n January 8, the Heritage Foundation — the same organization that authored the notorious Project 2025 — released “Saving America by Saving the Family,” a far-reaching policy agenda. It calls for the restoration of “blue laws” to establish a “uniform day of rest” on Sundays with the purpose of saving the nation before its 250th anniversary on July 4, 2026. The basis of its genesis, or inspiration, comes on the heels of Project 2025, which the current President’s administration largely implemented last year.

The Heritage Foundation’s policy agenda proposal puts forward one central theme; a “uniform day of rest” so that families can grow, have more babies, be more prosperous, and be healthier in the effort to heal the so-called social ills of the nation.

While European countries have a ton of local and provincial Sunday business closing laws — to shut down the sale of liquor to limit crime, etc. — the central motivation and rationale has been mostly secular, with statements about churchgoing never being taken seriously.

But there’s a difference with the Heritage Foundation proposal. It is not just a political advocacy organization. It is also the right hand of the Christian Right in America. Its genesis and inspiration is Christian Nationalism, and it seeks to promote Christian Nationalism through legal and constitutional means.

The unspoken motive for a “uniform day of rest” is to encourage people to go back to church and make people more religious. But the United States has a long history of being a churched people. And yet, their warfare against secularism persists.

The legal framework used by the Heritage Foundation is based on a Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of “blue laws,” which are state laws that prohibit certain commercial activities on Sundays. The Court ruled in McGowan v. Maryland (1961) that while these laws originated from religious tradition, they served a legitimate secular purpose of providing a uniform day of rest and recreation, thus not violating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The case established that laws with religious origins can be constitutional if they have a modern, secular justification.

So, why should calls for a “uniform day of rest” be taken very seriously right now? Because Sunday closing laws (i.e., business closing laws) have been historically connected to Sunday worship laws during the Colonial Puritan era, and in the Southern States in the Post-Reconstruction era.

Sunday laws are a means of getting a foot-in-the-door toward influencing states to legislatively enact restrictive worship laws in violation of the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment. And when you add to this the successful influence Project 2025 has had at the executive level of the federal government so far, and its disastrous effects, one must not be too dismissive of this formal-documented call specifically addressed to federal and state lawmakers.