Trump's task force to "eradicate anti-Christian bias" is a complete waste of time
His executive order didn't cite a single credible example of anti-Christian bias
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During his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Donald Trump announced the formation of a Justice Department task force that would eliminate "anti-Christian bias" in the federal government.
If you’re a normal person who follows the news, the natural response to this would be, “What anti-Christian bias?” You would think the people who make up the most popular religion in the country, and 87% of Congress, and 98% of elected Republicans are doing just fine. Complaining that Christians have it rough is like saying the problem with racism in America is that it really hurts white people. If Christians are the victims, I’m sure non-Christian groups would be thrilled to swap places with them, at least with regard to how much persecution they receive and how much political power they have.
And when you read Trump’s executive order on the subject, it’s clear whoever wrote it couldn’t think of any examples of this so-called bias. I’m not saying there are no good examples of it. I’m saying there are no examples of it.
Let’s go through the specifics.
Yet the previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities. Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee as a part of a politically motivated prosecution campaign by the Biden Administration. I rectified this injustice on January 23, 2025, by issuing pardons in these cases.
Those “peaceful pro-life Christians” were not merely praying and demonstrating and singing hymns. Nine of them “forcefully entered” a health care clinic and blocked doors to the facility. The indictment against them said they violated the law by using that obstruction to “injure, intimidate and interfere with the clinic’s employees and a patient.” Oh. And one of them was hoarding dead fetuses.
Lauren Handy was sentenced to nearly five years in prison for leading the blockade by directing blockaders to link themselves together with locks and chains to block the clinic’s doors. A nurse sprained her ankle when one person pushed her while entering the clinic, and a woman was accosted by another blockader while having labor pains, prosecutors said. Police found five fetuses in Handy’s home after she was indicted.
Those were not victims of anti-Christian bias. Those were Christians who wanted others to suffer.
The Trump order goes on to say:
At the same time, Catholic churches, charities, and pro-life centers sought justice for violence, theft, and arson perpetrated against them, which the Biden Department of Justice largely ignored. After more than 100 attacks, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning this violence and calling on the Biden Administration to enforce the law.
The Biden Administration did not ignore those attacks. But the Justice Department is likely not going to get involved when the crimes in question involve graffiti or broken windows (as opposed to, say, arson), and most of the attacks against churches were of the petty crime variety. If there are more serious acts of vandalism against churches, then those should absolutely be prosecuted with the same vigor as other crimes, but there’s no evidence those were ever ignored.
Furthermore, as USA Today notes, “The number of vandalism incidents against churches remains small compared with incidents targeting abortion clinics documented annually by the National Abortion Federation, an abortion rights group.”
Then, in 2023, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) memorandum asserted that “radical-traditionalist” Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as “threat mitigation.” This later-retracted FBI memorandum cited as support evidence propaganda from highly partisan sources.
That document was never actually released by the FBI. Some employees in a Virginia field office put together an internal document linking violent extremism with “‘Radical Traditionalist Catholic (RTC)’ ideology,” and that document was then leaked to right-wing media outlets. When the FBI looked into this, they quickly rescinded the document, saying it “failed to adhere to FBI standards” and “formally admonish[ed] the employees involved.” (Then-FBI leader Christopher Wray said the memo “violated the agency’s policies on conducting investigations based on religious affiliation,” which is a ridiculous reason to dismiss a memo that necessitated the mention of a guy’s religious affiliation.)
That’s not anti-Christian bias. That’s the FBI punishing employees who argued such a bias might exist without laying the proper foundation for such a claim. That sounds like the government working as it should.
But when you look at the details, you realize even the initial allegation wasn’t stemming from a place of bias!
According to the FBI, they began tracking a man who advocated civil war and the assassination of politicians… and then purchased semi-automatic weapons and ammo. He was then arrested for other reasons, but in jail, his online threats grew even worse. Once he was released, there was reason to believe this guy wanted to put his rhetoric into action. That’s when the guy began attending a church that’s not formally affiliated with the Catholic Church but pushed “traditional Catholic theology and liturgy.” He also described himself on social media as “‘Fascist and Catholic’ and a ‘[radical-traditional (rad-trad)] Catholic clerical fascist.’” Even worse, it appeared that he was recruiting members in that church to carry out an attack.
The man was then arrested. When the FBI interviewed the church’s priest, choir director, and other members, it seemed all of them knew exactly why the FBI wanted to speak to them. It was that guy, wasn’t it? They cited his “unusual” and “concerning” behavior and racism.
The point is: The church wasn’t really the problem. It was just that guy.
When two FBI analysts began drafting a memo about all this, noting potential areas of concern for the future, one possibility was the link between the man’s extremism and his faith. But even that possibility was dismissed by the very same analyst, who pointed out that this guy was already on the FBI’s radar before he ever joined this church. Still, if this guy was recruiting members for an assault through this church, perhaps there was reason to investigate them further—if for no other reason than to help churches like theirs identify potential threats in the future.
When the analysts did more research, they learned there were two other men on the FBI’s radar who had similar extremist ideologies and a connection to the same kind of church. That’s what led to the publication of a report suggesting the link… which contained errors for other reasons, which led the FBI to rescind it.
So once again: There was no anti-Christian bias here. It was a valid documentation of a potentially dangerous phenomenon. It wasn’t even against the Catholic Church, but rather a potentially extremist sect calling itself Catholic.
To ignore that possibility would have been malpractice on the FBI’s part. But right-wing websites were quick to claim the FBI was targeting Catholics who preferred a “Traditional Latin Mass.” (That was one of many descriptors of those churches.) It was a lie. But conservatives love spreading lies that feed their claims of persecution.
What else did Trump say?
The Biden Department of Education sought to repeal religious-liberty protections for faith-based organizations on college campuses. The Biden Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sought to force Christians to affirm radical transgender ideology against their faith. And the Biden Department of Health and Human Services sought to drive Christians who do not conform to certain beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity out of the foster-care system. The Biden Administration declared March 31, 2024 — Easter Sunday — as “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
No religious liberty protections were removed for faith-based groups. In 2023, the Department of Education suggested getting rid of some Trump-era rules that required all colleges receiving federal money to recognize religious groups on campus—giving them access to student fee funds and meeting spaces. Why get rid of those? Because religious discrimination was already prohibited under the law, and the Trump rules allowed “religious student groups to discriminate against vulnerable and marginalized students.” (If a religious group prohibited women from becoming leaders, did the school have to recognize it? Under the Trump rules, schools had to choose between rejecting faith-based discrimination or getting financial assistance.) That wasn’t anti-Christian bias. That was an attempt to eliminate confusion while protecting First Amendment religious freedoms.
The EEOC did not try to force Christians to affirm trans people. Rather, the Affordable Care Act says health insurance plans can’t discriminate on the basis of sex, and the Christian Employers Alliance sued to make sure insurance plans didn’t cover gender-affirming surgeries. They won that case in court… and that was that. But there was no anti-Christian bias in play, just a government agency trying to make sure everyone was following the law.
The HHS didn’t trying to shove Christians out of the foster-care system, either. They simply wanted to make sure agencies receiving taxpayer funds honored kids’ names and pronouns… and respect LGBTQ kids who may be placed in their care. (We’ve seen these issues play out at the state level too.) Conservative Christians complained because their bigotry doesn’t allow them to respect kids who are gay or trans. But once again, was the goal here to punish Christians or to make sure vulnerable kids are placed in safe and healthy environments?
Finally, the argument that the Biden Administration declared Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day of Visibility” is a farce. I’ve debunked this one before, but TDOV has been on March 31 for the past 15 years. In 2024, that coincided with Easter Sunday. I repeat: It was a coincidence. But conservatives pretended like the calendar was persecuting them.
In the entire executive order promising to prevent anti-Christian bias, Trump doesn’t name a single actual example of anti-Christian bias.
Because it doesn’t exist.
The “task force,” however, will be led by new Attorney General Pam Bondi, the bulk of his eventual Cabinet, and a host of other people who don’t give a shit about non-Christians. They’re tasked with identifying anything that has “contributed to unlawful anti-Christian governmental or private conduct”… which is a hard ask considering those items are figments of their imagination. (But you can expect them to make up even more examples of this bias—some agency once said “Happy Holidays” and that means they hate Jesus!—then declare victory after saying they’ve solved a problem they conjured out of thin air.)
This isn’t ultimately about eradicating anti-Christian bias. It’s a symbolic move to reinforce Christian supremacy. Americans United for Separation of Church and State put it well:
If Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he’d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities, but instead, he’s abolishing federal programs and protections that address those wrongs. This task force is not a response to Christian persecution; it’s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian Nationalist nation.
The Trump Administration’s goal is to make sure conservative Christians never have to play by the same rules as everybody else while shielding their version of Christianity from any consequences stemming from their right-wing ideologies. At no point will they consider that non-Christian groups have ever suffered any kind of persecution… because that would require a kind of empathy they don’t possess.
The most telling thing about this task force should be that Trump announced it during a private Christian event inside the U.S. Capitol. He also announced during the same event that his White House faith office would be led, once again, by Christian evangelist Paula White-Cain. (Because the only faith that matters to this White House is conservative Christianity.)
No other religious or non-religious group could ever expect similar access. Yet Republicans insist that Christians are the ones who are truly victims.
If you want a real example of a Christian getting harassed by a presidential administration, you don’t have to look that far back. Two weeks ago, a religious leader politely asked Trump to follow Jesus and have mercy on the marginalized. Republicans responded by saying she should be “added to the deportation list” (she was born in New Jersey), implying that she was an idiot, and insisting that she’s bad at her job.
That’s a far more direct example of anti-Christian bias than anything Trump whipped up in his useless executive order.
Question: can we get real about the fact that this is not about any previously existing anti-Christian bias, and what it is really about is Trump support of any Christian action, regardless of whether it is peaceful, violent or indifferent? Trump is clearly determined to appear as pro-Christian as is humanly possible, while not exhibiting any of the qualities that people ordinarily associate with that religion. What he is doing, above and beyond anything else, is pandering.
And he deserves to be called out for it.
This directive is absurdly unconstitutional, not that Trump has any respect for the Constitution or the rule of law generally. Our secular government cannot choose one religion over another. Period. The Constitution does not carve out an exception for Christians. The real obscenity here is the idea that the most grotesquely immoral President in American history, is somehow a fine Christian.