At Donald Trumps second inauguration on January 20, 2025, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and evangelical Christian pastor, Rev. Franklin Graham offered the opening invocation. A Jewish rabbi, Ari Berman, president of the Orthodox Yeshiva University, a Christian pastor, The Rev. Lorenzo Sewell,and a Catholic priest, The Rev. Frank Mann,led the benediction.No Muslims were invited to speak at the inauguration under the Capitol dome on that cold January day. Related Project 2025: How the Religious Right captured Donald Trumps agenda According to one tracker, Trump has already adopted 100 policies from the Project 2025 document. Trump took the presidential oath of office with two Bibles and concluded his oath with so help me God, even though the Constitution does not explicitly require those four words. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today Six religious clergy offered prayers and Biblical readings at Trumps first inauguration onJanuary 20, 2017, atop the balcony of the U.S. Capitol. At the end of the festivities, sounds emanated from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.Clergy invited to read and offer prayer at that inauguration included five Christians and one Jew: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York; Rev. Franklin Graham of the Billy Graham Evangelical Association; Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles; Bishop Wayne T. Jackson, pastor at Great Faith Ministries International Church in Detroit; Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; and Pastor Paula White, of the New Destiny Christian Center in Florida.For his second term, Trump chose Paula White to head his White House Faith Office. The Office is a tax-supported agency supposedly to assist faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship in their efforts to strengthen American families, promote work and self-sufficiency, and protect religious liberty, whatever that means. As I watched the proceedings of Trumps first inauguration on TV, I questioned whether I was viewing a presidential swearing-in or attending an evangelical tent revival as clergy invoked the name of Jesus at least eight times. Trump brought up God four times during his speech.The Bible tells us, How good and pleasant it is when Gods people live together in unity, he said. And later, We will be protected by the great men and women of our military and law enforcement and, most importantly, we are protected by God.He concluded by declaring, And, yes, together, we will make America great again. Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.Not wanting to exclude Muslims, he added, We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones, and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the Earth. Religion on all sides of the aisle Though uplifting, progressive, and compassionate, Reverend Dr. Sylvester Beaman invoked the name of God four times in his benediction address at the inauguration of former President Joe Biden. Beaman mentioned Divine favor twice and employed the pronoun you for God many times.Biden himself said God four times in his speech and talked about what the Bible says, quoting Psalm 30:5: Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning.Biden is certainly not unique. Twenty-seven out of the previous 45 presidents have cited the Bible in their inaugural addresses, referencing a total of64 biblical passages. George Washington argued for invoking the Bible during his first inaugural address when he cited Psalm 82: It would be peculiarly improper, he said, to omit in this official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of the nations.While I respect Bidens decision to practice his Catholic faith, which he holds dear, I had hoped he and Vice President Kamala Harris might have set a new precedent by keeping religion out of their inaugural ceremonies as a way to begin repairing the torn and tattered wall of separation between religion and government. But this was not to be.On Tuesday, January 9, 2013, former President Barack Obama tapped the Rev. Louie Giglio of Atlantas Passion City Church to deliver the benediction during his second inauguration later that month. Less than 48 hours later, controversy arose surrounding Giglios past statements about homosexuality, so Giglio decided to withdraw from the event. It is likely that my participation, and the prayer I would offer, will be dwarfed by those seeking to make their agenda a focal point of the inauguration, he said. During thesermon in question from the mid 1990s, Giglio told his parishioners that being gay is a sinful choice and that gay people will be prevented from entering the Kingdom of God. The only way out of a homosexual lifestyle is through the healing power of Jesus, he said.At his first inauguration, Obama chose Evangelical Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation. While Warren has been involved in some positive activities during his ministry, he has been a leading and outspoken opponent of LGBTQ+ equality. He worked as one of the chief lobbyists for Proposition 8 in California, which sought to delegitimize marriage equality.Inpublic statements, Warren likened same-sex marriage to incestuous marriage and polygamy. In November 2012, he went further by tellingCNNs Piers Morgan that being gay is a bit like eating arsenic or punching a guy in the nose. He has also called into question the concept of separation of religion and government, and he said that Obama has intentionally infringed upon religious liberties with his contraception mandates. The National Day of PrayerTrump officiallyproclaimedMay 1, 2025 a National Day of Prayer. He did the same on September 3, 2017 to commemorate the devastation to life and property caused by Hurricane Harvey. The day before, while visiting with sufferers of the storms wrath, Trump said, Tomorrows a very big day, so go to your church and pray and enjoy the day.Whatever happened to the alleged wall separating religion and government? While the courts have attempted to reinforce this partition, our presidents have continually tried to tear it down.Though Trumps order created anad hocNational Day of Prayer, Judge Barbara Crabb of theU.S. District Courtin Wisconsin ruled in 2010 that an annual National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional, violating the First Amendments establishment clause. In her ruling, Judge Crabb stated, It goes beyond mere acknowledgment of religion because its sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function in this context.She added that no lawpreventspeople in the United States from praying or from creating non-governmental days of prayer, concluding, I understand that many may disagree with that conclusion and some may even view it as a criticism of prayer or those who pray. That is unfortunate. A determination that the government may not endorse a religious message is not a determination that the message itself is harmful, unimportant or undeserving of dissemination.CongressestablishedThe National Day of Prayer during the Cold War in 1952. In 1988, Congress set the annual National Day of Prayer as the first Thursday in May. President Obama, under whose presidency the court declared it unconstitutional, chose to ignore the ruling by issuing a proclamation beginning: Throughout our Nations history, Americans have come together in moments of great challenge and uncertainty to humble themselves in prayer.George W. Bush and other elected leaders have invoked their Christian faith as the foundation of their political ideology. While governor of Texas, Bush officially declared June 10, 2000, as Jesus Day, and he advised all Texans to follow Christs example by performing good works in their communities and neighborhoods. Look to the foundersIf the U.S. truly stands as a country dedicated to the concept of the separation of religion and government, as articulated by the First Amendment, why do presidential inaugurals include invocations (supplications or prayers to God), and benedictions (a short prayer asking for divine assistance, blessings, and guidance given usually at the close of religious services)? And why does the government champion at swearing in ceremonies the placement of hands upon the Bibles (composed of the Jewish Bible and the Christian Testaments) and a swearing to the name of God.Furthermore, why do we hire chaplains to deliver prayers at the daily openings of Congressional sessions, all paid for by public tax dollars?Many people who are asked to place their left hand on religious texts while raising their right hand to tell the truth, the whole truth, so help me God, are in this very act, committing perjury when they do not either believe in a god or do not believe, understand, or follow the very books over which they are pledging.Before and during his presidency, George W. Bush and other conservative Christian politicians consistently called for voucher systems whereby students could choose to attend privateparochialschools at public expense. He supported prayer in public schools as well as at school events. Some religious, governmental, and educational leaders also push for the teaching of Creationism (reframed as Intelligent Design) to explain the genesis of the world and all its inhabitants. Since it was first built, that Jeffersonian wall separating church and state has suffered from increased battering and now barely stands as a worn and tattered ruin. Candidates and elected officials don their Christian credentials like armor to repel potential attacks on their motivations and character.The chief architects of the United States Constitution certainly did not have these measures in mind. James Madison, familiarly called the Father of the Constitution, was most responsible for the First Amendment, along with Thomas Jefferson.Virginia was one of the first states to address the issue of religion and government when Thomas Jefferson, a deist, drafted An Act for the Establishment of Religious Freedom in1777. Jeffersons proposal became state law in 1786. Then, constitutional framers such as Jefferson and Madison negotiated a compromise with Protestant sectarians, which led to the clause written into the First Amendment of the United States Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereofThough nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does the phrase separation of church and state appear, it was originally drawn from a letter President Thomas Jefferson sent on January 1, 1802, to the Danbury Baptists Association.Both Madison and Jefferson held deep concerns over the possibility of an erosion of the First Amendments religious freedoms. In Madisons Letter to Edward Livingston, written on July 10, 1822, he opined: Every new and successful example, therefore, or a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.Madison argued against the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress, writing in his Detached Memoranda, circa 1820: The Constitution of the U.S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes The establishment of the chaplainship to Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles.A battle for purity Originally published in the September 8, 1892, issue ofThe Youths Companion, a widely circulated childrens magazine, the Baptist minister, Francis Bellamy, wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in commemoration of the 400thanniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to what would later be called the Americas.At Bellamys urging, Congress and President Benjamin Harrison passed a proclamation fashioning the public school flag ceremony as the centerpiece of Columbus Day tributes (Presidential Proclamation 335) with the Pledge first recited in public schools on Columbus Day, October 12, 1892.Suggested originally around 1948 by Louis A. Bowman, an Illinois Attorney and Chaplain for the Illinois Society for the Sons of the American Revolution, the idea of adding the two words, under God, gained popularity by 1951 when the Knights of Columbus, the worlds largest Catholic Fraternal Service Organization, passed a resolution to lobby the President, Vice President, and Congress to make under God a universal and permanent addition to the Pledge. This (Christian) theocratic imposition, which passed Congress and was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, found itself officially inserted into the Pledge on June 14, 1954 (Flag Day). God was also printed onto currency (In God We Trust) in 1957 during the formative years of the so-called Cold War as a reaction to the Godless Communist Soviet Union. (In God We Trust was also minted on U.S. coins by the Department of the Treasury in 1864 during the period of the U.S. Civil War.)On the back of the one-dollar bill and the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States is written the Latin phrase Annuit Cptis, translated as He [God or Providence] has favored our undertakings.Everyone in our country has the right to hold any or no religious beliefs. This is a fundamental constitutional right, and more importantly, a basic human right to which all are entitled. Many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution were aware of the dangers of entangling religion with governmental activities and public policy.Rather than building a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, we need, instead, to cement the wall between, at Madisons urging, ecclesiastical and civil matters[so] that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.