The Religious Right Isn’t Hiding What It’s Doing in the Courts

Religion is everywhere in American legal discourse, but only one side is really comfortable talking about it. It’s why Justice Samuel Alito went to Rome shortly after Dobbs was decided, to fret publicly that “religious liberty is under attack in many places because it is dangerous to those who want to hold complete power.” Religion is why Federalist Society chairman Leonard Leo flies an “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Related From Slate What These Stories About Samuel Alito’s “Provocative” Flags Are Really About Katherine, you wrote a piece in 2022 describing how the movement gets supercharged. Now you have people like Mike Johnson, who’s affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, displaying an “Appeal to Heaven” flag outside his office and appearing on podcasts run by very overt “Seven Mountains” dominionists, and you have a lot of white-power and militia groups that were not particularly religious before—they were more focused on race—but now they’re adopting the language and style of “Seven Mountains” dominionism. So when you see Mike Johnson’s “Appeal to Heaven” flag, when you see the Alitos flying the “Appeal to Heaven” flag, it doesn’t mean that they are necessarily affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation, or that they’re members of these militias at all, but it really tells us who they’ve been talking to.