Vice President J.D. Vance debated the “Christian foundation” of the United States with an attendee skeptical about Christianity at a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) event held Wednesday at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss).
Vance replaced the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk during an event featuring his widow, TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk. The attendee questioned if “requiring Christianity” in schools was a violation of the First Amendment, a point Vance pushed back on.
WATCH:
“Who is saying that we require Christianity in public schools?” Vance asked the attendee, who nervously responded, “Just from what I have seen on the media and news, it feels like the Trump administration had wanted to make praying in schools and Christian values incorporated.”
“Here’s the thing, when you talk about forcing, to let me answer your question, forcing Christianity, forcing people to pray. There’s a real liberal idea out there that I think is wrong and that is that liberalism is the source of freedom of religion and actually if you go back to the original founding documents of the United States of America, if you go back to the Anglo legal tradition well before there was ever a United States of America, what you find is that freedom of religion is actually a Christian concept and the reason it is a Christian concept is very simple: Because Christianity… the idea that we are all made in the image of our creator, it means that we must respect the free will of every single person,” Vance said.
Liberals have argued that the First Amendment prohibits government support for religious entities, citing the establishment clause, but the Supreme Court ruled in Carson v. Makin that a program that permitted parents in districts without public high schools to use vouchers to pay for private schools unconstitutionally prohibited the use of the vouchers for religious schools in June 2022.
WATCH:
“Now, part of that is you have a conversation with people, having free will does not mean that you are not allowed to encourage somebody, that you are not allowed to talk to somebody about your faith, that you are not allowed to talk about certain values in school,” Vance said, before taking on arguments that the First Amendment prohibited discussions about faith in public spaces, including schools.
“A lot of the things, human rights, the very idea that human beings have rights are a Christian concept, and so my assumption based on the question, [is] you are skeptical of Christianity or at least certain public professions of Christianity,” Vance added later. “I make no apologies for believing that Christianity is the pathway to God. I make no apologies for saying that Christian values are an important foundation of this country. But I’m not going to force you to believe in anything, because that is not what God wants and that is not what I want, either.”
Erika Kirk introduced Vance during her first TPUSA tour event at Ole Miss as CEO of the organization her husband founded. Vance was close with the late TPUSA founder and accompanied his widow as Air Force Two flew Kirk’s coffin back to Arizona in September.
“Do you agree that there should be Christian implementation? Do you think that school systems should be neutral and should be focused on reading, writing-” the attendee asked Vance, who responded, “I reject the idea that anything is purely neutral.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].
