Desperate to show Democrats are "promoting atheism," Republicans divulged sensitive data

Atheists face religious persecution in Sri Lanka and Nepal. Rep. Michael McCaul and his GOP allies just painted huge targets on their backs.

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Republican leaders are literally putting atheists’ lives in danger, perhaps in a desperate attempt to excite their base over culture war issues.

Yesterday, GOP members of congress publicized information that had, for over a year, been a closely guarded secret. There’s no telling what could happen if more detailed information falls into the wrong hands.

Why the U.S. government is protecting the religious freedom of atheists

To make sense of this, you have to go back to April of 2021, when the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor announced that it would be offering one or two grants totaling $500,000 to groups that wanted to fund a project to “support Religious Freedom globally.”

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) was specifically meant to help people often branded as apostates in parts of South/Central Asia or Middle East/North Africa.

Examples of possible projects listed on the application included legal rights advocacy (to protect non-theists in majority-religious nations), journalism (to promote dialogue between religion/non-religious people), and increasing the capacity to document abuses of religious freedom.

None of the money was earmarked for promoting or advancing atheism.

It was always about helping atheists who may face obstacles as a result of what they believe.

Let me say that again: This money was meant to advance the U.S.-backed cause of religious freedom. The money helps people, regardless of their views. If religious minorities face persecution anywhere, our nation has decided it’s worthwhile to help them out as best we can. It’s an extremely noble cause.

As we’ve seen repeatedly in the Freedom of Thought Report released by Humanists International each year, atheists are uniquely targeted in countries where they are in the minority, with punishments including prison time and execution.

All of this was explained in the original funding announcement:

[The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor’s] goal is to ensure everyone enjoys religious freedom, including the freedom to dissent from religious belief and to not practice or adhere to a religion. By not adhering to a predominant religious tradition, many individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, in civil and criminal proceedings, and other areas especially in the context of intersectional identities. DRL’s objective is to combat discrimination, harassment and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities by strengthening networks among these communities and providing organizational training and resources.

That last sentence may be a bit confusing because it suggests the objective is to help atheists as opposed to any religious group, but that is just DRL’s objective with this particular call for grant proposals. The bureau’s overall goal is much broader.

It’s not like promoting religious freedom for atheists is the only item on DRL’s wishlist, either. They’ve offered funding to combat antisemitism online, to promote religious freedom in (majority Buddhist) Burma and (majority Muslim) Bangladesh, to assist freedom of expression in Morocco, and so many other worthy efforts.

Regardless of your feelings about the U.S. government, we should all be glad our country supports these causes. If we really care about religious freedom, then helping religious (and non-religious) minorities in other countries is paramount to advancing our overall goals.

But conservatives couldn’t get past the idea that the Biden administration was using taxpayer money to advance atheism overseas, no matter how wrong that idea was.

Republicans began weaponizing the policy in 2022

In June of 2022, well over a year after the call for this particular grant proposal was first announced, the Republican Study Committee (RSC) chairman, Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, trashed the entire thing and wrote it off as an attempt to “promote atheism worldwide”… which, as I explained above, it was not.

Rep. Jim Banks (screenshot via YouTube)

In a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Banks and 14 other members of Congress claimed the government was working to “empower” atheists—an act they clearly believed was anti-Christian.

We are writing to express our grave concern that the State Department is using appropriated funds to support atheism and radical, progressive orthodoxy across the world.

…

… As an initial matter, therefore, we would like to know what other United States government programs supported with appropriated funds are being used either to encourage, inculcate, or to disparage any official belief system – atheist, humanist, Christian, Muslim, or otherwise. It is one thing for the Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems, and to encourage governments to respect the religious freedom interests of their citizens. It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists, non-practicing, and non-affiliated in public decision-making. Any such program – for any religiously-identifiable group – in the United States would be unconstitutional.

…

… This would be analogous to official State Department promotion of religious freedom “particularly for Christians” in China, with the express goal being to build a corresponding missionary network. Obviously, this goal that would never pass constitutional muster and would be derided by radical leftist bureaucrats in your agency as completely out-of-bounds. So why is this atheist NOFO [Notice of Funding Opportunity] not viewed with similar objection?

The argument may have sounded reasonable… until you looked closely. Banks argued that this funding promoted atheism in a way that was illegal, and that this was analogous to promoting religious freedom for Christians in China, which would NEVER EVER happen.

Except it does happen.

All the time.

And anyone who looked at the other projects promoted by the agency would know that. Banks neglected to mention how the DRL has, in fact, done exactly what he said they wouldn’t do.

In a similar call for grant proposals to promote religious freedom in Afghanistan, the agency literally mentioned the importance of helping “Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Hindus, and others.” A different call for expanding religious tolerance in Mozambique pointed out the prevalence of “religiously motivated discrimination among the various Christian faiths practiced in northern Mozambique.” Another call for proposals to support religious equality in Bangladesh highlighted how the “government sometimes fails to hold accountable the perpetrators of mob violence against minority Hindu, Christian, Ahmadi, and Humanist communities.”

All of those are problems. All of these demand our attention. If the United States can assist in protecting religious freedom in places where it is under attack, no matter who’s under attack, it’s a worthy goal.

What Banks was doing was cherry-picking one proposal out of many—one that assisted atheists specifically—and claimed it was actually a government endorsement of godlessness. It was nothing like that. Banks just didn’t know how to read, or Google, or hire staffers who had any competence in their jobs.

Why did he do that? I would argue this had nothing to do with defending the Constitution. This letter was all about stoking the Culture Wars and angering white evangelicals who would never take the time to dig into the details. I feel comfortable saying that because Banks, in that same letter, also denounced Black Lives Matter and “Critical Race Theory,” slammed abortion rights, and equated atheism with “Marxism and communism.”

He was never trying to make sense. He was just throwing shit at the wall to see if any of it would stick. He just wanted the headlines.

And right-wing propagandists gave it to him. Here’s a headline from FOX later that day:

On a side note, the letter said atheism and humanism were “official belief systems,” therefore any defense of them was, by definition, unconstitutional. I don’t buy that argument at all; promoting freedom for non-religious minorities is not synonymous with endorsing atheism. But that specific line included a strange footnote:

You might think that tweet from the American Humanist Association said something like “Humanism is an official belief system” because why else would he link to it? But no! That’s not what it said! Not even close. This is the tweet Banks linked to:

That was an old tweet referring to anti-trans comments made by Richard Dawkins. What did that have to do with Humanism being a “belief system”? No clue. Banks just tossed it in there, I assume, because he wasn’t counting on anyone to closely read his letter.

In any case, the letter included a handful of specific questions the Republicans wanted answer to. They boiled down to these, which I’m paraphrasing:

• Who got the money?

• How much did they get?

• What will these groups be doing with the money?

There were also questions designed specifically for the MAGA crowd, asking why the State Department wanted to “promote radical work organizations abroad” and why they would be “promoting a belief system” that represented a minority in the U.S. (To be clear, there’s no reason to believe anything “radical” was happening, and promoting religious freedom obviously means promoting the freedom of religious minorities.)

If you set aside the MAGA questions, there were legitimate ones in the bunch. I also wanted to know who got the money and what it was being used for.

Last August, I filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of State to get those answers. As of this writing, I still haven’t received a response.

Republicans couldn’t get answers, so they continued weaponizing the policy

As I said earlier, that letter from Rep. Banks was sent out in June of 2022.

Two months later, in August, he sent a follow-up letter noting that “no responses have been provided thus far.” Banks also pointed out that constituents had reached out to his committee’s members demanding answers… without mentioning his own role in stoking the fire in right-wing media.

Since we sent our letter, many of our constituents have reached out with concerns not only about the State Department’s promotion of atheism, but also about its apparent promotion of “humanism”—an official belief system---as well as the State Department’s promotion of other radical, divisive, and destructive cultural policies. Americans deserve to know why the State Department is committed to spreading atheism abroad, and which foreign, anti-religious groups are receiving their tax dollars.

The letter also called on the State Department to preserve all documents connected with this grant program (even though there was no reason to think those documents were being destroyed).

Why wouldn’t the State Department give answers to these members of Congress? Think about that for a moment. It’s not hard to come up with a plausible answer. It’s entirely possible that telling the public where the money was going could put atheists in danger. The last thing you’d want to do is announce an ongoing plan intended to help people whose beliefs paint a target on them.

These Republicans didn’t seem to care. They wanted answers. And if they couldn’t get them, they wanted to treat the State Department as if it was pursuing some rogue liberal agenda.

In February of 2023, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Mike McCaul entered into the picture. The Texas Republican sent his own letter to the State Department (and passed it along to the National Review).

Rep. Michael McCaul (screenshot via YouTube)

“I do not take lightly the plight that some non-believers face in coercive environments,” McCaul wrote, before falsely suggesting that the State Department was “promoting a specific secular agenda.”

Without more information—which has been requested by my colleagues in Congress but never supplied by the Department—about other U.S. government support being offered to adherents of various religious faiths, I have no choice but to assume those groups are not receiving the same privileged attention and funding as atheists.

That was bullshit. He didn’t need “more information” from the State Department. He could’ve done what I did: search the other NOFO announcements.

Here’s one meant to promote religious tolerance in Nigeria. And here’s one intended to help “marginalized racial and ethnic communities in Europe.” And here’s one to address “severe violations of religious freedom” around the globe.

The point is that other groups get attention, too. There was one application to help atheists. There are plenty of others to help protect religious freedom in other situations. Just as it should be.

McCaul’s letter appeared to be written by someone who had no knowledge of what this program was, or how it worked, or what the broader goal was. And yet he demanded specific answers… even though publicizing those answers could put people in harm’s way. (He could have requested that the State Department give him those answers if and only if it was safe to do so… but there was no such caveat in his letter.)

Naturally, Rep. Banks celebrated having another Republican demanding the intel:

In a statement to National Review, Banks thanked McCaul for taking up the investigation “after months of stonewalling from the Biden administration.”

“The House Republican majority will not tolerate the unconstitutional and harmful funding of atheism abroad,” he continued. “Americans believe in free exercise of religion, not state-supported atheism, and taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for this anti-American program.”

There’s nothing “anti-American” about promoting religious freedom. But MAGA Republicans seized on the opportunity to paint the Biden administration as being pr-atheist.

Republicans finally got a response, and they’re being irresponsible with it

On Thursday, Rep. McCaul (along with GOP Reps. Chris Smith and Brian Mast) once again announced that the State Department was stonewalling them and they wanted answers. Nothing had really changed, so this could have been yet another attempt at getting news coverage at a time when the Republican Party are trying to draw attention away from Donald Trump’s alleged crimes.

But there was a revelation in the letter that we had not seen before.

McCaul noted that the State Department had responded to him in June—on two separate occasions— and he wasn’t satisfied with all the answers.

After nearly six months of silence, on June 8, 2023, the Department purported to explain the implementation of the NOFO but, in so doing, raised new questions. Then, on June 20, 2023, the Department finally produced a batch of documents related to the programs that were funded under the NOFO. This production, however, failed to answer many of the Committee’s previous questions and has brought to light additional concerns regarding the Department’s grant review process.

If the letter just ended there, fine. The Republicans and the State Department could continue going back and forth for a while, and maybe it’d get another headline in conservative media, and most Americans would never really care.

Instead, McCaul inadvertently revealed at least one organization that had received money from the State Department’s grant: Humanists International.

Why are Republicans putting this in writing?!

A footnote in his letter adds that Humanists International’s application said, “We will use our existing structures for dissemination and monitoring of grants to make available two sub-grants to member organizations in Sri Lanka and Nepal.” (The group, in essence, promised to give the money to its two member groups in those countries and monitor them using systems they already have in place.)

McCaul is furious because those member groups have an explicit interest in promoting Humanism… but there’s no reason to think the grant money was used for that purpose. Still, McCaul alleges that, by working with Humanists International, the State Department is “publicly negating the Department’s claim of neutrality.” (That’s a lie.)

The State Department must have also said a constitutional review of their grant—which Republicans demanded—was unnecessary because humanism isn’t a religion. McCaul claims it is and that the courts have treated it as such… but this is all a philosophical debate that gets away from the bigger picture. He’s angry that the application said the money would be used to “promote the positive aspects of humanism and other ethical non-religious worldviews” because he equates that with religious proselytizing, which is absurd.

Finally, McCaul points out that Humanists International works closely with the American Humanist Association, a group that’s fought for church/state separation in a number of contentious legal battles. As if the association itself should be a black mark on the group.

Far from advancing religious freedom, AHA often takes actions which are antithetical to the idea of religious freedom. HI’s close association with AHA speaks volumes about the true objectives of HI, and should be of grave concern to the Department.

Again, just pure bullshit right there. Promoting church/state separation helps strengthen religious freedom, not destroy it. McCaul even cites the AHA referring to attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast as “Christian Nationalists” as evidence the AHA is anti-Christian. Even though the label absolutely fits. He’s using a misleading right-wing talking point to tarnish two organizations that are actually advancing our nation’s goals.

We still don’t know how much money Humanists International received, if they were the only recipients of the money, and how that money is being used. It’s possible we won’t know those answers until after the programs are completed and the safety of everyone involved can be guaranteed.

Rather than keep that information closely guarded, McCaul just blurted it all out. He also mentions that there were training sessions held in Kathmandu, Nepal in early 2023, which is the kind of information that could be dangerous if religious zealots were able to trace who attended it.

His letter ends with a new set of pointless questions for the State Department. He wants to know if they “view Atheism and Humanism as religions,” and specifics about the Establishment Clause “training slides” used by the Department, and whether the Department is sufficiently concerned about the American Humanist Association.

It’s just a giant list of pointless requests meant to tie their hands in a game the State Department can’t possibly win.

Why the hell are Republicans revealing these details right now?!

It is absolutely appalling that the chairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (McCaul); Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations (Smith); and Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability (Mast) released these details with no concern about why the State Department may have wanted to keep them close to its chest.

Atheists in Sri Lanka and Nepal face serious danger. According to Humanists International’s Freethought of Thought Report, “blasphemy” is punishable with a prison sentence while religious instruction is mandatory in most schools. There are very few safe spaces for non-religious people to interact, much less talk about their beliefs in public. Humanists International trying to assist them is a risky endeavor that requires careful planning. I reached out to Humanists International for comment about all of this, but I wasn’t able to get a reply before publication.

Still, these Republican morons are so obsessed with this ridiculous idea that Christians are persecuted in the U.S. that they’re willing to blow up the entire project in order to score headlines in conservative media outlets and win a few seconds on FOX News’ primetime shows.

It’s completely irresponsible and perfectly on-brand for the GOP.

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