Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What you should know about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch
What you should know about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch
Mar 17, 2026 11:36 PM

Today the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuchto replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. President Trump will swear in Judge Gorsuchearly next week.

Here is what you should know about the nextassociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Neil Gorsuch

Age: 49

Birthplace: Denver, Colorado

Education: B.A. from Columbia University; J.D. from Harvard Law School; PhD in Law from University College at Oxford University.

Current judgeship:U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (appointed by George W. Bush).

Previous roles: In the early 1990s, Judge Gorsuch clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. He served in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firm of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans & Figel, and served as principal deputy to the associate attorney general and acting associate attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice.

Religious denomination: Episcopalian

Family: Judge Gorsuch is married and has two daughters. His mother served as President Reagan’s head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Judicial philosophy: Judge Gorsuch is considered a proponent of originalism, a manner of interpreting the Constitution that begins with the text and attempts to give that text the meaning it had when it was adopted, and textualism, a method of statutory interpretation that relies on the plain text of a statute to determine its meaning.

Positions and rulings

Religious Liberty:Gorsuch was on the Tenth Circuit when they heard the religious liberty case,Hobby Lobby Stores vs. Sebelius.The court ruled federal law prohibited the requirement from applying to closely held corporations, a position upheld by the Supreme Court. In his opinion Gorsuch wrote that theReligious Freedom Restoration Act applied to the owners of Hobby Lobby: “The Act doesn’t just apply to protect popular religious beliefs: it does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nation’s long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance.”

The Tenth Circuit also heard the case ofLittle Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged vs. Burwell.In his dissent, Gorsuch wrote:

The opinion of the panel majority is clearly and gravely wrong—on an issue that has little to do with contraception and a great deal to do with religious liberty. When a law demands that a person do something the person considers sinful, and the penalty for refusal is a large financial penalty, then the law imposes a substantial burden on that person’s free exercise of religion. All the plaintiffs in this case sincerely believe that they will be violating God’s law if they execute the documents required by the government. And the penalty for refusal to execute the documents may be in the millions of dollars. How can it be any clearer that the law substantially burdens the plaintiffs’ free exercise of religion?

This is a dangerous approach to religious liberty. Could we really tolerate letting courts examine the reasoning behind a religious practice or belief and decide what is core and what is derivative? A Christian could be required to work on December 25 because, according to a court, his core belief is that he should not work on the anniversary of the birth of Jesus but a history of the calendar and other sources show that Jesus was actually born in March; a December 25 work requirement therefore does not substantially burden his core belief. Or a Jewish prisoner could be provided only non-kosher food because the real purpose of biblical dietary laws is health, so as long as the pork is well-cooked, etc., the prisoner’s religious beliefs are not substantially burdened. The Supreme Court has refused to examine the reasonableness of a sincere religious belief—in particular, the reasonableness of where the believer draws the line between sinful and acceptable—at least since Thomas v. Review Board of Indiana Employment Security Division, 450 U.S. 707, 715 (1981), and it emphatically reaffirmed that position in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2751, 2778 (2014).

Worker protections:While on the Tenth Circuit, Gorsuch heard the case, TransAm Trucking Inc. v. Administrative Review Board.The majority determineda trucker had been wrongfully fired after he unhitched his trailer and drove away when the truck’s brakes froze. In his dissent, Gorsuch said pany had given the driverthe legal option to stay with his trailer and wait for help, which he declined, instead operating the truck in a way not permitted by pany.

Administrative law:Gorsuch was one of the judges on the Tenth Circuitwho wrote ina 2016 opinionthat the Chevron doctrine allowed “executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power in a way that seems more than a little difficult to square with the Constitution of the framers’ design.” Gorsuch called Chevron a “Goliath of modern administrative law,” and argued it may be time to face “the behemoth.” He suggested the judiciary rather than the executive branch should have the last word on the meaning of the law. However, in his Senate confirmation hearing he responded to Sen. Klobuchar’s claim about overturning Chevron by saying, “I would try e at it with as open a mind as a man could muster.” (For more on the Chevron doctrine, see this explainer.)

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
November 15 Countdown: Acton University
Tomorrow is a big day at the Acton Institute. November 15th marks the launch of two programs, 2012 Acton University (AU) and AU Online, a new internet-based educational resource for exploring the intellectual foundations of a free and virtuous society. For the 2012 Acton University conference (June 12-15 in Grand Rapids), we’ve overhauled the registration process to make it more user-friendly and responsive, and we look forward to hearing what you think. We are also happy to present AU Online....
John Calvin and Occupy Wall Street
“You’ve lost a good opportunity to shut up.” So said French president Nicolas Sarkozy to UK prime minister David Cameron as an instance of what BusinessWeek has dubbed “Europe’s Insult Diplomacy.” But it’s a retort that strikes me as equally relevant for the pontifications that pour forth from ecumenical officials in Geneva on almost every topic under the sun. The latest instance of imprudence in the cause of desperately seeking relevance is the claim from Rev. Setri Nyomi, general secretary...
Benedict XVI: Giving of Talent and Resources in Crisis Economy
Pope Benedict XVI delivered inspiring remarks at the European Year of Volunteering (EYV) summit held in Rome this past Nov. 10-11. He explained why gratuitous giving of personal talent and resources is so important in restoring a healthy vocational perspective to everyday business. As Benedict knows all too well, a culture of Christian charitable giving is not at its height in Ol’ Europe, where the modern Welfare State and Keynesian economics have played such a dominant role the past 70...
Chicago Open Mic Night
Last week the Acton Institute hosted its third annual Chicago Open Mic Night downtown at the University Club. Three panelists answered questions about — you guessed it — economics and a virtuous society from the audience. Acton executive director Kris Alan Mauren emceed the event, and our president Rev. Robert A. Sirico was the first panelist. Heather Wilhelm, a senior fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute and a columnist for , and Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Advisors...
Veterans Day: The Mighty Eighth over Europe
For our air superiority, which by the end of 1944 was to e air supremacy, full tribute must be paid to the United States Eighth Air Force. – Winston S. Churchill The young pilots and crews that took to the skies to defend democracy and liberate a continent are among the mitted and courageous to ever serve this country. When the United States entered the war, it was the greatest Air Armada to ever be assembled. However, most pilots and...
Samuel Gregg: Free Market Stars in Debate
Director of Research Samuel Gregg’s thoughts on the debate are up at The Corner. He sees a parallel between the Italian crisis unfolding across the ocean and the problems facing the United States — particularly in Michigan, where this debate was held. The collapse of Italy would certainly be a dramatic illustration of the ings of crony capitalism, and Gregg thinks a candidate could find a majority of voters who don’t want that to happen. With the Italian-flavored shadow of...
Pointing Fingers: Berlusconi or Ourselves to Blame
An Italian friend of mine plained to me while painfully witnessing the climax of the Italian debt crisis: “Cosi Berlusconi, cosi l’Italia!” (As with Berlusconi, so too with Italy!). My ment was an allusion to the Italian Prime Minister’s personal responsibility in dragging the entire Italian nation down with him. News broke late on Wednesday that Berlusconi had agreed to step down from office, as he effectively admitted his 17 years of political power had done nothing more to fix...
Acton University Registration Opens, Plus AU Online Launches
Acton Institute is pleased to announce both the opening of registration for the 2012 Acton University (AU), and the launch of AU Online, a new internet-based educational resource for exploring the intellectual foundations of a free and virtuous society. For four days each June, the Acton Institute convenes an ecumenical conference of pastors, seminarians, educators, non-profit managers, business people and philanthropists from more than 50 countries in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Here, 700 people of faith gather to integrate and better...
Confusion and Lockdown over Vatican’s Financial Note
The Secretary of State was not pleased.I couldn’t believe my ears. But today I can. Sandro Magister, one of Rome’s most veteran and credible vaticanistas, confirmed this afternoon what I had heard – and feared – nearly two weeks ago (See his Nov. 10 editorial “Too Much Confusion. Bertone Puts the Curia Under Lock and Key” ): The Pontifical Council’s controversial Note released two weeks ago “Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public...
Abraham Kuyper, Adam, and Doctor Dolittle
This week’s Acton Commentary, “Work, the Curse, and Common Grace,” I examine the doctrine mon grace in the context of our relationship with animals. In particular I use some insights from Abraham Kuyper as appear in the ing translation of his work, Wisdom & Wonder: Common Grace in Science & Art. (Pre-orders for Wisdom & Wonder are shipping out this week, so you can still be among the first to receive a hardcopy. We’ll be launching the book at the...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved