Deployed 117 lawyers to ensure open, fair and honest elections in ten targeted states and an additional 35 for recount. In addition, are in a leaders have trained over 800 lawyers and pull watchers. Members participated at some level, either paid or volunteering to ensure honest elections throughout the country. I want to take the opportunity to recognize all those who volunteered and helped elect donald trump and other republicans. We hope to see you in michigan august 4 and fifth. We dont know if its detroit or grand rapids yet. And offer your assistance in the virginia elections this year. I will turn it over to john to kick off our next panel. Thank you elliott. I am john ryder. Im cochairman of the rn l. A. Im in private practice in memphis and i reject him stealing all my blue suede shoe lines. Thats my role to say thank you, thank you very much, but i do thank you very much elliott, and i want to thank Kimberly Reed our chairman and thank you to david who is the chairman of this event and has put on a fantastic program, and thanks to our staff who has made all of this possible. I also want to thank our sponsors because money may be the mothers milk of politics but its also what makes conferences run and so we thank our sponsors. [inaudible] lets give our sponsors a round of applause. [applause] we didnt know how propitious this topic or how appropriate this topic would be for this particular point in time. Yesterday, as you know, President Trump signed an executive order which promises to protect and vigorously promote religious liberty. We did not know this was happening when we scheduled a discussion on religious liberty. The timing is perfect and our panel is perfect. We have with us today kelly for dork from the Alliance Defending freedom. She is Legal Counsel there. She is one of the lawyers who participated in arlenes flowers versus Washington State. She is a graduate of the university of dallas and the abbe maria school of law. Since joining adf into thousand 12 she has defended religious liberty, marriage and the family against legal attacks. She has offered federal and state legislation and advised members of congress, state legislators, state attorney generals and policymakers on how to preserve First Amendment of freedoms. Robert is professor of law and the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Program in law in religion at the Catholic University of america, Columbus School of law in washington. He has been a member of the faculty since 1982 and served as interim dean from 1999 until 2001. From 1983 until 1989, he has served as commissioner on the United States commission on civil rights and lead the commissions discussions and areas of discrimination on the basis of National Origin and religion. He served as special counsel to the Ohio Attorney general and the ohio secretary of state on election matters in general counsel to the Catholic League for religious and civil rights. He served previously as an adjunct professor of law at marquette university. He received his ba at Miami University and his jd from the university of california at berkeley. All right. Each of you are armed with microphones. Lets see if they are live. Okay. Let me start with this. Lets start with the executive orders. What did it do, what did you do, is it important, is it enough, is it too much . Let me start, ladies first. I would say my first reaction was definitely excitement. Four months ago this wouldnt even be a possibility that we would have a president and administration so committed to our first liberties. I would say first and foremost its definitely a step in the right direction that we have a commitment from the administration to protect the liberties of all americans but i was particularly shocked when he said no american should be forced to choose between the dictate of the federal government and the tenant of their faith. I think the sentiment we are seeing was very good. I do think there is more to be done as we move forward. He said during the campaign, one of his first priorities would be to procure and protect religious freedoms. Im hoping we will see, there were three components of the executive order. I wouldnt say anything changed operatively but in some ways executive orders are trying to restore balance and i think one was expressing the commitment to vigorously defending religious liberty under the law. The irs will alleviate the burdens that the amendment has imposed amon on religious entities over the year end it directed federal officials to consider issuing amended regulations that could protect individuals. This part we will really the agencies to step forward on. In some ways it was great to hear the sentiment coming from the president , but at the same time, a year ago the u. S. Supreme court said look, you need to figure out and find this accommodation to protect the conscience of those religious nonprofits who had a conscientious objective to providing abortion inducing drugs but i think we still need to see the agencies take some action, but im hopeful that in the days ahead we will see them doing just that. Professor. Well its both less and more. I went to lissemore in the sense that weve all heard the phrase about the fish rafts from the head. The executive order is about 78 of what it shouldve been. I thought thats great because if hillary was president we would be at minus 100. What you have is a theme that has now been set by the president. What we need the president to do is get those agencies staffed up with people who really understand what religious liberty is all about so we can get some training done and we dont have to deal with all the holdovers who make our lives miserable when we deal with these agencies. There is that piece. Im also hoping, especially the Johnson Amendment piece, ive written a lot about that. Lyndon johnson never really intended it to go after churches, but all you really have to do is see how often the Democrats Campaign in churches from the pulpit. Then you see, on the other side of the spectrum, all these churches that are scared to death of the irs and of course, what we have found in the abuse of the irs scandal is that they actually did have something to be afraid of. So, this shows up in many different ways. I will mention it more specifically later, but its not an accident that the state department missed the arab spring, the iranian revolution, the growth of isis because they dont take religion seriously except as a problem and because they dont take it seriously, the evenness it when it is a problem. Professor, square this with the rulings on the executive order on immigration which treated that as providing a religious test. There is not much writing about what a religious test is. I think i am one of four or five people, another from notre dame has written systemically about religious test. Executive order is not religious test. I probably wouldve written it that way because the bad guy are necessarily coming from the countries that he identified, but if you were going to write one with laser precision, which is basically what equal protection is about we have to admit were not looking for quakers coming across the border. How you write in order like this . I would probably worry less about the border than about american prisons and all the saudis who will train the moms were radicalizing the prisoners there. How do you define the threat matrix . I dont think weve had that discussion. Radical islam is not sufficient. Its too broad a term. We are looking for people who are jihadists and were looking at their behavior. Of 70 tells me as hes going cross the border, oh yeah, i would murder my sister if she converted, out. This is not the kind of person we want in here. There are a lot of wonderful muslims in the United States who are probably our best weapon in this war against jihad is him. So you dont see an inherent conflict between yesterdays executive order and the prior. Absolutely not. Properly understood, the thing we would have to do is sit down with the lawyers of the Justice Department to make sure they understand what the nature of the enemy is. We really dont talk about it very often, and how you actually argue the case. Its eventually going to get to the Supreme Court, we know. The president has the right to do what hes done. If i were writing it, i wouldve written it a little differently. You have worked particularly in the area of conscience in the post burger fell area. How does this executive order impact the trajectory of that jurisprudence . They talk a little bit about immigration, i think we have such a rich history in the United States of balancing very important government interest with a vast variety of viewpoints and protecting individual freedom, whether its on immigration, abortion, healthcare, education, and also marriage. Unfortunately, in the past two years we are seeing a growing intolerance advance by the government for those who want to live and work consistent with their convictions about marriage. We are representing a number of individuals who willingly serve, employ lgbt individuals , its not about their sexual orientation, but there is a line for them and theres certainly events that they cant use their creative abilities to support or celebrate or participate in certain events and yet we are seeing the government use the force of law to come after them in an attempt to speak a message or participate in an event that violates their belief. In the days ahead i think we need to define ways to continue to preserve religious liberty, free speech for everyone regardless of your viewpoints. We have a florist in Washington State and she highlights this really well. For ten years, she served and traded floral arrangements for couples and she has a couple who is now suing her. She created flowers for workdays and anniversaries and a whole host of events. When they asked her to prepare flowers for a wedding, he referred her to someone else and he has now sued her both personally and corporately saying she has to participate and celebrate this event or she can be find and lose her business. One of the things they will tell you, when she talked about this is the couple that are suing her, they have the freedom to live consistent with their viewpoint about marriage. They can get married, they can celebrate that, they can live that out in every aspect of their life. She is asking for the same constitutional guarantee freedom. Unfortunately the Supreme Court ruled against her in february even though the attorney general conceded during arguments that she creates floral arrangements and doesnt have to control the expression she creates and celebrates. I think when the government has that much power when they can come in and say this viewpoint is allowed but this viewpoint isnt, we need to be able to respect and defend and protect both the minority and the majority viewpoints as we move forward. We are actually going to follow a petition in her case in july asking the Supreme Court to take up this case. I think theres a lot of stakes for the future of the First Amendment. In terms of the executive order, it doesnt really have an effect on that other than expressing a commitment, a lot remains to be seen how the various agencies implement that agenda and also speaks to other area that folks can get involved. In some way they cant take care of everything. Executive orders cant correct that law. We need congress to step in, pass a fair speech and fairness act. That would create the bad law that is the johnston amendment. Theres definitely a lot of steak and im hopeful and optimistic, especially with judge gorsuch on the court will see some of these wrongs righted so every american can live consistent without the belief, without fear of government punishment. And i would hope the brief of the United States, the amicus brief would come in on the right side. I would certainly hope so. Professor. The case involving the florist and photographers in washington and new mexico respectively, really trays of fault line that has been in american First Amendment jurisprudence for long time. Im i you to think back to one of the most famous First Amendment cases out there, West Virginia board of education versus barnett. In the court, after initially ruling in the case that kids should be forced to salute the flag, if theres any start in our constitution, you can be forced to salute and to say things that you dont want to say. I would question the dress designers who refuse to make address for ivanka trump. They say we need to be able to stand apart from those other guys. We need to be able to express ourselves. Under the current understanding of the establishment clause of free speech, that door only goes one way. If you look, there was an exchange that a professor and i had last summer where he talked about how it opens and closes around how much religious liberty you want to have. My response, we wrote them separately, i didnt see his before mine and vice versa, the establishment clause was always about control. Its always about, its always been about who had access to the Public Square and whether or not you can be catholic or a jew or muslim, just dont act like one in public. What we need to do is recapture our understanding of religious freedom the constitution has religious freedom written into its dna. There is also the negative implications that deliberately left religion out of the qualifications for congress, people and senators. The president , you cant require to be a member of a certain religion. One of the most bloodied battles during the Constitutional Convention was over the swear or affirm cause because quakers couldnt swear. This whole idea that we are americans and we are equal, and this comes back to whats left out of the executive order, is they dont have to affirm, then when why do i have to affirm. The whole idea is why doesnt the government just take us as they find us. If you go back to the screaming over hobby lobby and Everything Else, what you will see is this is compulsion. She is entirely entitled to use her own money to buy her Birth Control pills but she has no right to stick her hand in the Little Sisters of the poor to get the money. That is the other thing i want you to think about, religious liberty is not an entity to itself. What was happening, what theyre suggesting in the hobby lobby and other cases is a public taking for private use. Thats why tying religious freedom together with the First Amendment and the right to petition and association, we need to develop a more holistic way of looking at the fact that we are all americans and the constitution welcomes us here and if the new york dressmaker doesnt have to make address for ivanka trump, then neither does the florist have to make the bouquet for the gay wedding. One quick point to addon, religious freedom is for both the religious and non religious alike. It protects all of us. Civil liberties travel together. When one starts to get chipped away at, you will soon see other freedoms chip the way out. If you look at other countries around the world, minorities suffer, the freedom of the press, all of those freedoms are put into jeopardy when we fail to protect the most fundamental freedoms we have including religious freedom. Religious freedom, in recent years has been demonized and seen as a bad thing or as a license to do harm to others and i think its important to make sure that we articulate well how vital this freedom is and how it protects how we come out on the political ideological spectrum. Let me turn to the other current religious issue which is Trinity Lutheran verses, and how you see that case coming out. Quick facts summary for those of you who arent familiar, this is a playground case from the state of missouri where there was a preschool run by a Lutheran Church that applied to participate in a neutral program getting recycled tire from the state to build playground surfaces for their schools. They were denied their application because they even though they ranked number five for meeting the criteria. We suit on their behalf saying this is unconstitutional, the state cant deny access to a neutral program, a neutral benefit simply because the preschool is run by a church. I thought the oral arguments went very well. It was wonderful to have Justice Gorsuch there but i was struck by Justice Kagan line of questioning which would suggest me we might see a 7 2 decision on this. Both of them were very concerned, Justice Breyer was very concerned that if the Lower Court Ruling stands, what does this mean for other neutral programs and benefits including safety. He was arguing if we uphold your line of reasoning, what does that mean about the fire department. Are they no longer able to show up at a church or christian school. What about when it comes to police and other safety protections pretty also raised battered womens shelters who provide services to the communities that receive some sort of Public Benefit or funding, what are the implications of that and in kagan, i saw something that bodes poorly for the state and good for our client, she said this is a clear burden on the constitutional right because religious individuals and groups are barred for competing in otherwise neutral benefits. Im very hopeful about what the court will do in this case and the importance of making sure that if you are allowing any nonprofit to compete for participation of a particular grant program, you cant discriminate against an entity simply beca