A new report from President Donald Trump's Religious Liberty Commission is urging a fundamental rethink of one of the most familiar ideas in American law. According to coverage on LiveNOW FOX, Trump said the report suggests replacing the notion of separating church and state with the idea of building bridges between them, a framing that directly challenges a longstanding legal concept.
The recommendation is part of a 224-page draft report that was released on Friday afternoon. Described as part policy document and part philosophical argument, it echoes its members' support for a stronger and more visible role for religion and religious expression across government, schools and the public square.
The commission itself is an advisory body that Trump created last year. The broadcast noted that it was filled almost entirely by conservative Christians, a composition that has shaped both the tone and the direction of its conclusions as it took testimony and assembled its findings.
Among its central arguments, the report applauds recent Supreme Court decisions that have expanded rights to religious expression in public settings. One example cited is the creation of opt-outs that allow religious objections to certain school lessons, which the commission treats as a model for the broader direction it favors.
The Associated Press reported that the document also recommends eliminating the Johnson Amendment, the rule that forbids political activities by tax-exempt religious groups. Doing away with that restriction has been a longstanding goal of the president, and its inclusion places a concrete policy target alongside the report's broader philosophical claims.
Commission members framed their work as the beginning of a longer effort rather than a finished product. During the White House event where the report was presented, they argued that officials who invoke a separation of church and state against people of faith should have to point to exactly where the Constitution has been violated, contending that the phrase itself does not appear in the founding document.
Trump, who received the report at the White House, stressed that recommendations on their own carry no force and would have to be promoted and put into practice. He pointed to steps his administration has already taken on the issue, including the creation of a White House faith office, and said the goal was to bring religion back even more strongly into public life.