It was the most significant swearing in since Donald Trump’s. When Neil Gorsuch put his hand on the Bible to become the 113th Supreme Court justice in U.S. history, Antonin Scalia, in that great cloud of witnesses, was no doubt smiling. His 49-year-old replacement is everything the longtime originalist could hope for — a humble, esteemed, and deferential jurist whose legacy will almost certainly outlast the president who appointed him.

For millions of Americans who put the Court at the top of their concerns last November, it was a moment of extraordinary relief. To them, the election of President Trump was all leading up to Monday morning, when the balance of the Court would finally tip back in the favor of the Constitution. For the entire nation, it was a powerful image of the new president keeping the most important promise of his young term. Surrounded by his wife and two daughters, Gorsuch became the first justice to be sworn in by his former boss, Anthony Kennedy. Now, the clerk-turned-colleague will have his own seat on the bench he served at one of the most critical times in our nation’s history.

Fortunately for the rookie, he won’t have to wait long to get his feet wet as he’ll jump right into a busy spring of arguments. Although Gorsuch won’t have a vote on the cases argued before he was confirmed, at least a dozen others await the Court — which will be at full strength for the first time in more than a year. In the meantime, the newest member of the bench will have to find his place among the team of nine. “The junior-most justice starts off at the bottom of the heap, sits on a far wing of the bench and speaks last at conference.” And, as CNN points out, Gorsuch will have one duty the others do not: answering the door. “It’s a job that Justice Elena Kagan, confirmed to the bench in 2010, is likely relieved to relinquish. She lightheartedly described the job qualifications at a Princeton appearance in 2014. ‘The junior justice has to answer the door,’ she began. ‘I mean literally, if there is a knock on the door, and I don’t hear it — there will not be a single other person who will move, they will just all stare at me until I figure out "oh, I guess somebody knocked on the door.”’“

Plenty of important issues will come knocking too, and conservatives can be grateful that Gorsuch will be answering. Religious liberty will headline the spring docket, with key cases like Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauley. While the Court hasn’t yet agreed to hear them, multiple cases are pending before the Court that involve "Blaine Amendments” from several state constitutions that are being used to discriminate against religious institutions in the use of state resources. Like in Trinity Lutheran, the issue in Douglas County School District v. Taxpayers for Public Education and Colorado State Board of Education v. Taxpayers for Public Education is whether such state level discrimination is barred by the Constitution. The Court’s decision in Trinity Lutheran will significantly affect the outcome in these cases, and Justice Gorsuch would likely side with the religious institutions anyway.

The justices are also currently considering whether to accept several other important religious liberty cases. In Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the issue is whether a state can force a small business owner (Jack Phillips) to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding due to sexual orientation nondiscrimination laws, or whether the baker’s First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights protect his ability to opt out of this process. Even if the Court doesn’t take up this case, we know the issue isn’t going away. There are several small business owners who have already been penalized by different states for refusing to use their talents to further same-sex weddings. Justice Gorsuch will be poised to consider this issue, and we’re glad he has a strong record of protecting religious liberty. Additionally, the Court will consider whether to hear Sterling v. United States, which will decide whether the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects a service member’s right to display Bible verses at a military workstation.

In the future, we can expect to see more abortion regulation and health care conscience/religious liberty issues surface at SCOTUS, along with the question of whether sex discrimination includes “gender identity” and/or “sexual orientation” discrimination. When that time comes, we are grateful that we will have a strong originalist in Justice Gorsuch on the bench. For more of an assessment of how his presence will affect the Court, see our prior briefing on this issue.

Originally published here.

Before Easter, ISIS Resurrects Violence

It was supposed to be the season of empty tombs, but in Egypt, the scene has been anything but after two attacks ripped through area churches. For Christians in the Middle East, there is no peace — not even on Palm Sunday — as an astounding 44 victims were slaughtered in targeted attacks that sent a tremor through holy week.

At St. Mark’s Cathedral in Alexandria, considered the “historic seat of Christendom in Egypt,” ISIS detonated a bomb that ripped through the congregation, shaking the foundation — not just of the church, but of families’ fragile sense of security. While Coptic Pope Tawadros II was preaching, the explosion sent waves of panic through the region. In another part of the country, a suicide bomb cut as many as 28 lives short and wounded dozens of others. Reverend Danial Maher of Tanta, where the second attack took place, lost his 23-year-old son in the blast just as he was singing.

Stunned by the grief and death toll, Egyptian Christians shook their fist at the government for leaving them helpless in the face of such determined evil. Local hospitals and, soon, graves will be filled with the agonizing evidence that these were not just “citizens” but Christians murdered by radical Muslims. Yesterday, while caskets marked with the word “martyr” filled the sanctuaries, men and women stood with their faces in their hands, tears streaming down their faces. “What’s happening is too much,” one Coptic Christian said. “It’s unacceptable.” After the single deadliest day for the country’s Christians in decades, angry congregations say they’re being left to fend for themselves as ISIS declare war on the innocents.

While they wait for their own government to hear their pleas, there is plenty the U.S. can do. In just a few months, we’ve seen bold leadership from the State Department, but in the face of some of the worst genocide in modern history, we need more. It starts with the Trump administration speaking with clarity to the problem — at the UN in particular. We also need to re-prioritize religious freedom and human rights in foreign policy. The world must know America will not stand by and let religious freedom be trampled around the globe. But our efforts must go deeper. They should include grassroots work training advocates and working with allies who will defend religious freedom in troubled spots — work that nongovernmental organizations like our friends at Hardwired Global are already doing.

Under President Obama, America has become at least partially responsible for the rash of violence overseas. In many ways, what’s given rise to ISIS abroad is the inability of our secular government elites to understand the significance of religious belief at all — along with the eight years of hostility we’ve seen toward Christianity here at home. As FRC has said before, the domestic approach to religious freedom sends signals to the world. The type and degree of religious freedom violations occurring in the United States are different from those occurring in much of the world, but both share at their roots a hostility to true freedom. And as long as our own government attacks Christian beliefs here at home we are making Christians abroad vulnerable to attacks like these in Egypt. Until we protect religious exercise here at home we are speaking out of both sides of our mouth when we’re condemning religious freedom violations overseas.

Originally published here.

This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.