“From the earliest days of our republic, faith in God has always been the ultimate source of the strength that beats in the hearts of our nation. We have to bring religion back. We have to bring it back much stronger. It’s one of the biggest problems that we’ve had over the last fairly long period of time. We have to bring it back.” -President Donald Trump, National Prayer Breakfast, February 5, 2025
Under the great dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, the current president tore down the already thin and tattered wall meant to separate religion from government (“church and state”), a right guaranteed among the First Amendment’s freedoms.
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The president is supposed to be tasked with representing people of every religious and spiritual background, as well as non-believers. Still, he gave this address in a building that is the very symbol of our democratic republic.
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Trump continued: “And I really believe you can’t be happy without religion, without that belief. I really believe it. I just don’t see how you can be.” (Applause.)
This came from the same man who ordered police to forcibly invade a peaceful protest across from the White House so he could choreograph a photo op in front of a church.
This came from the same man who is hawking his supposed “God Bless the U.S.A” Bible for $59.99 to line his own pockets.
The hypocrisy gushed from every pore in his body when he attempted to praise police officers: “We have to cherish our police. It’s so dangerous. You open a car, and somebody starts shooting,” he rambled. “The door opens, and a gun is pointed at your face, and you can’t do a thing about it… Your friends will take them out, and it’s happened so many times, but you just — it’s so — such a dangerous thing. We have to cherish these people.”
This came from the same man who refused to call off his violent insurrectionists and then mass pardoned those who attacked, injured, and killed these “cherished” officers in the same building where he delivered his prayer breakfast diatribe.
When inclusion is anti-Christian
The day after his National Prayer Breakfast address, Trump signed an executive order titled, “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias” for the supposed purpose of protecting “the religious freedoms of Americans” but specifically to “end the anti-Christian weaponization of government.”
Trump accused his predecessors in the Biden administration of instituting an anti-Christian atmosphere in which, according to the executive order, “Catholic churches and institutions have been aggressively targeted with hundreds of acts of hostility, violence, and vandalism.”
Trump’s order enumerated several rationales for its release: “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.”
Yes, on his first day in office on January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden issued an “Executive Order on Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” which was specifically related to programs receiving federal Health and Human Services grants.
The order stated that “[e]very person should be treated with respect and dignity and should be able to live without fear, no matter who they are or whom they love.”
Federal law had already prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in employment, education, housing, health care, and credit. Then, the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County recognized that it is impossible to discriminate against someone for being LGBTQ+ without discriminating on the basis of sex. As such, pre-existing federal statutes were the basis for legal protections for LGBTQ+ people.
Two years later, the Biden administration issued new policy rules from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services directing state and tribal agencies across the country to fully implement existing protections for LGBTQ+ youth in foster care. The Children’s Bureau of the Administration for Children and Families (a division of HHS), which regulates child welfare programs run by state and tribal agencies receiving federal funds, proposed these rules in draft form in September 2023.
The Office of the General Counsel within the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a letter objecting to Biden’s executive order related to the operation of Catholic charities since it “create[s] conflicts between [rules’] requirement and Catholic teaching.”
The Conference of Catholic Bishops specifically opposed the order’s protection of transgender people. Noting that Catholic charities offer “emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence,” some of which are structured as single-sex environments, the order “arguably mandate[d] [the shelters] to house biological men who identify as women in single-sex facilities,” which violates the fundamental Catholic teaching of “the immutable difference between, and dignity of, men and women.”
Trump’s “anti-Christian bias” order reversed the Biden administration’s protections of LGBTQ+ people, which Trump defined as victimizing Christians: “My Administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians… My Administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.”
His order establishes a “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.”
During his first term, Trump also signed an executive order banning DEI programs in government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other institutions that held or applied for federal contracts. The stated purpose of the order was to “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping.”
DEI is the definition of patriotism
To be clear, the International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event occurring every March 31 since 2009. It is dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of anti-trans discrimination. It is also a celebration of their contributions to society. In 2024, it was a mere coincidence that it occurred on Easter Sunday.
Many Christians were not offended because they support transgender people. Besides, do Christians “own” Easter Sunday in a country that allegedly supports religious freedom? Do Christians “own” every Sunday because the majority of Christians practice their sabbath on Sundays?
To paraphrase the National Association for Multicultural Education: DEI is a philosophical and educational model founded on principles of freedom, justice, equality, equity, and the empowerment of human agency, integrity, and dignity. DEI affirms a standard of governmental, educational, and business policies and practices in organizing and sustaining positive, warm, and welcoming places essential in a democratic society. It values social and cultural differences and prizes the pluralism all people bring.
What is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents?
While many Christians view proselytizing as offering the gift of Jesus to the “nonbelievers,” many, if not most, individuals of other faiths consider it as not merely an imposition but a form of oppression. Christian proselytizing rests on a foundation of Christian privilege and a deep sense of entitlement in a U. S. context.
Trump scrubbed DEI from government websites because Christians are the real victims. Really?
Through his henchman, the world’s richest kleptocrat, Elon Musk, Trump destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which delivered essential lifesaving services and economic development to the world’s poorest people, but the only victims are Christians?
Though Trump’s master plan to “own” the Gaza Strip and deport approximately 2 million Palestinians from their homeland, the only victims are Christians?
The concept of “hegemony” describes the ways in which dominant groups successfully disseminate dominant social realities and social visions in a manner accepted as common sense, as “normal,” as universal, and as representing part of the natural order, even at times by those who are marginalized, disempowered, or rendered invisible by it.
Christian hegemony, resulting in Christian privilege, can be understood as the overarching system of advantages bestowed on Christians. It is the institutionalization of a Christian norm or standard that establishes and perpetuates the notion that all people are or should be Christian, thereby privileging Christians and Christianity and excluding the needs, concerns, religious cultural practices, and life experiences of people who are not Christian. At times subtle and often overt, Christian hegemony is oppression by neglect, omission, erasure, and distortion, and also by design and intent.
For the most part, Christian privilege involves the notion that one does not have to educate oneself on the beliefs and customs of other religious communities.
On the other hand, members of these other, often invisible, communities need to be familiar with Christian traditions and customs not only because of the massive promotion (hegemony) of Christian religious and cultural practices but also as a necessary condition for emotional and often physical survival to negotiate between the dominant Christian culture and their own ethnic and religious cultures.
The separation between “church and state” has suffered an increased battering. Candidates and elected officials don their Christian credentials like armor to repel potential attacks on their motivations and character.
Everyone has the right to hold any (or no) religious beliefs. This is a basic constitutional right, and more importantly, a basic human right.
So in the United States, where is the people’s right to freedom from religion?
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