The Biden administration openly discriminated against Christians and moved to target, marginalize, and selectively enforce policies against Christian individuals and organizations in their churches and workplaces, according to a report the Department of Justice released the morning of April 30.
The 556-page report details the findings of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, which was set up at the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term to investigate the Biden administration’s discrimination against Christians. According to the report, the Biden administration “generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith.”
The report cites findings that the Biden administration aggressively prosecuted pro-life Christians under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, more so than it prosecuted pro-abortion advocates or responded to pregnancy centers’ claims of violent attacks against them. It also points to numerous instances of the administration investigating Christians and Christian churches or organizations, showing little regard for conscience and religious protections, seeking to replace Christianity with LGBT ideology, and suppressing religious free speech.
>> DOJ releases report on Biden admin’s ‘weaponization’ of FACE Act <<
The task force highlighted the FBI’s investigation into traditional Catholics, which had questioned whether they were potentially violent extremists or domestic terrorists, according to the report. The force also found that the Biden-era IRS investigated other churches and Chrisitan non-profits because of their religious views and in one instance and denied a Christian organization’s application for tax-exempt status because its teachings from the Bible were “typically affiliated with the [Republican] party and candidates.”
Further investigation revealed that the Biden administration limited Christians’ access to government services based on their religious identities and values, denying them equal access to benefits including “federal economic relief, disaster assistance, security grants, and food programs.”
Discrimination extended into the workplace as well, according to the report. The administration required federal employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and generally refused or ignored applications for religious accommodations. It also attempted to force federal employees to abide by the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock decision despite their religious beliefs, effectively forcing Christians to affirm incorrect gender identities and sexual orientations or approve of “gender affirming care for minors.”
The Biden administration also showed tolerance for a medical center coercing a Christian nurse into participating in an abortion, withdrawing a notice of violation against the center, and leaving the nurse without “a meaningful federal remedy,” according to the report.
The task force noted that Christian discrimination is not limited to the federal government and pointed out that state and private entities have violated religious liberty protections through actions such as “COVID church closures, efforts to force out Christian charities via zoning enforcement, limitations on Christians’ parental rights, coercion of particular viewpoints in public education, and coercion of certain healthcare coverage with limited or no religious exceptions.”
The report reaffirmed the Trump administration’s commitment to protecting religious liberty, saying that the federal government is “returning to principles of equal justice under law for all Americans.”
“The fundamentals of our constitutional design are durable and sound, and the American spirit is resilient,” the report states. “The federal government must once again stand as a bulwark against religious discrimination.”
>> Report: Biden-era DOJ prosecutors discussed targeting Catholic nuns at Jan. 6 rally <<