How the ERLC amplifies the voice of Southern Baptists in D.C.

Every year, the ERLC puts together a Public Policy Agenda which focuses on policy priorities that are rooted in Scripture, reflective of the Baptist Faith & Message, and responsive to actions taken by messengers from SBC churches.

This year’s Public Policy Agenda hits on a range of issues, including domestic and international religious liberty, opposing taxpayer funding for “gender transition” procedures, ethical considerations of artificial intelligence, and much more. As the second session of the 119th Congress begins, the ERLC has an opportunity to continue advocating for the issues Southern Baptists care about most, seeking to bring the truth of Scripture and the hope of the gospel to bear in our public policy work.

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Katy Roberts, senior policy manager for the ERLC, and Dr. Gary Hollingsworth, interim president of the ERLC, as they discuss the top policy priorities we’re advocating for in 2026. Prior to joining the ERLC, Katy worked on Capitol Hill in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives, and previously worked in clinical healthcare—experience that informs her policy work today.

Episode Transcript: How the ERLC amplifies the voice of Southern Baptists in D.C.

Narration:

Welcome to The ERLC Podcast, where our goal is to help you think biblically about today’s cultural issues. I’m Lindsay Nicolet, and today we’re talking about the ERLC’s 2026 Public Policy Agenda.

Narration:

Every year, the ERLC puts together a public policy agenda, which focuses on policy priorities that are rooted in Scripture, reflective of the Baptist Faith and Message, and responsive to actions taken by messengers from SBC churches. This year’s Public Policy Agenda hits on a range of issues, including domestic and international religious liberty, opposing taxpayer funding for gender transition procedures, ethical considerations of artificial intelligence, and much more. As the second session of the 119th Congress begins, the ERLC has an opportunity to continue advocating for the issues Southern Baptists care about most, seeking to bring the truth of Scripture and the hope of the gospel to bear in our public policy work. 

On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Katy Roberts, senior policy manager for the ERLC, and Dr. Gary Hollingsworth, interim president of the ERLC, as they discuss the top policy priorities we’re advocating for in 2026. Prior to joining the ERLC, Katy worked on Capitol Hill in both the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. She previously worked in clinical healthcare, experience that informs her policy work today. 

Now let’s turn to Dr. Hollingsworth’s conversation with Katy Roberts.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Katy, welcome to the podcast today, and it’s so good to have a chance to just talk with you a little bit about what’s going on policy-wise in Washington, D.C. 

Katy Roberts:

Absolutely. It’s a joy to be here and to talk through some of these things with you.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Well, Katy, just to kind of get us started, give us a brief overview of the ERLC’s 2026 Public Policy Agenda. What’s coming on the horizon?

Katy Roberts:

Sure. So, each year the ERLC publishes a federal policy agenda that seeks to highlight the four areas of policy engagement that we prioritize in D.C. and other realms at the state level too. But this agenda primarily focuses on our federal work. And those four lanes, as you might hear them called, are life, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity. And so this agenda consists of policy recommendations and then justification for those recommendations within each lane that the ERLC prioritizes. And so we’re going into the second year of the 119th Congress here on Capitol Hill. We are in the second year of President Trump’s second term. So we’re continuing to advocate for things like the sanctity of life, undoing harmful progress that was made by the Biden administration in the regulatory space and some harmful legislation and court action, and then responding to developing cultural and current events, antisemitism, the persecution of believers and people of faith around the world, the spread of harmful gender ideology, and then a whole host of bioethical dilemmas, whether it’s in the form of assisted suicide or IVF or chemical abortion. So those are some of the broad strokes of what we take a look at in this agenda, what the scope of it is, and what we seek to do.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Well, just hearing that overview, and I know that there’s so much more detail that goes with each and every one of those and specific pieces of legislation, for example, or discussions being had. So on kind of a more practical level to the average Southern Baptist out there, pastor, leader, lay person, but when you think about the work that we do and you do on a daily basis there in D.C., why does it practically matter for the typical Southern Baptist church out there that the ERLC is doing this kind of work?

Katy Roberts:

That’s a great question, and I think it’s one that we as the policy team sought to ask throughout the process of compiling it. You know, of course this is a resource to lawmakers and to the federal government that we provide to them. And we say, here’s what Southern Baptists would like to see accomplished in this next year. But throughout it all, the heartbeat of the ERLC is reflecting what’s in Scripture, what’s anchored in the Baptist faith and message, what’s comprised when you look at different resolutions throughout the years from the annual meetings at the SBC. So those are our guideposts when we’re looking at policy. But if you are sitting in your church in Texas, in my home state, and you’re thinking, how does this apply to me? None of us escape current events and ethical issues. You might think that in your small town, you don’t have to worry so much about what’s going on up here in D.C., in the swamp as some people call it, but especially in the modern day of media that we live in, things permeate. 

So you might be spared from the questions of physician-assisted suicide for a while. You say, that’s Oregon’s issue. That’s not Texas’s issue, until it is. And, until you know somebody and love somebody in Oregon, until you have to ask, okay, how do I respond when faced with an ethical or kind of public square issue when it hits home to me and when it hits home to my family or to somebody that I love or somebody in my church? So to your question, we have the practical policy equipping goal inherent to this agenda, but it is also important that real people are able to think through these issues and how they might impact people that they love. So the aim is twofold.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

That’s good. And if we could for just a moment, I’d like to maybe drill down just a little deeper in some of the areas that are our primary ministry focus areas that are given to us at the ERLC by the Southern Baptist Convention messengers as they do that and have given us that assignment. And one of them, of course, is the sanctity of human life, and that’s a much broader topic. It certainly involves abortion and all the things going on with that, but it’s larger than abortion, of course. It involves other things. So, you know, when you think about some of our top priorities here in 2026 on laws that affect life, both from the womb on the front end and also on the latter end, as you’ve already mentioned, through physician-assisted suicide. So specifically, can you take just a minute and give a little bit of an overview of some very specific issues related specifically to life coming up in 2026?

Katy Roberts:

Definitely, and this is a very timely topic. Well, the sanctity of life is always important, but it is January, and the National March for Life is here in Washington D.C. So real life policy is really top of mind for everybody right now. It’s kind of always top of mind for us and for our coalition partners, but it is truly at the forefront of a lot of policy conversations right now. And so you might even hear just in your news headlines, conversations about Obamacare and including the Hyde Amendment in federal health insurance. That’s something that the ERLC is advocating to retain right now is the protection of life in additional healthcare credits. You also are probably seeing some chatter about chemical abortion. That’s a huge priority area for us coming into 2026. And it was going into 2025 too. It was included in our initial list of priorities to President Trump and his transition team when he got elected in 2024.

And unfortunately, there have been some steps taken by the FDA that have countered the progress that we’ve made in the space of chemical abortion. And so this month in particular, that is top priority for the ERLC and for a lot of our like-minded partners. So those things are truly top of mind and things we’re actively working on as you know, right now. But if we broaden and think about the whole year, those two things will probably not be wrapped up this month. So we’ll continue to advocate to end the proliferation of chemical abortions and all the different ways that federal regulations further allow for increased access to chemical abortion. Of course, you know, there are things happening at the state level too. This is a top priority for us. We’ll probably readdress the defunding of large abortion providers.

Last year we saw Planned Parenthood and other large abortion providers defunded for the first time in federal law. This was a huge accomplishment and something that the ERLC has been advocating for since the nineties and then continuing on and looking at the rest of the year. A major priority of the Biden administration was to expand abortion access through the regulatory process, which is not something that’s super visible. The average American is not tracking the different regulations and proposed rules that are put out by each government agency. So these are often sneaky ways to expand contraceptive mandates and reform patient privacy laws to circumvent accountability for healthcare providers to allow for taxpayer funded travel. This was a huge problem that we saw out of the Department of Veterans Affairs during the Biden administration as it pertains to abortion. So taking a look at which proposed rules and and rules that became final need to be reversed and continuing to look at the ways that our regulatory landscape needs to be refined. 

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Thank you for that. And that’s very helpful just to keep all of us a little bit more informed as to the particulars of maybe what we can see, not only in news, but behind the news as well. And if I could kind of transition just slightly, I want to put two questions together if I could, but obviously religious liberty is one of our four core issues, and when we think about religious liberty, of course, most of us default to domestically right here in America, our own American religious liberty. But it’s larger than that. There’s an international component. When we hear so many things about persecution of Christians around the world. We hear what’s going on in Nigeria and other places, particularly in the news. So I guess the question is sort of two questions in one, how do we advocate specifically for religious liberty, both domestically and internationally? And if I could sort of tag this together, this year is our 250th anniversary, and that’s a huge milestone. So is there anything particularly that the ERLC is going to be focusing on to tie that together to this very significant birthday here in America?

Katy Roberts:

A great compound question, and you’re right, we have just started America’s 250th year, which living in D.C. has been really special so far. There have already been a host of different displays and things going on and at different monuments that have just made it exciting and have made it feel grand. So I know that will continue throughout the year. But on the advocacy front, you’re right, we often do think of the domestic landscape of religious liberty first. That’s a very foundational ideal when you think about American history and Baptist history. As you know, it’s a very Baptist idea to say that God alone is Lord of the conscience. The Baptist Faith and Message articulates that, and so do many of our charter documents. So we are continuing to advocate for conscience protections, which is kind of this broad term that basically means that somebody cannot be forced to take part in something, whether it is in the education space as part of their job, or as a healthcare provider that contradicts their religious belief and kind of forces them to compromise their religious convictions. 

And there are a host of ways that we can address that issue in legislation. Often, I feel like we’re talking about it in a school setting or in a healthcare setting. And those probably are two of the primary ways that we seek to make sure that teachers and healthcare providers are able to express their convictions and really, more importantly, not behave in a way or be forced to behave in a way that’s counter to them. Much of our Supreme Court work is anchored in the principle of religious liberty. So you may know that the ERLC engages Capitol Hill. We engage the White House, but we also engage the court system too, the Supreme Court being the primary place of engagement for us. And so the two cases in the domestic religious liberty space that we are engaging this term are the Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections case and the First Choice Women’s Resource Center v. Platkin, which is a case that has to do with the privacy of donors in a pregnancy resource center in New Jersey.

And so those are two cases that we both engage in the form of amicus briefs, but then also advocacy. And then moving into kind of a blended topic. It’s both global and domestic, I would say. And it’s countering antisemitism, and this is something that is a deeply held priority for many of us here in the Southern Baptist Convention and really beyond just the SBC. It’s clear when you take a look at what’s happening in the Middle East, but then when you also take a look at what’s happening on many college campuses and different settings, just seeing some of the hateful behavior and rhetoric towards Jewish people should break our hearts. And so it’s imperative that we advocate for just treatment for Jewish people both home and abroad. So it’s a little bit of a dual issue. Regardless of where this is happening, it’s something that we should be stalwart in our convictions about.

There’s no room for behavior like that, let alone any sort of violence or discrimination. So that’s a bit of a dual issue for us when it comes to religious liberty and continuing to prioritize that. And then globally, you mentioned Nigeria, which was recently designated by the president as a Country of Particular Concern, which might just sound like a whole lot of words to people, but what that basically means is there has been just a string of abhorrent treatment happening to Christians and other religious groups in Nigeria at the hands of a militia group that’s trying to overthrow the government. And so what happened finally caught the attention of the State Department in a way that they determined, okay, we’re going to impose restrictions on this country and their government until they’re able to abide by very strict standards of human rights. So that was a long held priority for this organization and many of our partners.

It’s a huge victory that we’re so grateful to the president for, but it’s not the only country where Christians and other people of faith are being persecuted from what they believe, whether it’s China or Burma. There are countless examples of this type of violence and oppression. So it’s important that we have a strong Office of International Religious Freedom. That’s been a priority of ours since the outset of this Trump administration. We’d like to see them swiftly confirm an ambassador at large for that position. That would be a strong signal that the United States doesn’t stand for this kind of behavior.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Katy, again, while you think about sanctity of life issues, we think about religious liberty issues, but marriage and family, some top priorities in 2026 that would be within that arena of our third of our four goals in areas. What are marriage and family priorities coming up?

Katy Roberts:

Definitely. The biggest priority that we’re taking a look at is opposing taxpayer funding for what we would call gender transition procedures and interventions. So really in the last decade, gender ideology has taken a huge turn, whether it is in the rhetoric of gender and what people believe about their biological sex and whether they’re able to circumvent that in their use of different pronouns or language or whether they actually determine that they want to reject the gender that God gave them and undergo a series of procedures and take medication to try to become the opposite sex. And we’re seeing this happen, really devastatingly increased rates, particularly in the past five years. So this is probably the top priority area for us in the marriage and family space, is opposing any federal furthering of this ideology any way that it’s being funded by the federal government.

That is, it’s also a matter of prayer too, because many of these individuals, some of them are children, are really sincerely convinced that this is true of them, that they were born in the wrong body, that they desire to change their sex and depart from God’s design for them. And so it’s not only a matter of access, it really is a matter of prayer. And then looking at the Supreme Court landscape, again, women’s sports has been a little bit of a buzzy topic the last couple of years tangentially related to gender transition work, and rightfully so. The court is considering two cases this term on state laws that ban biological men from women’s sports. And the ERLC filed a brief in both of these cases and argued that transgenderism is not and shouldn’t be a federal protected class. So we’re waiting to see what the good folks over at the Supreme Court have to say about that here pretty soon. We’ll continue to successfully advocate for tax policies that help incentivize marriage and ensure that families are supported by the federal government when they’re in a vulnerable situation to a reasonable degree.

And that’s probably the bulk of what we’ll take a look at this year in the marriage and family space.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

Great. We have one more area. I know this is sort of our final here on our time together, but the fourth category that we want to talk about is human dignity and, you know, that really encompasses everything that we, those other three areas, but very specific things in that area of human dignity. So are there any particular things that Southern Baptist should be aware of in 2026 that would kind of come under that category of advocating for our biblical view of human dignity?

Katy Roberts:

I’ll harken back to a few things that a few of our different state conventions have raised and brought to our attention that I think are top priority in this lane. And that would be kind of concern about artificial intelligence and what that means for human dignity. I think that because of the rapid acceleration of this type of technology, both the federal government and the average churchgoer isn’t quite sure about ethical use of this sort of technology. We have a whole host of experts on our team that could speak to that better than I could. But we’re thinking about this on the policy team and what it means to regulate this type of technology. We’re hesitant to be overly prescriptive at the federal level, but we also recognize the need for some sort of accountability for these companies to regulate, but also balancing the fact that a lot of states have really great proposals out there to protect their people from some of the harms of AI.

So we’re taking a look at that, to say the least. And then continuing to support efforts where we can to ban pornography and, tangentially related, to protect children online. It’s no secret that kids have unprecedented access to the internet at younger and younger ages. So it’s important that not only parents think about how to protect kids, but this is something companies should be thinking about, something lawmakers need to be thinking about, teachers, really everybody. There’s no corner of the community that this question doesn’t touch. So primarily we’re looking at legislation in this space that would impact age verification for different types of content and websites. Again, a lot of states have great precedent on this. I’m thinking of Texas and last year’s Paxton Supreme Court case that we saw the court decide favorably in, but there’s still much ground to gain at the federal level.

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth:

I think even as one who’s sort of stepped into this position during this interim time, I’ve been so, on the one hand, overwhelmed at the vast number of significant policy issues that are out there and, yet, not only overwhelmed on the one side, but so grateful on the other to realize that we as Southern Baptists, we have someone like you and others on our team who keeping an eye on the ball. I think that’s so very important for those who might question what does the ERLC do? Why do we need an ERLC? Do we need one at all? Again, just grateful. And I would want to close, and Katy, I want to give you one more question, but before we get to that question, I’d just like to sort of state, if I might, is that really the work of the ERLC, while it deals with policy and all of these very significant current relevant public square issues, is that our greatest concern is the lostness of the world.

And when we think about partnering with our other SBC agencies all across the board, particularly our International Mission Board, my dear friend Paul Chitwood and his leadership and so many others. But you know, Southern Baptists, may we never, ever lose sight of the fact that the greatest problem we have is a spiritual lost condition of people around the world. And even our work, we believe, and I believe is a part of our gospel mandate and our Great Commission mandate. And so I’d just be kind of curious on your end as the policy person on a daily basis, how do you see the ERLC’s pursuit of these areas that are very critical to us that we’ve talked about today, really being a part of the gospel witness that we as Southern Baptists have in the public square? Give us your take on that.

Katy Roberts:

Well, I think you just hit the nail on the head and it’s a blessing to have someone as our interim president that believes that with sincerity. So I’m grateful for your conviction and leadership there. And so I think my perspective is very similar. It’s our top priority to recognize that our goal is to worship God well. We were made to be restored to relationship with him, to right relationship with him. And we can have all these conversations about systems to create and policies to enact, but none of it matters if we are not reconciled to Christ and we repent to our sin and are able to be free by the blood of Jesus. So, you know, it’s our job to go to Capitol Hill and to different branches of the government and say, here is a framework or a policy or an issue that Southern Baptists think is how we can worship God best in this world. 

But ultimately it’s our prayer that the gospel would go forth. It’s our prayer that we would minister to lawmakers and partners and staff and to say, sure, we desire for this outcome to be implemented. But more importantly, that’s an outflow of our conviction of what we believe is true. And I think it all comes back to an acknowledgement of truth. And I think in conversations, I am reminded most often that if we believe that Scripture is true, it should change everything about the work on our hands. So I can say we confidently believe that here at the ERLC, not just for the sake of American prosperity, but for the sake of the gospel around the world. 

Narration:

In 2026, the ERLC will continue to prioritize engagement on issues of life, religious liberty, marriage and family, and human dignity in a way that faithfully represents the consensus of Southern Baptists. Through our legislative, legal, and advocacy work. Our goal is to bring the moral principles of Scripture to bear on public policy as we carry the truth of Scripture and the hope of the gospel with us into a chaotic culture and before our national leaders. Please join us in praying for this continued work as we seek to serve your church in the public square. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the ERLC podcast. Join us next time as we discuss racial reconciliation.