Kelly Shackelford is President and CEO of First Liberty Institute, the largest legal firm in the nation devoted exclusively to protecting religious freedom. He is a graduate of the Baylor University School of Law, and has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law (my alma mater). First Liberty’s lawyers have argued cases and filed amicus briefs before the United States Supreme Court, federal courts of appeals, federal district courts and many state courts, and have won more than 90 percent of their cases.
Shackelford has argued before the United States Supreme Court, testified before the U.S. House and Senate, and has won a number of landmark First Amendment and religious liberty cases, including a recent epic Supreme Court victory in The American Legion v. American Humanist Association. He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter-century by Texas Lawyer.
In this wide-ranging “American Thought Leaders” interview with the Epoch Times’ Jan Jekielek, Shackelford discusses a number of religious liberty topics. He notes that churches are being wickedly discriminated against by blue-state governors on the pretext of covid-19 panic. Liquor stores and strip clubs are deemed essential, whereas churches and church schools are being shut down. He notes how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio have targeted orthodox Jews for special persecution on the pretext of covid-19.
Shackelford notes that President Trump has been a tremendous boon to religious liberty, better than the previous three administrations combined. Trump made changes in how the Obamacare law was being interpreted; in May 2017, Trump enacted Executive Order 13798, "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" which directed the HHS to consider alternate routes to address conscience-based objection. and leading to the HHS issuing new interim rules that allowed employers with either religious or moral objections to be exempted from the contraceptive mandate of the ACA (Obamacare). Hence the federal government would no longer try to force the Little Sisters of the Poor to buy insurance covering abortifacients. Trump also ruled churches essential during the covid-19 panic.
Shackelford also talks about some of his ongoing cases, including for Coach Kennedy, a former marine who was coaching middle-school football and was fired for taking a knee for silent prayer at the end of each game. He is also representing Kenny Vaughn, who makes scripture dogtags, such as of Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go,” which are widely warn by soldiers, but which the military decided to crack down on.
Shackelford was the lead attorney on American Legion v. American Humanists, which was about a cross that was erected in 1925, in Bladenensburg, Maryland, by the American Legion as a memorial to soldiers from that area of Maryland who were killed in the First World War. Although the cross was originally erected on private land with private money, in 1961, the land on which it stood was taken over by the government, and the cross eventually came to be in a highway median, more or less in the middle of a traffic circle. In 2012, someone objected that a cross shouldn’t be on public land, and the case worked its way up to the Supreme Court.
In a 7 to 2 decision, the Court ruled that the cross could stay, but more importantly the concurring opinions indicated that Lemon v. Kurtzman was now effectively overruled by a majority of the justices. This is significant. Lemon v. Kurtzman was a case we all learned in law school, because it was the the leading case on the establishment clause (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”).
Kelly Shackelford Epoch Times Interview