On the religious question. If I recall, the United states isn't actively destroying any weird religions that cropped up. Unless they're dangerous ones like how crazy the Children of the Atom got.
But they are strongly encouraging that people adopt a kind of "American Christianity". Not officially because, you know, freedom of religion, but there's quite a bit of pressure nonetheless.
And just as a reminder, House's lasers were only minimally effective at intercepting nukes. Of the 77 nukes the Chinese sent towards Las Vegas, only 9 of them were shot down by lasers. It was his networked mainframes that did most of the work, being able to predict and force-transmit disarm codes to 59 of the nukes.
9 nukes got through. House thinks he could have gotten them all if the Platinum Chip had arrived before the nukes started flying. House was just lucky that none of the remaining 9 hit Las Vegas directly.