A Trump judge redefined "diversity" to excuse an almost entirely Christian "religious liberty" panel
Different Christian denominations—and one ideologically aligned Jewish member—were apparently diverse enough for the court.
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Another attempt to force the Trump administration to follow the law has been rejected by (you guessed it) a Trump-nominated judge, handing another undeserved win to Christian Nationalists.
This time, it involved a lawsuit arguing that Trump’s “Religious Liberty Commission,” which was required by law to be religiously diverse, had virtually no religious diversity on it.
When Trump formed the group in May of 2025, the executive order said that the group was formed to “offer diverse perspectives on how the Federal Government can defend religious liberty for all Americans” and they really only had two jobs:
The Commission shall produce a comprehensive report on the foundations of religious liberty in America, the impact of religious liberty on American society, current threats to domestic religious liberty, strategies to preserve and enhance religious liberty protections for future generations, and programs to increase awareness of and celebrate America’s peaceful religious pluralism…
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The Commission shall advise the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council on religious liberty policies of the United States…
Was it all symbolic? Sure. But it could have been useful if experts on the subject were coming together to offer the administration a guide on how to overcome serious obstacles to religious liberty.
More importantly, the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) of 1972—passed to counter corruption—said that any commission like this one had to be transparent, balanced in terms of ideological makeup, and structured to avoid inappropriate influence by special interests.
But according to the lawsuit filed in February by a coalition of religious organizations, the Religious Liberty Commission violated FACA many times over.
That was the main allegation from the Interfaith Alliance, Muslims For Progressive Values, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Hindus For Human Rights, all represented by lawyers working with Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
For example, when it comes to ideological balance, the commission consisted of 13 conservative Christians—including former beauty pageant contestant Carrie Prejean Boller, evangelist Franklin Graham, Dr. Phil (for some reason), and evangelical conspiracy theorist Eric Metaxas—and a token orthodox Jew.
The Commission’s membership is far from fairly balanced because it does not represent religious communities aside from Christianity and Judaism. In remarks made to the Commission, Defendant Trump has articulated a commitment to protect what he describes as “the Judeo-Christian principles of our founding.”16 The Commission’s imbalanced membership reflects a narrow conception of which religious principles, and whose rights, are worth protecting…
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Of the Commission’s members, none are members of a religion that does not fit within Defendant Trump’s “Judeo-Christian” framework. For example, the Commission includes no adherents or representatives of Islam, Hinduism, or Sikhism, several of the most common religions in the United States behind Christianity and Judaism.
Those members, the lawsuit said, were also not ideologically different. They’re all basically Christian Nationalists who support “maximal protection for the exercise of Judeo-Christian religious beliefs without consideration for the rights and beliefs of others” and who oppose the principle of church/state separation.
One way to counter this argument would have been to show that various perspectives had been considered at the commission’s meetings. But the meetings were held at the right-wing Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. and all they ever seemed to talk about was how amazing Christianity is.
During the first meeting, the Commission focused on the historical tradition of Christianity in the United States. Members of the Commission discussed how Christian faith shaped the nation’s understanding of “freedom, law and human dignity” and quoted a statement that the nation should “prefer Christians for [our] rulers.”
The Commission opened the September 8 meeting with a Christian prayer and closed the September 29 hearing with a specifically Christian prayer “in Jesus’ name.”
The lawsuit said the group hadn’t been transparent either. Sure, they’ve posted their meetings on YouTube, but that’s about it.
FACA requires Defendants to make available, in advance of the public meetings where their content will be relevant, “the records, reports, transcripts, minutes, appendixes, working papers, drafts, studies, agenda, [and] other documents . . . made available to or prepared for or by” the Commission...
Defendants did not provide advance notice of witness lists or other documents made available to the Commission in advance of these meetings.
Defendants did not provide agendas for the meetings in advance.
Defendants have also not produced complete transcripts for the September 8, September 29, or December 10, 2025 meetings. Defendants also appear to have edited the videos for at least one meeting and posted incomplete video on their website.
None of the witness statements made to the Commission have been made publicly available in written form.
Detailed meeting minutes for the meetings have not been made publicly available.
The Plaintiffs said all of this made their own work harder because they couldn’t “divert resources” to push back against what’s being done when they didn’t know what was being done. And given the opaqueness of the group, it seemed likely that the eventual report this commission would release would ”inflict further harm on Plaintiffs.” (Turns out they were right!)
The lawsuit specifically asked the court for a few things. They wanted the judge to declare that the commission had violated FACA, force the commission “to employ good faith efforts” to balance their ideological makeup, include a disclaimer on any report that it was produced in violation of the law, and make them release the information they were required to produce but had refused to up to this point.
“Religious freedom for some is religious freedom for none,” said Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, president and CEO of Interfaith Alliance. “The government has no right to pick and choose which religious beliefs to promote, and which to marginalize. The Trump administration has failed to uphold our country’s proud religious freedom tradition, and we will hold them accountable. Today’s lawsuit is our recommitment to fight for religious liberty for all with every tool available to us.”
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“The Religious Liberty Commission isn’t about protecting religious liberty for all; it’s about rejecting our nation’s religious diversity and prioritizing one narrow set of conservative ‘Judeo-Christian’ beliefs,” said Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United. “The commission’s public meetings – most of which have been held at the Museum of the Bible and have been dominated by a very specific brand of Christian faith, Christian prayers, and predominantly Christian speakers – are a vivid example of this favoritism. The commission’s true purpose and operations can’t be squared with America’s constitutional promise of church-state separation.”
And now, unfortunately, a judge has rejected that request.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John P. Cronan—a Trump nominee—tossed out the case by basically redefining the meaning of diversity.
Judge John P. Cronan said that although a federal law requires that advisory commissions have a balance of viewpoints, it didn’t specify how this should be done. The New York judge said Trump has wide discretion in picking members.
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He also wrote that the commission is diverse in other ways, such as including both clergy and lay people. And he said the commission has “adherents of at least five different religions” — by citing the one Jewish member and then members of various Christian denominations and identities.
That’s not diversity… That’s the Republican Caucus. That’s like saying the Supreme Court’s conservative super-majority can’t be racist because Clarence Thomas is on it. Just because you have a lay person or a Jewish person or different shades of Christians doesn’t mean you have any intellectual diversity in the bunch. Those people were selected for the committee because everyone knew what they would push for in the final report.
And while some of the missing transcripts, minutes, and testimonies were eventually posted, they came far too late to be useful to critics.
The coalition released a brief joint statement about the results, focusing on the positive:
“Even before this decision, our litigation helped uncover the information the Trump-Vance administration attempted to hide from the public about this biased and unlawful body. Religious liberty and pluralism are foundational American values, and we remain committed to fighting for a democracy that does not promote a single religious belief and ignores others. We are grateful that this case achieved a major goal by forcing greater transparency, and we will continue our work.”
I don’t blame them for taking what they can get. It doesn’t sound like they plan to appeal.
That said, it’s really incredible how badly the Trump administration botched this. They could easily have put together a diverse group to advise the president—allowing people to think they respect religious diversity—then just ignore their recommendations entirely. But this administration isn’t even politically strategic like that. They invited their friends to the club and ignored even the bare minimum list of things they legally need to do, as if to show how no one can stop them from breaking the law. If you’re a conservative Christian, they let you do it.
This wasn’t just some technical failure of process on the Trump administration’s part. It was a moral and constitutional failure by Chair Dan Patrick and everyone else involved in this sham commission. The goal was never to protect religious freedom but to promote one specific brand of religion. Their final report was predictable from Day One.
By stacking the commission with conservative Christians and one ideologically aligned Orthodox Jew, the administration took a mandate for pluralism and turned it into a vehicle for exclusion. The imbalance wasn’t an accident. It was created by design. By effectively shunning non-Christians and even progressive Christians from the group, they could pretend that the government’s position matches their own.
But a Trump judge saw those facts and decided to redefine what “diversity” means in a way that allowed a bunch of clones to pretend they pass the test.
The bottom line is that whoever has access to power apparently gets to redefine religious liberty however they want to advance their beliefs while screwing over everyone else’s. But if religious freedom doesn’t belong to everyone, it belongs to no one.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
That the evangelicals claim the most corrupt and immoral President as one of their own, is really all you need to know about them. Of all the many forms of government humanity has ever dreamed up few are worse than theocracy, and yet the evangelicals seem to be convinced they know how to do theocracy right and should be given the opportunity to do so. They are the last people the overwhelming majority of Americans would want to see running the country.
The regime has been crystal clear from the golden escalator that freedom is on the chopping block. The regime telegraphs every clumsy punch, and our so called leadership just lets them all land. The Republicans are all aiding and abetting the tangerine tyrant, the democratic side is spineless at best, complicit generally and in bed with the right at worst. The judges he installed during his first term knew the assignment, some have been on the right side to instill a sense of trust from us, but they are all part of the corruption. It’s no surprise, the judges he nominated were all provided by The Heritage Foundation. Do you really think they’d side with democracy or freedom on a matter like this? This was their goal. This was their dodge to get conservative Christianity to be the official religion without “congress establishing an official religion”. Nevermind two centuries of jurisprudence.
Vote in the midterms like your life depends on it. It most certainly does no matter your religion, race, gender, or any other metric. If you aren’t a billionaire today, your life is in danger.