Former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis says the First Amendment is only for the protection of Christian consciences.

[lees1975]

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2026/05/first-amendment-religious-liberty-is.html

And ignorance really is bliss, I guess.

There's a clear indication in the language of the first amendment that crushes Ellis' argument that the founding fathers intended to protect only the religious liberty of Christians. For one thing, Christianity is not mentioned, referenced, or even alluded to in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution in its vague references to divine providence. "Religion" was then, as it is now, an all inclusive term indicating an awareness of the existence of other faiths beyond Christianity, Judaeo-Christianity or Judaism.

There is, in fact, no specific reference to Christianity in either the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. That's not surprising, given that there were few Christians among the founding fathers, and none who understood Christianity in the context of conservative Evangelicalism's 19th century fundamentalist and pre-millennial dispensational perspective that is Ellis' understanding.

The freedom of conscience protected by the first amendment is all inclusive. Conscience includes religious practice, or the absence of any religious practice. It also includes all other ideologies and thoughts, including those that are unique to any individual. In the absence of any kind of interpretation written by any of the founders that would support Ellis' view, there is the fact that the courts have exercised the constitutional powers they have been given to interpret the Constitution as demanding and protecting religious pluralism.

The attitude exhibited by Ellis, aside from the sheer ignorance she shows, isn't consistent with her claims of being Christian. Jesus made it very clear that the one way Christians have of testifying to the veracity of their faith and commitment is by the way they treat other people. As those billboards say, "That love-thy-neighbor thing? I meant it! --God" Jesus was pretty clear, using the example of a Samaritan to illustrate the answer to the question, "Who is my neighbor?" in his answer.

So why isn't Ellis treating Muslims like they are her neighbor? But then, those kind of people always have an answer as to why they don't have to be true to the core principles of their alleged faith.

[Moostache]

1. Funny how tears of remorse dry faster when there's Trump to pleasure for effect.

Fuck her and everyone that abides Trump in any manner.
Seriously, if you can even stomach that son of a bitch fuckwad, I hope evil things happen to you in a conga line.

[Beakybird]

2. Nowhere does it say what Jenna Ellis actually said.

Am I missing something?

[lees1975]

5. There's a link in the article to the Baptist News Global article citing Ellis.

This is her quote, so you won't have to do all that clicking;

The whole point of having a civil society that recognizes the principles of religious freedom is so that we can go and evangelize, so that we can practice our faith, so that we can train up our children in the way they should go, says Proverbs, so when they’re old they won’t depart from it. It’s so that we can preserve and protect the Christian way of life. I mean, we don’t have all these protections for our rights that our Founders recognize come from God our Creator, so that we can go out and live a pluralistic society and say, ‘Well, let’s recognize the dignity of Islam.’ I mean, that’s not the point, that’s not the purpose whatsoever. We have a civil government that protects the right of Christians to be able to live and work. And we have this whole perverted notion that somehow our Constitution demands pluralism. That just isn’t there. If you take the whole context of the Declaration, the Constitution, the founding and everything we’re celebrating in America 250, absolutely.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. Bar exams need to be better filters - nm

[eppur_se_muova]

4. In the time of the Founding Fathers, splits between differenct sects, and between the Catholic and Protestant churches,

were issues still worth killing your neighbors over. And that was after religious disputes had toned down in Europe in general, and England in particular.

The idea that the Constitution represents a consensus Christian view is nonsense; there was (and is) no consensus. Keeping religion out of government was probably the only way the Colonies could ever have formed a unified gov't -- and remember, it took two tries to achieve success.

George III's father (George II, natch) had fought off a Catholic pretender to the throne only a few decades previously. Protestant supporters said they "would rather see the fez of the Turk on the throne" than to return to a Catholic monarchy. So no, there was no hand-holding and singing among a bunch of happily unified Christians. Religious addicts who want to see religion take over gov't always believe, on the basis of absolutely nothing, that it will be their version of Christianity which controls the levers of power, and not some version supported by anyone outside of their narrow, immediate community -- even when their denomination is a minor one with a very short history, greatly outnumbered by everyone else -- and with nothing like the numbers, wealth, and political experience (including insider deals and other dirty fighting) of the Roman Catholic Church. Keep pushing for a religious takeover, folks, and you'll find yourselves referring to the POTUS as "his Holiness". We've had enough of that already.

[lees1975]

6. Both Madison and Jefferson, who were key on this particular amendment, were pretty clear.

They were not setting things up specifically for Christianity to prosper, though they both realized that it would if it were set free from the state. They wanted to create a completely secular government, unencumbered by the additional political load of the church. Jefferson clarified it as a "wall of separation" when explaining it to Baptists in Connecticut, who also shared the conviction that the church should be independent of state control.

They did not use the term "religion" to apply only to Christianity and its differing sects, they used it the same way we use it.