Separation of Church and State

Updated July 2026 21 primary sources

Church-state separation has become a flashpoint since 2025 through state laws, executive actions, and court rulings.

Louisiana and Texas now require Ten Commandments displays in classrooms — The Fifth Circuit initially blocked Louisiana's law as "plainly unconstitutional" before an en banc panel reversed course and cleared enforcement, while a separate panel upheld Texas's law outright (AP News; BJC Online).
The Supreme Court deadlocked on religious charter schools — A 4-4 tie in May 2025 blocked Oklahoma's bid to fund the nation's first religious charter school without setting nationwide precedent (NPR).
The Court expanded religious opt-outs from public school curricula — Its 6-3 June 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor found parents have a free-exercise right to opt children out of LGBTQ-themed storybooks (ACLU).
Trump created a Religious Liberty Commission pushing to repeal the Johnson Amendment — Established by a May 2025 executive order (The White House; Department of Justice).
The IRS effectively stopped enforcing the Johnson Amendment, though its status remains contested — In July 2025 it said churches may endorse candidates from the pulpit without losing tax-exempt status, but a federal judge rejected the underlying consent judgment in March 2026 (New York Times; Episcopal Diocese of Maine).

The Two Positions

Where each side stands

Every point below is sourced to a real organization, official, or news report — click through to read it in full context.

Conservative

Ten Commandments displays are constitutional and historically grounded

The Fifth Circuit's en banc majority held that Louisiana's and Texas's laws bear "none of the hallmarks of a founding-era establishment of religion" and require no religious instruction or observance, only passive display (AP News).

"Separation of church and state" is a myth, not a constitutional mandate

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has argued the phrase does not appear in the Constitution and that majority religious expression in government is not barred by the First Amendment, saying the Supreme Court "misinterpreted" the doctrine (WBRZ; Rolling Stone).

Parents have a constitutional right to shield children from curricula that conflict with their faith

Becket Fund for Religious Liberty hailed Mahmoud v. Taylor as confirming that "parents have the final say in how their children are raised, not government bureaucrats," restoring opt-out rights the Fourth Circuit had denied (Becket Fund).

The Johnson Amendment improperly muzzles religious speech and should be repealed

Trump's Religious Liberty Commission listed repealing the Johnson Amendment among its top recommendations, arguing it lets government "regulate religious leaders' sermons and spiritual guidance to their communities" (Department of Justice).

Religious charter schools deserve equal access to public funding

Oklahoma's Statewide Charter School Board and Attorney General's office argued that excluding religious organizations from charter-school funding solely because of their religious character violates the Free Exercise Clause, a position the Supreme Court's tie vote left unresolved nationally (Oklahoma Attorney General).

Anti-Christian bias in government has required corrective federal action

President Trump signed an executive order creating a task force explicitly to "halt all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination" across federal agencies, including the DOJ, IRS, and FBI (The Washington Times).

Progressive

Mandatory religious displays coerce children and violate the Establishment Clause

Americans United, representing 58 multifaith families in Louisiana and Texas, argues the Ten Commandments laws "coerce children to observe, venerate, and obey a particular religious text" and violate decades of settled Supreme Court precedent under Stone v. Graham (Americans United).

These laws are part of a broader Christian Nationalist campaign to inject one religion's beliefs into government

Americans United president Rachel Laser says church-state separation is in a "code red moment," warning that Christian Nationalists "want to impose their narrow beliefs on all of us" through legislation and Trump's Religious Liberty Commission (Americans United).

Gutting the Johnson Amendment turns churches into unaccountable political spending vehicles

The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty warns that reinterpreting the amendment "threatened to turn churches into PACs," letting tax-deductible money flow into partisan politics without donor disclosure or contribution limits (BJC Online).

Publicly funded religious charter schools would breach the wall between government and religion

The ACLU praised the Supreme Court's deadlock affirming Oklahoma's high court, which found that a taxpayer-funded Catholic charter school would make the state a "surrogate" for religious education in violation of the Establishment Clause (ACLU).

Family and student religious liberty are strongest when government stays neutral

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its coalition partners have filed a record number of lawsuits since 2024 challenging Ten Commandments mandates in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas, winning permanent injunctions in Arkansas on Establishment Clause grounds (FFRF).

The Mahmoud ruling threatens inclusive public education broadly

ACLU National Legal Director Cecillia Wang called the decision "a drastic break from decades of precedent," warning it lets religious objectors "pick and choose" from secular curricula and could unravel inclusive teaching on many other topics (ACLU).

Common Ground

Key facts both sides cite

Data and polling that inform the debate — both camps draw on these figures, even when they read them differently.

Public opinion on prayer and displays is closely divided — An April 2026 Pew Research Center survey found 78% of Americans favor voluntary student-led prayer, but only 50% favor Ten Commandments displays in classrooms and 46% favor teacher-led prayer, with just 8% saying student participation should be mandatory (Pew Research Center).

Christian nationalism support has held steady, not surged — PRRI's 2025 American Values Atlas, based on more than 22,000 interviews, found 11% of Americans qualify as Christian nationalism "Adherents" and 21% as "Sympathizers," with 56% of Republicans but only 17% of Democrats in those combined categories (PRRI).

Most Americans still back church-state separation as a legal principle — Pew's May 2026 survey found 54% say the federal government should enforce separation of church and state, while 52% say conservative Christians have "gone too far" pushing religious values into government and schools, and 48% say secular liberals have gone too far keeping religion out (Pew Research Center).

Support for declaring the U.S. officially Christian is rising modestly among Republicans — The same Pew survey found 17% of all U.S. adults now favor declaring Christianity the nation's official religion, up from 13% in 2024, with support among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents up six points to 27% (Pew Research Center).

Sources

Every citation on this page

Keep Exploring