With all of Donald Trump’s meshuga (crazy) executive orders and policy initiatives creating a heap of gehakte tsuris (chopped troubles), it is easy to find ourselves tuning out the realities around us and dreaming of the United States government before it began to slide into a dystopian autocracy.
But the more we remain immersed in a fantastical dreamscape, the greater the risk that we prostrate ourselves — like Republicans in Congress, state houses, and governors’ mansions — and relinquish our voices and integrity, leading to the promotion of the very actions we oppose.
Related
Donald Trump wants you to believe he cares about Jews. He doesn’t.
The right’s battle against antisemitism is a smokescreen to hide the actual reasons for Christian nationalist attacks on higher education.
One such executive order Trump signed that some seemed to have tuned out is meant “to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government.”
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What!
What “anti-Christian weaponization of government”? Which president in the history of the United States has done anything other than promote Christianity and the notion that the country was founded as and remains primarily a Christian nation?
Acting on the fraudulent premise of the executive order, Secretary of State Marco Rubio instructed State Department employees to report any coworker who shows “anti-Christian bias.” Rubio is a member of a government task force created by the order to root out anti-Christian bias and weaponization.
Chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the work of the task force will last for two years. Members will “identify any unlawful anti-Christian” actions under the Biden administration, change policies it finds unacceptable, and suggest policies to correct past harms.
An internal cable obtained by Politico stated that the State Department will work in close contact with the task force to assemble material “involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration.”
In an order reminiscent of most dystopian novels, it directs government employees to spy on their colleagues and provide reports of any examples of anti-Christian bias, which will be held anonymously to protect tattlers’ personal security.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on February 5, Trump proclaimed: “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.”
Under the great dome of the United States Capitol in Washington, DC, the current president tore the already thin and tattered wall that was meant to separate religion from government (“church and state”) guaranteed among the First Amendment’s freedoms.
Trump is supposed to be tasked with representing all people of every religious and spiritual background as well as non-believers, and he gave this address in a building that is the very symbol of our democratic republic. The amount of hypocrisy he spouted under the Capitol dome could not have been visible from space.
Trump continued in his address: “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.” The crowd applauded.
This came from the 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 man who is hawking his supposed “God Bless the USA” Bible for $59.99 to line his own pockets.
The day following his National Prayer Breakfast address, Trump signed the executive order. The text accuses his predecessors in the Biden administration of instituting an anti-Christian atmosphere in government: “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 is related specifically 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.”
Does this sound “anti-Christian”?
Federal law had already prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in employment, education, housing, health care, and credit. The Supreme Court’s 2019 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. Since that decision, federal statutes banning sex discrimination became 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 “could create conflicts between the [rule’s] requirements 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 which are structured as single-sex environments, the conference said the order would “arguably mandate [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.”
“We urge HHS to reconsider the… reinterpretation of those sex discrimination provisions to include [sexual orientation and gender identity] requirements,” the letter says, “and to implement a religious exemption that properly respects religious charities’ statutory and constitutional rights.”
Trump’s “anti-Christian bias” order reversed the Biden administration’s protections of LGBTQ+ people, which Trump said victimized Christians. The order declared: “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.”
Weaponizing victimhood
To be clear, the International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event that has occurred every March 31 since 2009. It is dedicated to celebrating transgender people and raising awareness of the discrimination they face worldwide. It is also a celebration of their contributions to society. In 2024, it was a mere coincidence that it occurred on Easter Sunday.
But either way, how can celebrating the worth and dignity of every human being be considered “anti-Christian bias”?
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?
Trump and his MAGA movement have transformed the concept of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into accusations and epithets, claiming it is anti-white, anti-male, and anti-Christian and that it leads to the hiring of unqualified, poorly educated workers with no experience.
What is more “pro-American” and “patriotic” than programs and people who are attempting to bring about the promise of our founding documents?
Throughout his ceremonial speech commemorating the Holocaust during 2017’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Trump denounced the “horror inflicted on innocent people by Nazi terror” while never once mentioning Jews and anti-Semitism.
While many Christians view proselytizing as offering the gift of Jesus to the “unbelievers,” many, if not most, individuals of other faiths (and many non-believers) consider this as not merely an imposition or manipulation, but rather a form of oppression. In the United States, Christian proselytizing rests on a foundation of Christian privilege and a deep sense of entitlement.
Trump scrubbed any information on DEI from government websites because Christians are the real victims. Really?
Trump, through the world’s richest kleptocrat, Elon Musk, destroyed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which delivered essential lifesaving services, products, and economic development to the world’s poorest people, but the real victims are Christians?
Trump’s master plan was to “own” the Gaza Strip and deport approximately 2 million Palestinians from their homeland, but the real victims are Christians?
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, which 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 with the religious beliefs and customs of other religious communities.
Everyone has the right to hold any, or no, religious beliefs as they consider appropriate to suit their lives. This is a basic constitutional right, and more importantly, a basic human right to which all are entitled.
So how “separate” are religion and government in the United States? Where is the people’s right to freedom from religion?
What connects Trump and MAGA with all the people who wish to deny others the right of self-definition and self-expression is the overarching patriarchal heteronationalist Christian white supremist project, one based on an oligarchical dictatorial fascist foundation privileging the very few while controlling and disempowering the many who do not or will not conform and submit.
Today, the United States stands as probably the most culturally and religiously diverse country in the world. This diversity poses great challenges and great opportunities. The way we meet these challenges will determine whether we remain in the abyss of our history or whether we can truly achieve our promise of becoming a shining beacon to the world.
Trump’s executive order on so-called “anti-Christian bias” is a fraud, a manipulation to redefine the perpatrators as the victims of oppression, to somehow depict the recipients of unearned power and privilege as victims for the purpose of expanding this privilege while clamping down on criticism.
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