OPINION:
People of faith would be in a bad position had the November presidential election gone differently. Months ago, the FBI was busy spying on traditional Catholics as if they were enemies of the state. Pro-lifers were being thrown in the slammer for praying in the vicinity of an abortionist. Firebugs who targeted places of worship knew they would escape prosecution.
Those days are behind us, but narrowly so. President Trump came within a fraction of an inch of meeting his maker in Butler, Pennsylvania, in what became his road to Damascus moment. The experience fortified his resolve to lead the nation in a way that would help him get to heaven.
Mr. Trump outlined his intention before the White House Religious Liberty Commission gathering on Monday. “To have a great nation, you have to have religion, I believe that strongly. There has to be something after we go through all of this, and that something is God,” the president said.
The commission advises the administration on the status of religious liberty and what can be done to secure it here and abroad. It’s one of the programs Mr. Trump has fashioned to make amends for his predecessor’s overt hostility toward the faithful.
“Upon taking office, I ended the weaponization of law enforcement against religious believers and pardoned pro-life activists thrown in jail by Joe Biden,” Mr. Trump said. “People don’t realize about the Biden administration. They were stone-cold. … His administration was one of the meanest we’ve ever had, and that’s why they’re out of here.”
To purge malign sentiments from his government, Mr. Trump established a Justice Department task force that remedies anti-Christian bias. He also appointed faith liaisons inside each department and agency to function as his eyes and ears on these matters.
Institutional reform is welcome, but our cultural problems run deep. Far-left judicial activists created the revolving door for hooligans that freed the serial criminal who killed Iryna Zarutska on a light rail train in North Carolina last month.
“I give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed … in Charlotte by a madman — a lunatic — viciously stabbed while she’s just sitting there. There are evil people. We have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country,” Mr. Trump said.
In Georgia, one of Mr. Biden’s appointees to the bench, U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, just overturned a state law preventing taxpayers from footing the bill for male prisoners who want cosmetic surgery to look like women, and vice versa. Her honor insists the Constitution demands it.
Sen. Tim Kaine, Virginia Democrat, recently said in a congressional hearing: “The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator, that’s what the Iranian government believes.”
Such outlandish and ahistorical views reflect the failure of our education system. We have senators and judges who have never read the Declaration of Independence and don’t understand self-evident truths.
After Mr. Kaine reviews the Declaration, perhaps he might also peruse the Good Book. “For thousands of years, the Bible has shaped civilization, ethics, art and literature,” Mr. Trump said. “It has brought hope, healing and transformation to untold millions of lives. The Bible is also part of the American story.”
The good news is that the president has three-plus years to develop additional ideas to rekindle respect for the cause of religious freedom.
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