The Liberty Daily 
(The Daily Signal)—Last month, President Donald Trump’s Justice Department released a draft report highlighting threats to religious freedom, and left-leaning activist groups revealed the very need for the report in suing to silence the commission’s message.
President Trump signed an executive order in May 2025 establishing the Religious Liberty Commission, tasking it with producing a report on the foundations of religious liberty, as well as its impacts on American society, current threats it faces, and strategies to preserve it.
In February, however, four left-leaning activist groups that support LGBTQ activism—Interfaith Alliance and its president Rev. Paul Rauschenbush, Muslims for Progressive Values, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Hindus for Human Rights—sued, asking a court to block the commission’s proceedings.
While a judge rightly dismissed the lawsuit, this leftist lawfare echoes the LGBTQ activist claims that conservative Jews and Christians who try to live out their faith are engaging in bigotry.
The Leftists’ Legal Claims
Represented by Democracy Forward, the groups claimed the commission violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972, a law that demands committees such as the Religious Liberty Commission be “reasonably” balanced.
How was the committee unbalanced? The leftists said the committee “contains no members who represent the perspective of a non-‘Judeo-Christian’ religious tradition.” They faulted commission members for arguing that “religion, specifically what they would term ‘Judeo-Christian‘ values, should be promoted by the government.”
Most revealingly, the groups also cried foul because “each member of the commission has expressed the view that the law should protect the exercise of religious beliefs over the civil rights of minority groups.”
The groups also say the commission’s final report will force them to “divert further resources to advocate for pluralistic democracy and fight back against extremists who would privilege those who hold a narrow set of Judeo-Christian beliefs.”
The Judge’s Ruling
Judge John P. Cronan, a Trump appointee, rightly struck down these claims. He ruled that the law is exceptionally broad in allowing presidents to select members of committees, and he cited a previous ruling finding that Congress intended such committees to be balanced not according to religious beliefs but by “the members’ employment status and background.”
Cronan faulted the plaintiffs for cherry-picking quotes in order to claim that commission members would privilege “Judeo-Christian” views over other beliefs. He also rejected the notion that the commission must represent all religious minorities.
“It is not clear where the logic of plaintiffs’ argument ends,” Cronan wrote. If the commission is not fairly balanced because it doesn’t include a Sikh, though census data show there are only 70,000 Sikh Americans, “does President Trump need to appoint adherents from every single religious denomination in America?”
The commission heard testimony from more than 100 witnesses, including two Muslims, two Hindus, and one Sikh.
The Effort to Silence Traditional Faith
This lawsuit both sought to silence the Trump administration’s message on religious freedom and, ironically, proved the truth of that very message.
The commission heard testimony from Svitlana Roman, one of the parents who challenged a Maryland school district’s LGBTQ+ books program, which did not allow parents to opt their children out of sexualized lessons. It heard from Jennifer Mead, the Michigan mom whose 11-year-old daughter was “transitioned” by school officials behind her back. It heard from Shea Encinas, a fifth grader who was forced to read to a kindergarten student a book promoting transgender identity.
The plaintiffs’ complaint reflects a view that religious freedom claims should yield when they conflict with favored understandings of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Their arguments echo the prosecution of Christian baker Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a custom cake to celebrate a same-sex wedding. They echo the law that sought to penalize Lori Smith, a Christian graphic designer who would not create websites for same-sex weddings.
In each of those cases, the Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the state of Colorado to force conservative Christians to endorse LGBTQ beliefs. LGBTQ activists defended these efforts as protecting the “civil rights of minority groups,” but the Supreme Court rightly saw them for what they were—violations of the First Amendment.
President Trump rightly highlighted how LGBTQ activism threatens religious freedom, and pro-LGBTQ activist groups sought to silence his administration’s report.
These activists are free to publish their own reports disagreeing with the commission, but that’s not what they sought to do here. Instead, they aimed to prevent the administration from issuing its report.
The Left’s lawfare failed to block the truth this time, but don’t expect these activists to give up anytime soon. They’ll need quite a few more defeats at the Supreme Court before they reconsider trying to force their ideology on the rest of us.
