The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out House Speaker Mike Johnson for misrepresenting and denigrating the constitutional principle of separation of church and state — and for lending the prestige of his office to yet another partisan religious event.

In his remarks at the 2026 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast yesterday, Johnson contended that the “wall of separation between church and state” has been misunderstood and claimed that the Founders did not intend to keep religion from influencing government. Johnson insisted that “Jefferson clearly did not mean that wall to keep religion from influencing our government and public life. … To the contrary, the Founders wanted to protect the church and the religious practice of citizens from an encroaching state, not the other way around.” He continued, “Our Founders understood that a free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue [to] help prevent the abuse of power [and] make it possible to preserve our essential freedom.”

That claim is incorrect.

In reality, the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion and protects the freedom of conscience of all Americans. The famed “wall of separation,” articulated by Thomas Jefferson and repeatedly affirmed by the courts, exists to ensure that government remains neutral on matters of religion — neither favoring nor disfavoring any religious belief.

“Speaker Johnson is entitled to his personal religious beliefs,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “But he tarnishes and violates his oath of office by misusing his position to promote Christian nationalist myths and disinformation.”

The United States was not founded on the bible, Christianity or any other religion. It was founded on Enlightenment principles of individual liberty, popular sovereignty and a deliberate rejection of religious governance. The Constitution is godless by design. It bars a religious test for public office. The Founders understood the dangers of sectarian power fused with the state, which is why they adopted the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, expressly forbidding the government from endorsing, advancing or favoring religion.

FFRF has written to Johnson numerous times to correct his revisionist history and his assertions that the Constitution was designed primarily to protect religion, not to limit its influence on government. FFRF notes that history demonstrates why this principle is essential.

It is ironic that Johnson’s message was delivered at an event celebrating Catholic participation in public life. Catholics themselves faced significant discrimination in early America, including legal restrictions on holding public office and organized political movements aimed at excluding them. At New York’s 1777 Constitutional Convention, future Chief Justice John Jay proposed barring from office anyone who believed the pope could absolve sins. New Jersey’s Constitution excluded Catholics from holding office until 1844 while North Carolina limited public office to those affirming Protestant beliefs until 1835. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, officials were long required to renounce allegiance to any “foreign ecclesiastical power,” a clear swipe at Catholicism. These examples underscore why the separation of church and state was — and remains — essential to protecting religious minorities from government-imposed exclusion and prejudice.

The First Amendment is an essential safeguard protecting the freedom of conscience of all Americans of whatever religion or none at all — which should be promoted, not attacked, by the House speaker.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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