We Must Protect America as the Last, Best Hope for Freedom

By Kristen Waggoner

Saturday, July 05, 2025

 

Note: The following commentary is an excerpt from remarks presented before the Presidential Religious Liberty Commission on June 16, 2025, with minor edits made only for readability.

 

America’s legacy of strength — and foundation for enduring greatness — rests on how we protect the freedom to speak, live, and work consistent with our deepest beliefs.

 

Our Founders understood that religious liberty and free speech do not come from govern

 

ment, but from God — and are anchored securely in our dignity as humans. The Constitution guards these God-given rights and requires our government to do the same.

 

Many other nations promise these same freedoms in their laws — but their courts have stripped those promises of any meaning. Päivi Räsänen faces the Finnish Supreme Court with the risk of imprisonment for sharing a Bible verse on X. And a U.K. court just convicted Adam Smith-Connor for silently praying outside the abortion clinic where he lost his son.

 

There is a human cost when government officials forget freedom, and judges forget courage. Thankfully, even when elected officials have violated the U.S. Constitution, our Supreme Court has generally upheld religious freedom.

 

But let this sink in: The United States is the last Western nation whose courts are still steadfastly upholding these foundational freedoms. The last.

 

If America surrenders these freedoms, there is no nation left to carry the flame of liberty. I’ve litigated more than a dozen Supreme Court cases upholding the First Amendment — and I’ve seen our clients’ relief when justice prevails after years of government harassment. But the fact that, more and more, justice requires a courtroom is a warning: We are teetering on the edge of losing the freedoms that make America the freest, most exceptional nation in history. If we fall silent now, we will not just fail the next generation. We fail the soul of liberty itself.

 

This is precisely how authoritarian regimes begin: by silencing the soul. There is no greater threat to tyranny than each person’s freedom to speak the truth.

 

Today’s tyrants don’t wear crowns — they sit on school boards, city councils, and civil rights commissions. They are openly hostile to freedom and unmoored from objective truth. They censor, fine, and even threaten jail time for anyone who dares to hold a belief they dislike. Especially if those beliefs affirm the dignity of life, God’s design for marriage, or the simple truth of what it means to be a woman. Truth is the first casualty of tyranny — but the real cost is always human.

 

Imagine being so inspired by your faith that you open a homeless shelter — only to have the state demand that you either abandon your faith or cease serving the hungry, addicted, and trafficked.

 

Or you’ve been fostering children for years. You’re the health department’s “first choice” to place newborns addicted to drugs. Until you say, “Boys are not girls,” and the department revokes your license.

 

What if you escaped 20 years of sex-trafficking and faced an unexpected pregnancy — only to be targeted by your own state attorney general for helping other women in similar situations find hope, healing, and freedom in Christ?

 

You minister to widows and orphans — only to have your bank account shut down because of your faith.

 

During Covid, your daughter chooses a “Jesus Loves Me” mask — but a school official forces her to remove it in front of everyone, simply because it’s religious.

 

You served your country in uniform — risking your life to defend freedom — only to have officials deny you a public grant to become a military chaplain because that’s “too religious.”

 

Your home state calls your faith a “despicable piece of rhetoric” and then compares your timeless beliefs about God’s design for marriage to the brutal racial bigotry that precipitated the Holocaust.

 

These stories aren’t from China or other nations ruled by authoritarian regimes. No. Each of these happened on our own soil — and my organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, has been honored to represent these courageous Americans.

 

As I stood before the U.S. Supreme Court to argue Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, representing its owner Jack Phillips, I remember thinking, “No nation can thrive — nor will its government remain limited — if its officials believe they can regulate the soul.”

 

Thankfully, the court ruled 7–2 that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission showed “impermissible hostility” toward Jack’s religious beliefs and that the “Constitution commits government to religious tolerance” for it is “in protecting unpopular religious beliefs that we prove this country’s commitment to serving as a refuge for religious freedom.”

 

Ensuring the U.S. remains a refuge for religious freedom is why we gather today. Political and cultural winds shift, but protecting the First Amendment is not a partisan issue. It is a moral and cultural imperative.

 

President Donald Trump rightly said, “In America, we don’t worship government — we worship God.” We need leaders at every level with the courage to resist tyranny and respect “the bedrock of American life” — “every citizen’s absolute right to live according to the teachings of their faith and the convictions of their heart.”

 

So, how can this administration do that?

 

First, it should fully protect freedom of conscience. Restore the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division at the Department of Health and Human Services and establish similar divisions within other departments’ civil rights offices. Ensure federal regulations do not discriminate based on religious beliefs, including beliefs about biological sex, and provide equal access to federal funding and accreditation consistent with recent Supreme Court precedent. And enforce all federal conscience laws and ensure that recipients who violate these laws are held accountable.

 

The administration should support the passage of and sign the Conscience Protection Act, which prohibits discrimination against health-care entities. It should also support the passage of and sign the Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act, which protects parents’ right to direct the upbringing, education, and health care of their children, and applaud similar protections at the state level. For it is in the family that our children first learn the blessing of religious liberty.

 

Second, end financial targeting of people of faith. Ensure the Internal Revenue Service does not discriminate against houses of worship or religious organizations. Amend IRS guidance to protect these entities from unjust penalties under the Johnson Amendment. Guarantee that prior weaponization of financial regulations and markets against people of faith never happens again. And support the passage of and sign the Safeguarding Charity Act, which protects the independence and tax-exempt status of charitable organizations.

 

Third, protect people of faith from the regulatory state. Support Congress’s investigation into the Biden administration’s targeting of people of faith. Require religious liberty training for FBI agents. And develop rules to prevent future administrations from engaging in Orwellian surveillance and labeling as “domestic terrorists” Americans who simply purchased a religious text or testified at a local school board.

 

Fourth, promote religious freedom on the international stage. In collaboration with the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom, implement President Trump’s 2020 Executive Order on Advancing International Religious Freedom to ensure that religious freedom remains a central priority in U.S. foreign policy and foreign-assistance decisions. Provide comprehensive training on religious freedom to U.S. foreign service personnel. And use economic tools — such as reductions in foreign aid, visa restrictions, and targeted sanctions — to promote religious liberty in countries identified as serious violators.

 

Finally, a president’s most lasting legacy is the men and women he appoints to the judiciary. President Trump should continue to appoint judges with courage, character, and conviction — judges who will apply the law without fear of public opinion. Our rights under the Constitution become meaningless without an “independent and virtuous judiciary.”

 

Religious freedom built America and sustained her through war, depression, and dangerous division. Faith-filled leaders founded our nation, abolished slavery, ended segregation, and even today, continue to champion women, families, and the most vulnerable among us. And it is that same faith — expressed freely and lived boldly — that will lead America to renewed greatness.

 

Religious liberty is essential to the pursuit of truth. It is rooted in love of neighbor and empowers every person — regardless of faith or party — to pursue truth without coercion.

 

Along with free speech, it is the engine of self-government and a bulwark against tyranny. Together, these rights foster debate, expose harmful ideas, and stir our abiding commitment to strong laws and effective policies.

 

It fuels human flourishing, breathing oxygen into a free society. Where it is honored, families are strengthened, economies thrive, information and ideas freely flow, and people are inspired to serve one another with compassion.

 

Religious liberty is the American rebellion against every regime that ever tried to own the human soul. Undermine this foundational freedom, and we don’t just violate the Constitution — we deny humanity its most sacred right.

 

Together, let us safeguard America’s legacy of strength and greatness for generations to come.