{"id":93103,"date":"2026-05-14T23:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/student-vs-rep-raskin-congress-needs-to-acknowledge-our-christian-heritage-in-america\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:42:12","slug":"student-vs-rep-raskin-congress-needs-to-acknowledge-our-christian-heritage-in-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/student-vs-rep-raskin-congress-needs-to-acknowledge-our-christian-heritage-in-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Student vs. Rep. Raskin: Congress Needs To Acknowledge Our Christian Heritage In America"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Hunter-Lopez, a high school student, debated Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) over Christianity and America’s founding on Wednesday at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing titled, “Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam & Sharia Law Are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.” Read Hunter-Lopez’s opening statement here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

REP. JAMIE RASKIN: You just basically said, we’ve got to hold everybody to the secular law. Is there anybody on the panel who thinks that we need a special law addressing any particular religious population, whether it’s the Muslim, the Christian, the Jewish, the Hindu, the Mormon, or what have you? Or are we just saying that everybody should be held to secular law in America? And I’m happy to open it up to anybody. Mr. Hunter Lopez. MARCO HUNTER-LOPEZ, STUDENT: Thank you, Congressman, for the question. I think that you keep referring to a secular law. I think it’s important to point out, I believe it was 56 of the 57 Declaration of Independence signers were Bible-believing faith church attending Christians. I believe it was the first original 13 colonies that required a declaration of faith. So I’m not acknowledging that. RASKIN: Oh, well, wait a second. You’re traversing my territory now, Mr. Hunter Lopez. You brought it up. Are you aware that the Constitution of the United States does not establish a religion? It forbids the establishment of religion. Are you aware that it doesn’t mention God? HUNTER-LOPEZ: So the Declaration of Independence mentions God four times. RASKIN: Is the Declaration of Independence law? HUNTER-LOPEZ: So the Declaration of Independence was declaring our independence from the tyranny of England. But what I was trying to finish is that I’m not suggesting that we need to go back to taking tests or saying that you have to acknowledge religion. RASKIN: By the way, do you know that Thomas Jefferson was denounced as an infidel who wrote the Declaration of Independence because he didn’t believe in the establishment of religion, and he and Madison were emphatic about separating church and state? That’s the whole glory of our constitutional design in our history, that they rebelled against centuries of religious warfare between the Catholics and the Protestants and witchcraft trials, Inquisition, Holy Crusades. America proclaimed the separation of church and state. What Thomas Jefferson described in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptists as a wall of separation. HUNTER-LOPEZ: That was a letter, not a law. RASKIN: Okay, so your position is that America is a theocracy? HUNTER-LOPEZ: You didn’t let me finish my original statement, and I understand you have limited time, but what I was going to say is I’m not suggesting we need to go back to anything that’s in writing, but what I am saying is we need to acknowledge. RASKIN: Oh, I think we should go back to something in writing. I think we should go back to the First Amendment. HUNTER-LOPEZ: Yes, the Constitution, obviously, but what I’m saying is that how I said original colonies were requiring a declaration of faith to run for office. I’m not saying we have to. RASKIN: That’s why we have a First Amendment. HUNTER-LOPEZ: What I’m saying is that we do. RASKIN: That’s precisely why Jefferson wrote it. HUNTER-LOPEZ: We do need to acknowledge our Christian heritage in America. That’s what I’m trying to get to. RASKIN: You can acknowledge whatever heritage you want, but you can’t impose an establishment of religion on other people. That’s the greatness. HUNTER-LOPEZ: I’m not suggesting that at all. I’m just saying we need to acknowledge our heritage. That’s what I’m saying. RASKIN: Everybody can acknowledge their own heritage. Do you agree with that? HUNTER-LOPEZ: American heritage, not just any heritage is what I’m saying. RASKIN: Oh, you don’t think that you’re allowed to acknowledge your Christian heritage or your Jewish heritage or your Muslim heritage? HUNTER-LOPEZ: I’m saying you members of Congress need to acknowledge American heritage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

RealClearPolitics Videos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marco Hunter-Lopez, a high school student, debated Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) over Christianity and America’s founding on Wednesday at a House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing titled, “Sharia-Free America: Why Political Islam & Sharia Law Are Incompatible with the U.S. Constitution.” Read Hunter-Lopez’s opening statement here. REP. JAMIE RASKIN: You just basically said, we’ve got to hold […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[14102,3185,1338,4408,12462,5756,24564,6493,436],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}