Former President Donald Trump ripped the veil off the Washington, D.C., Deep State, and its intentions to subvert the constitutionally-free United States into a country where every citizen is dependent on government.

The Joe Biden regime, which took office under a cloud of perverted election mechanisms, has made no secret of its intentions to attack and remove individual freedoms that have attracted millions of freedom- and opportunity-hungry immigrants to America’s shores during the nation’s 230-plus years of existence.

Freedom of religion is a target of the Biden regime. One instance involves the Colorado cake artist, Jack Phillips, who already won a Supreme Court decision about his right to refuse to make cakes that violated his religious principles.

Phillips is back in court again, this time as the defendant in a civil trial filed by a person whose complaint regards Phillips’ refusal to make a gender transition cake.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending Phillips, explained the stakes in an interview during a Heritage Foundation podcast.

During the program, Tedesco said: “I think it’s important for your listeners to understand that this was a set-up. That the person who called Jack and asked him to create this cake was trying to set him up to be able to file a complaint against him, to harass him, and to put him out of business, or at least cause that risk.”

Tedesco explained: “Jack does not create cakes that promote ideas that violate his religious convictions, and he’s got a First Amendment right of free speech to decline to express messages that violate his beliefs through his art. And that’s, of course, the same for everybody.

“If an atheist was forced to create a billboard saying, “There is a God,” the state couldn’t force that atheist to remove that through any kind of law that the state was trying to enforce against them, or a private citizen was trying to enforce against them. So these are rights that we all benefit from.

“I think the biggest risk in the case, not just for Jack, of course – we don’t want him to lose the case, but for society, is that if one person loses these rights, everybody does. We don’t want a government that has the power to force people to express ideas that violate their core convictions.”

Rachel del Guidice, the interviewer, asked Tedesco what he considered “the big picture” on the state of religious freedom in America at this point. He replied:

“I think the Equality Act is a significant concern. If the Equality Act were to be passed or even provisions of it be forced through regulations or executive orders, then you’re going to have religious institutions’, women and girls’ free speech at risk.

“Just consider female athletes who are being forced to compete against biological males. And our clients in Connecticut, good example, are losing races to them, losing scholarship opportunities to them. And it’s undermining the fair playing field that women deserve when it comes to sports.

“In Connecticut, 15 of the state championships that used to be held by women are now held by two biological males who identify as women. And so they’re being boxed out of their entire sport.”

Del Guidice asked Tedesco his opinion on the issue of freedom of religion in schools. He replied:

“Religious colleges and even religious K through 12 schools are going to be under significant pressure from the Biden administration and from activists on the left to abandon their religious beliefs as the price to being able to continue to operate.

“There’s a lawsuit that was recently filed by an organization, their acronym is REAP, and they’re trying to eliminate a religious exemption in Title IX for religious colleges and universities that has existed for decades and protects religious freedom.

“So the sad truth is that left-wing activists want to eliminate religious freedom. They want to eliminate any instances in law where the laws are respecting the right of religious organizations to organize around their own beliefs. So that is upon us right now.”

When Del Guidice asked about the effect of the new anti-religious stance of the federal government on churches, Tedesco said:

“Well, the limitations on churches come from a lot of different places. It’s going to come from employment laws. The left is going to try to use those employment laws to limit the ability of churches and religious institutions to hire on the basis of their religious beliefs.

“But I think churches also have to be worried about their public witness and whether they can express their messages.

“We were talking about it before, but the broader context of the way that the entire corporate sector is being weaponized against religious and conservative values, it won’t be that long, if the left has its way, until churches aren’t able to express their views about marriage or the real differences between men and women on social media platforms.

“So if you can’t bear witness to the truth in all these settings, then you can’t change hearts and minds, you can’t win the culture over.”

Del Guidice raised a question about double standards exposed during the Covid pandemic restrictions, citing an example of a California strip club being allowed to remain open while churches had to stay closed.

Tedesco replied:

“Yeah, absolutely, there’s a double standard. And you see a lot of these cases where we’re winning and other organizations are winning cases. It’s where the government has decided to value secular activity over religious activity.

“One of the cardinal rules is that if the government has exemptions in their law for secular conduct, secular behavior that’s similar to what the religious institutions want to engage in, then they can’t treat the religious institutions differently and less favorably.

“So you’ve seen the Supreme Court on a couple of different occasions step in and right the ship when it comes to that, where casinos, or like you said, strip clubs, or big box stores are allowed to operate much more freely than churches. And I think, obviously, the Supreme Court is doing the right thing there.”

The interview didn’t get into the new push by the left to pack the Supreme Court.

But the court’s failure to follow the left’s agenda obviously is behind that plan.