WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche issued updated guidance July 23 on federal protections for religious liberty.

The Department of Justice said the updates revise and expand its 2017 Religious Liberty Guidelines in light of recent and significant U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The memo comes as Blanche, whose nomination as attorney general is under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, faces several potential obstacles to confirmation.

“Religious liberty is one of our Nation’s founding principles and a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution,” Blanche said in a statement. “It is essential that federal agencies fully respect and protect the ability of all Americans to live out their faith in daily life, including in their interactions with the federal government.”

The memo states the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment “must be interpreted in the light of historical practices and understandings.”

“History and tradition reveal that the Establishment Clause forbids the government from coercing religious observance, discriminating against individuals on the basis of religious belief or practice, discriminating between religious groups, or abridging religious communities’ autonomy or interfering in their internal affairs,” the memo said. “It does not compel the government to purge from public life anything an objective observer may think endorses religion. Religious activity in the public square and private religious expression by government employees cannot be proscribed via heckler’s veto.”

The memo said the free exercise of religion “includes the right to act or abstain from action in accordance with one’s religious beliefs.”

The updated guidance directs all executive departments and agencies to ensure that federal programs, employment policies, contracting, rulemaking and enforcement actions comply with the Constitution, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, of 1993, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and other applicable federal laws, DOJ said.

RFRA, the memo said, “extends not only to individuals, but also to organizations, associations, and at least some for-profit corporations.”

“For example, the Supreme Court has held that Hobby Lobby — a closely held, for-profit corporation that, at the time of the Court’s decision, had 500 stores and more than 13,000 employees — is protected by RFRA,” the memo said in reference to the 2014 ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.

In the 5-4 decision, the court found that the company could be exempt from a requirement to provide health insurance covering abortion-inducing drugs that would violate the sincere religious beliefs of the owners.

Among other Supreme Court rulings, Blanche’s memo referenced Carson v. Makin, a 2022 ruling in which the court said the state of Maine’s tuition program could not exclude religious schools.

Blanche, who was previously President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, has been leading the DOJ in an acting capacity since Trump removed Pam Bondi as the head of the agency. Trump has since nominated Blanche to fill the role, but it requires Senate confirmation.

During his July 15 confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, members of that committee questioned Blanche on issues ranging from objections to the way the DOJ handled the release of the Epstein files, its attempt to seek a controversial $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” sought by Trump, to its approach to state challenges to a policy permitting distribution of mifepristone by mail.

The memo also comes after the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Commission released a draft of its report detailing its findings and recommendations to the president in June. That draft advised Trump to “instruct the Department of Justice to issue guidance clarifying the proper understanding of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.”