The U.S. is not a “Christian Country": conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch

The First Amendment protects all religions

Neil Gorsuch will never be seen as a liberal in legal philosophy. He is not as far right as Alito and Thomas are, but he is close.

That is why many conservatives were outraged when he correctly interpreted the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, shocking those of us who have known that for years — while the SCOTUS ignored it.

The first words of that amendment are very easy to understand, but are often misinterpreted in real life by many who want to twist them.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise there;

The First Amendment

Congress cannot prevent the “establishment” nor the “practice” of any religions. That means that the citizens of the U.S. can practice any religion they want — and set up any religion they desire. It is that simple.

In short, the Founders believed that we were to be a country of religious diversity.

However, so many conservatives today will argue that the U.S. was established by the

Founding Fathers as a “Christian Nation.” This has always been a fallacious argument — like arguing that the Founders were Christians themselves.

That is not true of most of them — even the first president was a Deist, not a Christian. And the third president, Thomas Jefferson, who argued strongly for the first amendment, made clear that there was a clear divide between church and state. Yet, so many argue today that the church and state are inextricably bound — US is Christian.

Gorsuch disagrees, angering many on the right.

Interview surprised many right-wingers

Appearing on the PBS show, “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover,” Gorsuch made clear what the Founders meant with the first amendment,

“We were founded for religious pluralism and the opportunity to practice your own faith in your own way. And we were never supposed to be a nation that was about one race or one religion. It was about those ideas. And those things are perfect ideas that speak to every human heart and that unite us all.“

“Gorsuch Calls Out U.S. Conservatives For Pushing Myth Of White,

Christian Founding,” Huffington Post, July 27, 2026

In fact, look at the list of those who immigrated to the colonies for religious freedom: Pilgrims, Puritans, Quakers, Catholics, and Mormons. The Pilgrims sailed to the New World on the Mayflower, founding Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts in 1620. We celebrate their quest on Thanksgiving Day.

Puritans established the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Catholics settled in Maryland, and the Quakers immigrated to Pennsylvania. They were running away from a government that persecuted people for their religious beliefs.

Gorsuch emphasized this in his interview,

A lot of our colonies were founded for religious pluralism. And the opportunity to practice your own faith in your own way.

And we were never supposed to be about one race or one religion. It was about those ideas. And those ideas are perfect ones that speak to every human heart and that unite us all.

I do not see it as being a white, Christian religion. America is supposed to be about those ideas. America is available to each and every one of us, and it’s up to each and every one of us to see that those ideas continue to flourish.

Gorsuch, Huffington Post, July 27, 2026

The justice rejected the entire argument of Christian Nationalism that is being pushed by the Trump administration, albeit by a person who belongs to no religion.

Gorsuch not so supportive of immigration — today

While he appears to support immigration today — when it focuses on religion, he is not always supportive of all those who attempt to migrate to the U.S. today. In fact, he is downright opposed, even when the cases focus on a constitutional amendment,

The Supreme Court’s decision about President Donald Trump’s attempt to narrow access to birthright citizenship left no doubt that a majority of justices agree it’s illegal. But two justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, revealed that they also viewed the challenges to Trump’s executive order as about more than the text of the 14th Amendment. They viewed it as an ideological battle about who is “American.”

The court’s long-awaited decision in Trump v. Barabara blocked the federal government from enforcing Trump’s executive order. Five justices found that it violates the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was not convinced that Trump’s order was unconstitutional, but he did conclude that it violates a federal law enacted by Congress.

By contrast, Thomas and Gorsuch were more troubled by the majority opinion than the president’s directive.

SCOTUS blog.com

So, who is an American?

The Amish, Mormons, and even Catholics have been denigrated in the past primarily by conservative Christians. They are Americans, even though he has tried to narrow the number of citizens in this country, even if the Constitution does now.

His comments on that decision are not in line with what he is saying now about a Christian country, showing that while he appears to be liberal here, he is actually pretty far to the right ideologically,

I mean, think about the Amish who came here in the 1600s on a handful of rickety boats, a third of them drying along the way and populating much into Pennsylvania and down into the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and now throughout the rest of the country.

They weren’t part of the American experience? Of course they were. The Quakers. Same story. Of course they were. We have a first amendment for crying out loud: No established religion. Everybody has freedom of religion. Everyone has freedom of speech. We are all equal under the law.

Now, [if] you cannot believe in those ideas, then we have a problem. But those three ideas are ones that all of us can unite behind.

Gorsuch, Huffington Post, July 27, 2026

In any event, he is right about this. The United States was not founded as a “Christian Country,” despite what the Christian Nationalists and evangelicals say, and the first amendment allows all citizens to practice any faith — and prevents the government from discriminating against that — which is what the current government is trying to do.