The Freedom From Religion Foundation is blasting the Justice Department’s just-released “anti-Christian bias” report — a political document masquerading as a civil rights analysis.
“The bogus findings of the ‘Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias’ were always a foregone conclusion,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor, “since the purpose of the task force was to presume and look for bias against only one class, conservative Christians, and seek to expand protections only for them. ”
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has chaired the task force, with 17 senior officials from federal departments and agencies. In the DOJ’s release, Blanche repeats the report’s central falsehoods, claiming: “No American should live in fear that the federal government will punish them for their faith. As our report explains, the Biden administration’s actions devastated the lives of many Christian Americans. That devastation ended with President Trump. The Department of Justice will continue to expose bad actors who targeted Christians and work tirelessly to restore religious liberty for all Americans of faith.”
The report advances Christian nationalist rhetoric, claiming that “our nation’s origin and system of government bear the imprint of a Christian worldview and ethic” and asserting that Christian beliefs drove the decision to seek independence and later shaped the Constitution and state charters: “After the Revolutionary War, Christians then informed the structure and contents of the United States Constitution, its amendments, and contemporaneous state constitutions.” This framing misrepresents the historical record by elevating one perspective above the pluralistic and secular foundations reflected in the nation’s governing documents.
The report absurdly suggests that its Christian nationalist agenda will somehow protect non-Christians, claiming: “By addressing anti-Christian bias and religious discrimination directly, Americans can make religious discrimination unthinkable for all faiths.”
The report focuses much of its ire on President Biden, a devout Roman Catholic in his personal life, who is being absurdly charged with devastating “the lives of many Christian Americans.” Efforts by the Biden administration to uphold nondiscrimination laws, protect LGBTQ+ Americans, and ensure that public institutions serve all citizens equally weren’t “anti-Christian”; they’re pro-Constitution, which promises equal justice for all.
Trump’s executive order creating the task force said that its purpose was to “end the anti-Christian weaponization of government.” It’s no surprise then that the report distorts the fundamental principle of religious freedom by reframing neutrality toward religion, as our Constitution requires, as hostility to Christianity. The report seeks to turn “religious liberty” into a license to discriminate. Claims that Christians were “targeted” for the enforcement of laws governing public health, civil rights and education invert reality. No one has the right to impose their religious beliefs on others, especially through government power.
The report’s attacks on policies addressing gender identity, public education and public health reveal its true agenda: elevating certain religious viewpoints above the rights and dignity of others — precisely what the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment forbids. Equally troubling is the report’s framing of routine legal and regulatory actions as persecution. The suggestion that enforcing the law against harassment at school board meetings or applying civil rights protections constitutes anti-religious bias is both misleading and dangerous.
FFRF warns that this report signals an escalation in the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to erode the separation between religion and government. It will continue to vigorously oppose efforts to misuse “religious liberty” to undermine true religious freedom, which protects civil rights for everyone and depends on secular governance.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 41,0000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
