This summer, like many Americans, I returned to my hometown.
The familiar contours of the landscape — the Great Lakes, sand dunes, and lush forests — carried with them memories not only of childhood but of something deeper: a sense of rootedness. Land is never just geography. It holds meaning. And when that meaning comes from religious devotion, religious liberty demands our respect.
Religious freedom means little if it only shields believers from fines or jail. It must also protect sacred spaces from destruction.
That is why what’s happening to the Apache Stronghold — a coalition of San Carlos Apache tribal members and other Native Americans — is not just a local controversy. It’s a national shame.
The United States government has approved a plan to transfer Oak Flat, a sacred site in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, to Resolution Copper, a mining company owned in part by foreign interests, including a firm with Chinese stakeholders. Late Monday night, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a temporary restraining order blocking the land exchange at Oak Flat just hours before the swap could have been completed. The panel did not address the merits of the challenge to the deal brought by a group of environmentalists, tribes, and the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
President Trump took to Truth Social, labeling those who have challenged the deal as “Anti-American.” With all due respect to the president, this temporary stay is a perfect opportunity to reassess.
Sacred rights
For centuries, the Apache people have worshipped at Oak Flat. To build a massive copper mine here — destroying it permanently — is not only a grievous environmental affront but would erase a sacred space central to tribal faith.
A separate lawsuit highlights this latter concern.
The Apache Stronghold sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, arguing that destroying Oak Flat is a direct, government-enabled interference with their religious exercise. But a federal court dismissed the case, claiming, incredibly, that because the land isn’t regulated for religious purposes, the government’s actions don’t count as a burden under RFRA.
That is not just a misreading of the law — it is a failure of moral clarity.
RFRA, passed in 1993 with broad bipartisan support, ensures that federal government actions burdening religious exercise face the strictest judicial scrutiny. If the law does not protect the Apache from the destruction of their most sacred site, what does it protect?
Religious freedom means little if it only shields believers from fines or jail. It must also protect sacred spaces from destruction, especially when the destruction comes at the hands of government-backed corporate interests with foreign ownership.
Hear their cry
The injustice of Oak Flat did not go unnoticed by every member of the Supreme Court.
When the court denied review of the Apache Stronghold’s petition in May, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a sharp dissent: “Before allowing the government to destroy the Apaches’ sacred site, this court should at least have troubled itself to hear their case.”
He is right. The court exists to safeguard rights like religious liberty, not to stand aside when those rights are bulldozed — literally.
Now, the Apache Stronghold has filed a petition for rehearing, citing the court’s decision earlier this summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
In Mahmoud, the court sided with parents of faith who sought to opt their children out of exposure to Pride storybooks, a collection of sexually charged books they believed violated their religious beliefs. The ruling affirmed that government cannot force individuals to choose between a public benefit and adherence to their faith.
If that principle protects religious families from coerced participation in a school program, surely it should protect the Apache people from the obliteration of their most sacred worship site.
Not for sale
To its credit, the Trump administration acted to root out anti-Christian bias in the federal government. That commitment should now extend to protecting the Apache people’s religious exercise. This is not about favoring one faith over another. It’s about honoring the American promise that no faith is too small to matter and no people too powerless to be heard.
Religious liberty is not a gift from the government. It is a right bestowed by our Creator and safeguarded under the law. While political trends rise and fall, the land endures — and with it our responsibility as stewards. We are entrusted with the care of this beautiful nation, not just for its economic potential but for its deeper meaning.
Oak Flat is not a relic. It is a living testament to a people’s enduring faith. Its destruction would not just scar the landscape — it would scar the conscience of the nation.
There is still time to change course.
The Ninth Circuit may grant relief in the case alleging environment harms. The administration can halt the transfer. And the American people can raise their voices in defense of a principle older than the republic: that some places are sacred and some values are not for sale.
Let us be the kind of nation that hears the cry of people of faith, even when it rises from the mountains of Arizona, even when it does not look or sound like our own. Let us be a people who understand that land is more than property — that it can be sacred ground.
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