how harmful it would be because it was about a Missouri religious group that wanted to Take advantage of a state grant for their playground flooring, Right? Sounds so harmless. Others are getting it. Why can't we get it, too? It's just for our kids. Playground flooring. But really, what the court said there is, you can't exclude a group based on its religious identity. Sounds really harmless, right? Like, no discrimination against religious people. Until you think about the first 16 words of the First Amendment, which is a foundational part of our pluralistic democracy, which says you have to separate church and state. That's critical to religious freedom in this pluralistic nation, where we have to be able to coexist with so many people who are different from us and where we value religious freedom as a human right. And so government funding of religion actually should be in a different category, right? It should be prohibited. That's in our founding. The founders were really clear about that. But the minute the court started in 2018, 2017, which is almost 10 years ago now, to say that that was a problem and it was discrimination, it started leading us down this path. And, you know, I love to point out what Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent in a case that happened in 2022, Carson v. Macon, which I think is really important, you know, and she said, What a difference five years makes. This is her quote in 2017, and she's referring to Trinity Lutheran. I feared that the court was leading us to a place where separation of church and state is a const slogan, not a constitutional commitment. Today, she said, with Carson v. Macon, the court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation. That's where we're getting to, I think, you know, these concepts, Dalia, are so important. And part of what we're trying to do at Americans United for Separation of Church and State is break them down. And I'm not sure I'm being very effective at that right now. But just you almost have to back up to the two clauses in the First Amendment, right, the free exercise clause and the non establishment clause, and they work together to promise religious freedom. Like you have free exercise, right? Until your fist is right up against the tip of someone else's nose, and then you can't swing it into it. Right? As Ruth Bader Ginsburg used to point out, because then you would take away their free exercise right. And that's where the non establishment clause puts a cap. And it says our government can't favor one religion over any other or religion over non religion.

[Dalia Lithwick]

And.

[Rachel Lasser]

And that's as pro religion as it is pro religious freedom. It protects Religion from being co opted by the government. And where we've been going for a long time now is to a place where the government is, and this is just one line of cases calling it religious discrimination to protect religion and to protect religious freedom by keeping it separate from the state.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Now, I think you explained it really clearly and it's very hard. Right, Rachel, because those two clauses are in some sense in opposition or at least in tension with one another. They appear to be. And yet over many decades, the court has tried to calibrate a really delicate balance where everybody has the right to exercise their religion freely. And part of that guarantee is that the state doesn't create state religion. It doesn't seem like it's that hard. And yet, as you're noting, that has been entirely upended to mean that any individual who, who doesn't get to exercise her religion to the fullest, maximalist extent of her feelings about religion is now being burdened by the state. And that's the flip you're describing. That's the flip I think, that Justice Sotomayor bemoans.

[Rachel Lasser]

Right, exactly. I mean, we like to say religious freedom is the freedom to believe as you choose so long as you don't harm others.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Right.

[Rachel Lasser]

And there's legalistic ways of describing why that is. Because if you're harming others, you're forcing them to bear the cost of your religion. You know, the state is doing that. The other way we like to describe religious freedom is it's the freedom to live as yourself and not just believe as you choose, but also to live as yourself. And in this pluralistic society where my freedom to live as myself as a Jewish woman means that I have to have an abortion if my life or health is at risk, means that someone else can't impose their views on abortion on me because that takes away my religious freedom. So yes to what you just said.

[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

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[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

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[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

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[Dalia Lithwick]

Let's return now to my conversation with Rachel Lasser of Americans United for its separation of church and state. So I guess I do need to ask this question and it's complicated and I think also third Rayleigh, but there's no one I'd rather hang out on the third rail with than you, Rachel, which is how did these ideas and I want to say again, a lot of this is based on feelings, right? This is Justice Kagan's complaint in the shadow docket decision this week. We're going to talk about it in a second. These are intensely felt grievances and intensely felt ideas about liberty. How does this get so rooted in the minds and the imaginations and the sensibility of this Robert's Court majority? Because I think that it's easy to say, oh, this is just a, you know, super Catholic court. But we've had Catholics on the court before and in fact we've had Catholics on the court who are very, very, very committed to principles of religious freedom and non establishment. So it's not as simple as that. And I would love for you to, if you can, if you have a theory of how it is that we simply have the most religious secular court in the world.

[Rachel Lasser]

Well, for one, yes to what you said. I mean, we currently have a Catholic serving on the court who believes in church state separation and her name is Justice Sonia Sotomayor. So it's not just all about, I mean, you can be religious. I love being a Jew and a reformed Jew and I consider myself to be a very good reformed Jew and I believe profoundly in the separation of church and state. Our plaintiffs in our multiple lawsuits challenging these 10 Commandments mandates in public schools around the country. They are primarily or at least half religious, including Christian. Right. And so I think this isn't just about the fact that the justices on the court have a religion, because there are a lot of people who have a religion who believe profound. In fact, Americans United was founded by Christian pastors in my hometown of Chicago. And guess what? Our original name many years ago was Protestants and Other Americans for Separation of Church and State. If you're an other, raise your hand. I'm raising my hand. So I think it's a really important point, right, that in this country we've let this Christian nationalist movement sort of co opt the religion space in our minds. You know, and I think one of the things that Americans United is fighting back hard against is there are a huge number of religious Americans who really want separation of church state. But you didn't ask me that. You asked me what's going on with the Supreme Court. And I think we have seen a decades long project and an investment of ungodly amounts of money to get it to be this way. Because what in effect we're seeing is decisions that really aren't where the people are, that don't reflect where the people are, that have an effect needed to be bought. You know, I mean, Leonard Leo and the amount of money that he's put towards this Federalist Society machine that's been around for so long, Alliance Defending Freedom for decades has also been running, running their Christian legal program, the Blackstone program. I have to brag about one thing because I don't think we've really put it out there, but I'm gonna put it out there here. Over four years ago, Americans United founded our own legal academy to fight back against what anti democracy folks have been doing for so long. And we are teaming up with 16 of the top litigating national nonprofits, all of whom are interested in defending democracy, a democracy that defends the rights of the people. Networking these law students, right, like the other side has done, and trying to help ensure that they can shape the law into the future. So there has been a moneyed, I. E. Bought machine that has been working successfully to place these very justices on the court. And the problem that we've seen is that but President Trump got to appoint so many justices in such a short time. Three justices, I think, in four years, and two of them, right, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, were replacing justices who usually ruled on the side of religious freedom. Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Similarly, George Bush, he had the opportunity to put Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on the court. And I think it's really important to point out that Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day o'. Connor. You know, who famously said about church, state separation, why would a country change something that has been working for it for so long? Whereas, like, when Barack Obama made his two appointments, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, they replaced Souter and Stevens, and it wasn't that kind of dramatic change. And Biden, similarly right, with Ketanji, Brown Jackson replacing Stephen Breyer. That's another part of the problem. Just like when people have died or gone off. The court has not been working in favor of true religious freedom.

[Dalia Lithwick]

So I wanna talk, if we can. I mentioned it in the introduction, that on Monday, on the shadow docket, always on the shadow docket, the court comes down in a case siding with a group of California parents to reinstate a ruling by a federal district court in that state that prohibits schools from, quote, misleading parents about their children's gender presentation and requires schools to follow parents instructions regarding the names and pronouns their kids use. And the majority found that, surprise, surprise, that parents were likely to prevail on their claim that these California policies violate their right to freely exercise their religion and their right to, quote, direct the upbringing and the education of their kids. This is, as we've both now suggested, really only the most recent in a very long train of cases that carve out parents, again, almost always Christian religious parents, for very, very special solicitude based on religious liberty claims. And it happened on the shadow docket.

[Rachel Lasser]

It did. And that's not a surprise. Right, because it is how the Roberts court has been operating. I mean, there has been a lot of sort of changing of the traditional customs, practices, and rules under the Roberts court in terms of the cases that they're deciding to, the way they're evaluating facts in the cases here without any briefing, without any oral argument. Right. Which is like, what the shadow docket is. We see not just Justice Amy Coney Barrett and her concurrence, but the main opinion that came down from the court in this case, broadly interpreting this Mahmoud v. Taylor case. Right. And that is really dangerous.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Explain what happened in Mahmoud, because it's all over this shadow duck.

[Rachel Lasser]

And so the Mahmoud v. Taylor case allowed a bunch of conservative religious parents to opt their kids out of reading books that are part of the curriculum because they have LGBTQ characters or themes in them. And it's a very dangerous decision. It did it on the grounds of free exercise.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Right.

[Rachel Lasser]

Because what it does is it creates a very likely unworkable opt out system for schools. So in effect, it's an attempt to censor curricula in schools and ultimately to have schools remove things from their curriculum, because their minds are gonna blow up, like, they're gonna explode when they're trying to figure out, okay, where do we send these kids? Then? What do we teach them there? And, you know, so it's an effort by Christian nationalists to shape the curriculum of our public schools, which are inclusive. I'm not gonna lie that at the time that that case came out, we had this concern, which is, okay, this ruling was only as to the curriculum, you know, and that seemed pretty clear, but we didn't even know how far it would go in the curriculum. So it was like, it did not answer the question, for example, which is hard to believe, but it left us wondering about the question of, so can parents opt their kids out of, like, a biology class that teaches just Darwinism, but not creationism? That kind of question was bad enough, right? But now the court is basically in the shadow docket without briefing, without argument, again, expanding this Mahmood ruling so much broader in public schools. And so now you have to start asking really whacked out questions to yourself, like, so does this mean that a parent will be allowed, based on parents rights and religious freedom, to opt their kid out of. Of having to share a classroom with a transgender kid? Or does this mean that if a teacher teaching a kid is gay, that the parent says, I have a religious right to opt my kid out? You know, and people have even taken it further to be like, you know, how far does this go? Does this mean, like, if a Jewish kid shows up to school eating bacon, the teacher has some kind of duty to inform the parents that something's going on here if they know that they're, you know, a family that. That's observant. That last one might seem like it goes too far, but unfortunately, it feels like lots of scenarios that we thought were going too far are happening. So it's a very dangerous move. And I think it's symbolic of what's been going on with this court, which is the court's looking for ways to get around sort of our traditional, democratic, stable systems of stare decisis, which means we can rely on, you know, rulings that have been in place for decades and the like, to rule in support of the free exercise clause, to rule against the non establishment clause, and to rule in support of Christians.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Rachel, you're saying something really important and it's something that, you know, Justice Kagan writes like a banger of a dissent in this shadow docket, as she often does, just excoriating the court for both the doing it on the shadow docket and the need to do it, like, super fast. She says the court had received, quote, scant and frankly, inadequate briefing about the legal issues in dispute. And then she says, without holding oral argument, this is important. She writes, they granted relief by means of a terse tonally dismissive ruling designed to conclusively resolve the dispute. And then she goes on to write, I found this really arresting language. The court is impatient. It already knows what it thinks and insists on getting everything over quickly. So what she's doing here is both saying, you know, your tone is off. You're presenting it as though this is done and dusted, that this is established law, that you are just asserting as established law, and you're doing it without benefit of comprehensive briefing and argument. And I think what she's trying to call out is that the court has now taken this posture. And you sort of mentioned the line of cases, you know, flagging trend Lutheran. There's been a huge seismic shift in how we think about religion cases. But the court keeps trying to present it as though it has ever been thus. We're just doing the law.

[Rachel Lasser]

Yeah, No, I think that's right. I mean, for one, like, just. I know we gotta end with hope, Dalia. Cause it's a hard time, but, like, just think, I promise how devastating that is, though, to have someone who's on the inside say this, right? Say, like, kind of what we've all been feeling and thinking. It's very upsetting to be proved. Right. And, yeah, I mean, I think there's this moment in this. This is maybe the hope. How about this? I mean, there's this moment in this country where there's this, like, coalescing of religious extremists. They're guiding the Supreme Court. They're leading in the administration. Too many states have a majority, right? It's really a moment. And this is how it happens. It happens in moments. And so everybody is just rushing, rushing, rushing. Oh, you know, Supreme Court. There was a four. Four, you know, sort of had to say that. The St. Isidore decision from the Oklahoma State Supreme Court that said there can't be a religious public school stands. Cause it deadlocked, you know, like. So now there's, like, three other examples around the country of Christian nationalists trying to push a religious public school back to the Supreme Court. I mean, There is this sort of feeling like we've got a lock on it now. Let's go. But, you know, the silver lining in that is maybe. Maybe they even know that this is running against the DNA of our country, of our democracy, of our one binding thing that we have in America, which is our Constitution that binds us all. And that's maybe the positive part.

[Dalia Lithwick]

So, Rachel, I started this conversation by noting the overtly sectarian symbolism and rhetoric that is in infusing America's conduct of and communications around this war. And it feels like one of those Overton moments where something that was already shifting sort of swings wide open. But I want you to sketch out how radically things have changed in terms of that laundry list of Project 2025 that is now popping up all over the federal government, one unlawful and thorough violation of the establishment clause after another, despite jurisprudence that has been codified over decades. So I would love for you to explain what has shifted.

[Rachel Lasser]

Something has absolutely shifted. There is an emboldenment behind Christian nationalists that many of us in our lifetimes have never seen before. I mean, what about the fact that, as at Christmas time, we had all these federal agencies saying, one nation, one savior, you know, that there are prayer services, Christian prayer services, that open with the Lord's Prayer, and, by the way, funny enough, different versions of them, apparently, the Catholic one at the Department of Labor and the Protestant version at the Department of War, but that that's even happening in our federal agencies, there's actually so much more. I just wanted to list some of it, and then I wanna talk about, like, why it's happening. So, you know, right away, this president issued an executive order creating this, quote, anti Christian bias task force, right. Which already starts to, like, almost like what Justice Kagan said, you know, go on this hunt for ways to sort of show that Christians need to be bolstered right now in America. There was a memo that this administration sent to the agencies about repealing regulations based on, like, 10 cases. And as part of those cases, they listed two on religious freedom from the conservative court. There was the Office of Personnel Management Guidance that was issued for federal workers. That was alarming in the examples that it gave, like at Veterans affairs, that doctors should be free to pray over patients. Can you imagine if it's not your family's religion? Or that federal park rangers should feel free to join their troops in prayer when they're leading these groups? There was a Department of labor request for information for how religious groups applying for grants and the like, to work with the Department of Labor are being unfairly treated. There was the Department of Education guidance that came out just in February on prayer and religious expression in public schools that invite teachers to pray with their students, again very narrowly citing the Kennedy decision and wrongly citing it and ignoring like the 1960s cases and a line of cases since then that are going out of their way to protect school children's religious freedom because they're impressionable and they have to report to school. And I won't keep going, but I could. So I think already in this administration we're seeing so many actions. We know that the whole point of the Religious Liberty Commission, the so called Trump Religious Liberty Commission, is to put together a bunch of more policy recommendations. So we are seeing things that for those of us that understand what America should be about, feel like they're out of the union. Why are we seeing that? We're seeing that because right now the Supreme Court is making advances for religious extremists that are pretty unprecedented. And that's really empowering for religious extremists. And then there's the Trump administration and then there's this backlash that's happening. Actually. Van Jones also called it a white lash, which I think explains some of what we're seeing too, and the demographic changes. And I think they're all coalescing to make ultra conservative Christians or religious extremists feel very emboldened right now. And they're organized. That's the other thing, Dalia, that last term, it's like there was a lot of talk, there was some action as well. And believe me, we had a lot of lawsuits against the administration and won a lot of them. And a lot of them led to the Biden administration repealing a lot of what Trump wanted done. But this time you referenced Project 2025 and the Trump administration came to the table with their act together on this and ready to implement real policy change throughout. And they are on a roll, you know, and I think it's reversible, I really do. But it's a very bad moment for true religious freedom.

[Dalia Lithwick]

More in a moment with Rachel Lazarus. You know that wellness goal you set

[Rachel Lasser]

at the start of the year? It's not too late to stick with it and make your future self proud.

[Dalia Lithwick]

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[Rachel Lasser]

Corona La Playa awaits. Relax responsibly. Corona Extra beer imported by Crown Import, Chicago, Illinois.

[Dalia Lithwick]

And we are back talking about the Supreme Court, the Trump administration, and Christian nationalism with Rachel Lazar of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. I think we have to talk about the fact that there is an absolutely straight line connecting some of the policies you've just described and these very patriarchal religious ideas and the subjugation of women and of minorities and of immigrants and children. And we've both now mentioned Pete Hegseth's pastor who spoke at the Pentagon. I mean, he openly speaks of a return to a patriarchal society. Women have to submit to their husbands. He has famously said, this is Pastor Wilson. I would like to see this nation being a Christian nation. I would like this world to be a Christian world. He wants to repeal the 19th Amendment. He Literally, women shouldn't vote. Women are banned from leadership positions in his church. They're not allowed to vote in congregational decisions in his church. I guess I feel like this, again, grafts so beautifully onto this larger project of subjugating and immiserating vulnerable minorities and especially women. And it's hard not to look at this in the same breath that we are talking about the SAVE act, right, that may disenfranchise millions of women whose married names aren't the same on their birth certificates and passports. So just one beat, if you would, Rachel, on how conveniently this aligns. Or maybe this is the mission. It's not convenient at all with a project to strip away established rights from, as we have said, LGBTQ Americans and trans Americans and women and kids and immigrants and everyone else.

[Rachel Lasser]

Christian nationalism is about advancing traditional power structures in our society. It believes that the truest Americans are white and Christian, and the Americans who should have the most power are also male, straight, and cisgender. Right? And that's why you gotta look. And you don't even have to look that hard these days. Right? I mean, the only. It's another silver lining. Those of us who might not have seen sort of what this movement is really about are now seeing the linkages, right? Seeing DEI be banned everywhere, as though, you know, think about what those words are. Just diversity, which this nation is. Inclusion. Like, inclusion's a bad word. The sexism.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Right.

[Rachel Lasser]

I mean, I really appreciate, Dalia, that you said that, because I sort of think in the progressive movement, folks aren't talking about the sexism as much anymore. And it's so much a piece of this Christian nationalist movement. So if you wanna fight back, right, like, you need to fight for church state separation. And if you believe in, in women's equality, if you believe in racial justice, if you believe in LGBTQ equality, if you believe in our kids learning accurate science, if you believe in the right to read books that you want and to learn in inclusive public education, then you actually do believe in church state separation. And you should be fighting this Christian nationalist movement with all you've got. Which is why you should join [e-mail] you really should, because we are a growing movement. It's really powerful. Dalia. The people we're bringing together don't exist in most spaces together. If you come to our summit for religious freedom, you have people from all 50 states. We're half religious, we're half non religious, we're gay and straight and from every walk of life. And you sit there and you look to your left and you look to your right and you realize that this is actually where the people are and where the power is. And we just have to fight back, you know, and come together. And I really hope people will join us in this fight.

[Dalia Lithwick]

And you should really, I think, lift up the extent to which we have seen churches around the country become the real spine of fighting back. I mean, we have been so heartened on this show, talking about, including, you know, last week, the bishops. But the degree to which religious groups that have either tended to sort of stay silent or to sideline themselves have been, I think, a really important moral voice. Rachel, for, like, this isn't right. This isn't fair. And so what you are describing isn't just the work that you all are doing. I think it's a lot of deeply religious Americans looking at themselves and saying, wait, I'm a person of faith. I'm not for renditioning people to third party countries where they are tortured. And I think that it's been kind of a unique moment to see the ways that conversation can be alienated by a positive and affirmative view of what faith can be.

[Rachel Lasser]

Absolutely. I'm really glad that you pointed that out. I think it's so important. I do have one side note to that. So, number one, you're absolutely right. There is a rising up of, in particular, Christians, I mean, also other people of faith, for sure. And certainly, you know, there's Jews. I'm from the Jewish community, Muslims, Sikhs, there's you know, Hindus. These are all plaintiffs in our lawsuits, the non religious humanists. You know, everyone is rising up, I think, particularly the swelling of Christians around the country who are so, so angry to see their religion misused to advance this political agenda has been really powerful. This is my side note, my cautionary note. When those Christians are speaking about the problems of Christian nationalism, especially if they're members of the government, to our organization and for our democracy, it's really important that they don't stop, stop at talking about how Jesus would really do something different from what Christian nationalists are doing. They must come back to the Constitution. Right? Because this country is not just about one version of Jesus or one Jewish religion or one Muslim religion or one any non religion. It's not about a favored religion. This country is about religious freedom as it's promised in our Constitution. Church state separation is an American original. We should be so proud that it came from us. And that is a really important place for these Christians to be reaching. Some of them are, but not all of them. And that's what I wanted to say.

[Dalia Lithwick]

It's really important what you're saying, because otherwise sort of swapping out one version of faith for another version of faith in order to subordinate the Constitution doesn't get everybody where they need to go. Right. And it presumes a shared faith that is anathema to how we think about America and religious freedom. You have mentioned the organizing, you've mentioned the work you all are doing. And I haven't given you nearly enough time, Rachel, to talk about the lawsuits. So I would love for you to talk about what people should be watching, you know, one, one again, drumbeat on this show has been judges across the country have been spectacular in this past year with few exceptions. And the courts have been in fact, a beacon of real adherence to core constitutional values. So tell me what you're working on, tell me what you're watching, tell me what's around the corner. And more than anything, and I do think this goes to your point about hope, tell me where you think the courts are gonna land on what really right now we're experiencing as a kind of one way ratchet to, you know, a government imposing theology. And that's not what's happening in the courts, right?

[Rachel Lasser]

No. And the courts thankfully, you know, so far have really been panning out for us. So right now we actually have four lawsuits against the Trump administration and the courts, we have three lawsuits against, against its anti Christian bias task force executive order against the Department of Health and Human Services, Anti Christian Bias Task Force, the Veterans affairs one, and the State Department one. And those stem from our investigation into this task force. We have one lawsuit that we recently filed against Trump's Religious Liberty Commission over violating faca, the Federal Advisory Committee Act. But the point there is that FACA requires advisory committees to be fairly balanced and to meet public transparency requirements, and this is neither. There's all Christian members except for one Orthodox rabbi on the commission, and they are failing to be transparent with what's happening around this commission, why it's happening at the Bible Museum so often, how much money is going there. I mean, there's so much which is sort of dark and behind the scenes. But we're also very active right now in lawsuits challenging the Ten Commandments mandates around the country. In a coalition allies, we have challenged the Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas mandates. Right now, 16 states are considering 27 more, and there's probably more states and versions that are popping up as we speak. So there is a rash of these bills around the country. But let's just say until like a few weeks ago, I would have been able to say we have one in every court. And it's still significant that we won in all the lower courts in those cases. And then we won. And the Fifth Circuit first appeal. What happened since then is there was what's called an en banc appeal before the Fifth Circuit for both the Louisiana and Texas Ten Commandments cases. Okay. The Texas en banc ruling has not come down yet. No one exactly knows why, but the Louisiana one did, and it wasn't great. It's not a loss on the merits, as we say.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Right.

[Rachel Lasser]

The court did not get yet say, no, these laws are constitutional, and we really hope that that won't be the end result. But it did really, unfortunately, in what one of the dissenters called procedural artifice, say that the case wasn't ripe. And they said it wasn't ripe because. And this was what was very upsetting about it. They could imagine a scenario where there could be something constitutional about forcibly and permanently hanging the Ten Commandments on every public classroom wall every school day. That's incredibly upsetting, even that the court imagined that there could be something permissible. So this is actively in the courts right now. That knocked that case in Louisiana. For now. It said that we have to wait until the very harm that we were trying to avoid, which is public school children having to venerate the Ten Commandments because they're already hanging everywhere in their classroom, has to happen, happen first. The court said before we can bring that case back to the courts. But we have many other active cases right now. Our case in Arkansas, we have two other cases in Texas. In one, there already have been some of these Ten Commandments displays hung and we've brought cases. And by the way, these cases are all brought on behalf of multi faith families and non religious families. And I want to say something about that. I flew to New Orleans to hear this oral argument and guess what?

[Dalia Lithwick]

What?

[Rachel Lasser]

All of the kids and families that were in the courthouse, they were all on the side of true religious freedom. So like when you're talking about parents rights and by the way, that's been co opted by, you know, the extreme right. I mean, I'm a parent, you're a parent. Parents do want some rights over their kids. Some right to like be the ones to decide how their kid's going to learn about religion when they're young, for example. That's fine. Parents rights, rights in that fair regard is on our side here and families are on our side. And these kids were telling me why they felt so strong. One of the kids was telling me about one of his Hindu classmates. And don't forget, right, the ten Commandments start with thou shalt have no other God before me. Right? And mentioning God many times. Hindus believe in many gods, right? There are students who believe in no God. So it was really quite awesome to see how families are really showing up also for church state separation. And so there are lots of reasons to hope. Dalia. I see every day different factions that sometimes are very divided. I mean at Americans United, Jews and Muslims are coming together every day. Religious and non religious Americans are coming together every day. People from New York are coming together with people from Oklahoma. I mean we are a majority. We have done polling in Texas and Oklahoma and they support church state separation. You know what, they wanna make sure that it's parents who are teaching kids about the Bible, not public school teachers. I have traveled to Oklahoma and spoken to all the Christian majority Christian teachers there and done a listening tour. They are Christian. They don't have a problem with Christianity. They just have a problem with being asked to be the ones to explain the Bible because they take their job so seriously. So there are so many reasons to hope Right now Americans United is on it and people need to activate and not take church state separation for granted anymore. If we just remember that we have a voice and we have the power of the people and the Constitution and history actually on our side, we can put our country back on the right track. So keep fighting everybody.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Rachel, one of the reasons I really was looking forward to talking to you this week is that I think we are living in such an acute, diabolical zero sum moment in the world right now. And I love the vision that Americans United and that you bring to it of that isn't in fact what religious liberty means. It doesn't mean everybody else has to lose so I can win. And the picture you've painted today has really, really helped enter the idea that that really is what the framers were fighting for. And in fact, the alternative ridiculous timeline we now live in is what the framers and the people who came to the United States were fleeing. Rachel Lasser is President and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. She's a lawyer, advocate and strategist. And in December she was appointed by US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schum to serve on the bipartisan U.S. commission on International Religious Freedom. Rachel, it's always a treat to have you. Thank you for your time today. Take good care.

[Rachel Lasser]

Thank you so much, Dalia.

[Dalia Lithwick]

That's all for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. Mark Joseph Stern is right now lighting up a smokeless cigar over in the Amicus plus Boom Boom Room. And we're going to be talking about the other shadow docket decision that came down this week, more clown show behavior from Pam Bondi's DOJ as they withdrew then Takesy backsied their withdrawal from the lawsuits that contested Donald Trump's law firm shakedown executive order. And that's not all. If you thought Lindsey Halligan, our favorite Florida insurance lawyer turned crack prosecutor, had left the headlines for good when she was forced to stop pretending to be a prosecutor. Oh, think again. The Florida bar now says hold my beer. Sign up for [e-mail] amicusplus and not only does plus membership get you past the Velvet Road into our exclusive bonus episodes, you will also be able to listen to all of Slate's podcasts ad free. And you'll get special extras from our friends at Death, Sex and Money and what Next and Political Gabfest. You will also never ever hit a [e-mail] and games. We have awesome games. Sara, our producer, is currently using PEARS as a primary coping strategy when the news becomes just too much for her. You can also subscribe to Amicus plus from our show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you so much for your letters and your questions and your comments. Please keep them coming. We are reachable by [e-mail] you can find [e-mail] Amicus Podcast. You can also leave a comment if you're listening on Spotify or on YouTube, or rate us and review. View us on Apple Podcasts. Sara Burningham is Amicus's supervising producer. Our producer is Sophie Summergrad Hillary Fry is Slate's editor in chief, Susan Matthews is executive editor, Mia Lobel is executive producer of Slate Podcasts and Ben Richmond is our senior director of operations. We'll be back with another episode of Amicus next week. You know that wellness goal you set

[Rachel Lasser]

at the start of the year?

[Dalia Lithwick]

It's not too late to stick with

[Rachel Lasser]

it and make your future self proud.

[Dalia Lithwick]

Especially with The all in One Nutrition Shake from Cachava with 25 grams of

[Rachel Lasser]

protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens and more.

[Dalia Lithwick]

No fillers, no non stop, just the highest quality ingredients. Stick with your wellness goals. Go to cachava.com and use code smoothie for 15% off. That's K A C-H-A V A.com code smoothie.

[Rachel Lasser]

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