Larry Kudlow was hired to be a financial analyst on the Fox conservative commentary channel on cable TV, but on Fox, analysis is expected to match right wing ideology. Political opinion makes its way into all kind of odd places on Fox, including Kudlow’s financial analysis. So, it was Larry Kudlow who interviewed Mike Pence for Fox this week, and it was Kudlow who offered his opinion on Christian politics first, encouraging Pence to show his support for Christian Nationalism. Before even asking Pence a question on the subject, Kudlow declared:

“No one is allowed to talk about the Ten Commandments or the importance of moral values.” - Larry Kudlow

Is it really true that no one is allowed to talk about the Ten Commandments or the importance of moral values?

Larry Kudlow himself was talking about the Ten Commandments and the importance of moral values, even as he claimed that it’s not allowed to talk about these subjects. No one censored him. No one stopped him from talking, and no one stopped his talk from being broadcast across the country on one of the most popular cable television networks.

When I search for the phrase “ten commandments”, Google tells me there are “about 12,600,000 results”. That’s a whole lot of talking about a subject that has supposedly been outlawed. A comparative search for the phrases “moral values” and “separation of church and state” using Google Trends shows that people are writing about moral values twice as much as separation of church and state.

No one really knows exactly how many Christian churches there are in the United States, but estimates range between 100,000 and 300,000. Does Larry Kudlow really think that preachers in these churches aren’t allowed to talk about the Ten Commandments or moral values?

So what is Larry Kudlow talking about? Exactly what is not allowed?

The Christian Nationalist Supreme Court has been working to undermine the First Amendment and establish Christian privilege in the law, forcing public school districts to allow school employees to coerce students into prayer, and making state governments provide funding for Christin programs of religious indoctrination. Public schools are also allowed to teach about the Ten Commandments in historical context and to talk about moral values.

What’s not allowed yet is for government in the USA to compel everybody to go to church. Christian judges are being allowed to force people to join religious programs run by Christian churches, though. Christian judges are being allowed to coerce plaintiffs, defendants, and witnesses to undergo a Christian ritual of swearing an oath to the Christian bible.

People are being compelled to share a Christian religious message every time they go shopping with paper money and coins. Children across America are required by public schools to pledge themselves as allies to Christian Nationalism every day, and their parents are being forced to go through public rituals of Christian prayer before gaining access to their elected leaders in public meetings.

So, actually, Christians are given special privileges to force their religion into Americans’ lives using the power of government. Non-Christian religions are not given the same privilege, and non-religious Americans are actively discriminated against.  

Just a few years ago, for example, a formerly Christian minister who maintained his rank as a minister, representing a national organization of non-religious Americans, was forbidden from giving a non-religious invocation before the US House of Representatives. When one member of Congress attempted to have a Hindu priest give an invocation in front of the US House of Representatives, Republican members of Congress interrupted the proceedings and loudly stormed out of the US Capitol in protest. The message from these events was clear: Only Christian preachers are welcome to deliver morning prayers in Congress, with perhaps an occasional token Jewish rabbi. Christianity has been allowed to claim ownership over Congress.

Larry Kudlow has it backwards. The truth is that Christians are allowed by the government to talk about their religion in the public square, in settings where other religions and non-religious Americans are routinely denied access.