Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
What you should know about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch
What you should know about Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch
Apr 10, 2026 6:26 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
The Economy of Order: Justice Requires Love
Jean Valjean in “Ep. 4: The Economy of Order” “Seeking justice isn’t a matter of designing the right programs or delivery systems… Seeking order means acting in accord with a true vision of our brothers and sisters.” –Evan Koons American society and public discourse seem to be stuck in a state of feverish discord, rightly concerned with severe acts and systems of injustice, even as we continue to dig deeper cultural divides over everything from healthcare to sexual ethics, race...
Cyber Hack Affected 1 in 15 Americans
Last month the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced that because of a cybersecurity breach, the records of 4 million citizens had been stolen by unknown hackers. Yesterday, the OPM released its official damage assessment, and it turns out the number is much, much larger: 21.5 million, or 1 in every 15 Americans. Despite the colossal failure, OPM Director Katherine Archuleta told reporters she will not resign and won’t fire her chief information officer. In fact, the Obama Administration doesn’t...
Greece: By The Numbers
Greece’s economic problems are so prehension is difficult. Over at NPR, Greg Myre breaks it down for us. 25: The unemployment rate, and that’s probably low-balling. For those under the age of 25, the unemployment rate hovers around 50 percent. 92: The average e earned by a typical citizen is under-reported by 92 percent, on average, to the government. Tax evasion is endemic in Greece and a major contributor to the government’s budget shortfalls. Creditors are demanding this be addressed...
Literature, Empathy and American Prosperity
From devastating racially-motivated murders in Charleston, South Carolina, to a contentious SCOTUS ruling on same-sex marriage, to heightened partisan rhetoric from presidential contenders, the constant discord at all levels of society has never been more apparent. Even the a superficial analysis of the news demonstrates that much of this controversy is born out of people’s unwillingness – or alarming inability – to step into another’s shoes, understand his unique perspective, motivations and challenges, and then work together to formulate a...
Living The Hamster Or The Hobbit Life
When es to urban planning, nobody beats the Soviets. First, they wanted to plan: no mish-mosh, haphazard cities, towns and burgs sprouting up like in the decadent West. Of course, structures had to address equality. No fancy neighborhoods in one area, and low-rent housing in another. And then there was functionality. Workers needed to be close to work. This eliminated the need for unnecessary and costly transportation. Soviet academic Alexei Gutnov described the planning this way: Ideal conditions for rest...
Does Buying Fair Trade Goods Help Poor Workers?
Over the past decade, fair trade products, such as coffee, chocolate, and fruit, have e an increasingly popular option for helping the global poor. But while the intentions are noble, does buying fair trade have the intended effect? Does it actually help the poorest workers? Economist Donald Boudreaux explains why it usually doesn’t, and why there are better ways to improve living standards in developing countries. ...
Hard Hearted Lutherans Behind Greece’s Problems?
Martin Luther: Inventor of Austerity?On the The Economist’s religion and public policy blog, the writer Erasmus pokes holes in a theory put forth by Giles Fraser, a left wing Anglican priest, who sees conflicting theories of the atonement of Christ as one of the causes of so much misunderstanding in the European Union. Erasmus explains: … traditional Protestant and Catholic teaching has presented the self-sacrifice of Christ as the payment of a debt to God the Father. In this view,...
Does ‘Laudato Si’ Lead Inevitably to Fossil Fuel Divestment?
The unfortunate fallout of Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si continues apace. One wishes the pontiff would’ve released it in four separate installments to avoid misinterpretation and seeming – to this reader, at least – contradictions throughout a somewhat unwieldy 180-some pages in which he alternately praises and disparages human technological improvements over the past two centuries. On one hand, he admires mankind’s ingenuity as an example of God’s blessing, but, on the other hand, he doth protest too much methinks...
Five fundamental First Amendment freedoms in five minutes
Thirty-three percent of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. That’s a startling finding in the 2015 State of the First Amendment Survey, a project sponsored by the Newseum Institute. Since the question was first asked in 2000, the percentage of citizens who can’t name a single right protected by First Amendment has ranged from 27 to 40 percent. Many of us might be tempted to shake our head in despair at the ignorance of...
Stonestreet on FLOW: A ‘Terrific Series’ For Times of ‘Increasing Cultural Pressure’
As the Acton Institute’s latest film series continues to reach churches, colleges, munities, the positive reviews continue to pour in. Andy Crouch calls it “the best treatment of faith & culture ever put on a screen.” Byron Borger calls it “artfully expressed” and “thoughtfully inspiring.” The Gospel Coalition ranks it in the top 10 best resources of 2014. Today on BreakPoint radio, John Stonestreet of the Colson Center calls For the Life of the World “quirky and pelling,” “entertaining and...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved