America turns 250 and the Trump Administration is celebrating by rewriting the past and the present. Alison, Liz, and Rebecca discuss how the administration hijacked the nation’s planned bipartisan 250th anniversary celebration and turned it into a tax-payer funded Christian nationalist prayer revival. Then they dig into the report issued by the “Taskforce to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,” one of several task forces created by the administration to manufacture a “Christian persecution” narrative in order to privilege conservative Christianity under the law.
Show Notes
The report on “Biden Admin Weaponization of the FACE Act” (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances)
Just Security – "Separating Fact from Fiction in FACE Act Enforcement"
Federal Register: Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission
Cases
Rebecca Markert:
Welcome to We Dissent, the podcast with secular women attorneys discussing religious liberty issues in our federal and state courts and our work to keep religion and government separate. I'm Rebecca Markert with Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Liz Cavell:
I'm Liz Cavell with the Freedom from Religion Foundation.
Alison Gill:
And I'm Alison Gill with the National Women's Law Center.
Liz Cavell:
So by the time this episode comes out, we will all have celebrated the 250th anniversary of America. July 4th marks the actual anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and of course, many of our listeners will have heard that there's been a lot of government activity celebrating the 250th anniversary already. So, for today's episode, we're going to talk about how the current administration is exploiting our nation's 250th to rewrite the story of our nation's founding. And we're going to discuss a related topic, which is the government's kind of multifaceted approach to creating a Christian persecution narrative. So we've got the DOJ's task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias, and then we've got a couple of other agency task forces and working groups and we're going to just kind of go through it all and talk about how the administration is weaving this narrative of Christian nationalism and this concurrent narrative that I think supports so much of what we've been talking about in the authoritarian project, which is that somehow Christians in this country are actually under attack and being persecuted and that the government is rife with anti-Christian bias.
And so we're going to go through all of it, but we're going to start with the Rededicate 250 event. So guys, let's talk about Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise and Thanksgiving. This was an actual event that already took place as part of the administration's celebration of America's 250th anniversary. It took place on the National Mall on May 17th, so about a month ago. And this was basically an all-day taxpayer-funded religious revival on the National Mall featuring many elected officials, including the president who appeared via video statement. The vice president, the secretary of state, the then director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, the defense secretary, the speaker of the house. So lots of government elected officials appearing and speaking at what was basically a Christian prayer rally. And there were tons of clergy, basically far right wing evangelical Protestant pastors, Franklin Graham, the infamous pastor and son of Billy Graham and a bunch of other clergy. 19 clergy and faith leaders who were basically all Christian.
Maybe there was a token. I'm trying to remember or find in my notes if there was a token non-Christian there, but this was really truly an all out Christian eight hour revival on the National Mall.
Alison Gill:
That's amazing. I mean, do we know how much we paid for this from our taxes?
Liz Cavell:
This is such an important topic. And to answer that question, we kind of have to talk about more Trump administration corruption and just chicanery because obviously this 250th anniversary has been in the works for a long time. And 10 years ago in 2016, Congress actually appropriated money and created its own commission to handle the nation's celebration of this anniversary. They created America 250, which was a bipartisan commission that was going to be tasked with planning for the events. And instead, after the election of Trump again a second time in December of 2025, the president decided that he didn't like the bipartisan commission and didn't want to have to do bipartisan cooperation with Congressional Commission and instead created his own commission called Freedom 250. And just a bunch of administration loyalists took over the planning. And basically we don't know because of course none of this is being done transparently, but what has been able to sort of come out through investigative reporting and some I think information from Congress is that money has been basically taken from what was appropriated for America 250, the Congressional Commission, and has sort of been looted for the Freedom 250 Commission to just use as it sees fit for these totally partisan Christian nationalist events that haven't been planned by the Congressional Commission at all.
And we're talking in the hundreds of millions.
Alison Gill:
And since this is a nonprofit, the donors are not known, they're secretive. And since it's Trump's, he sort of directs it. They don't have to follow normal governmental systems for giving out money. They can sort of just funnel it to loyalists or I don't know, this is not the right example, but let's say pay his pool agency to fix things, for example, as opposed to going through normal contracts and bidding processes with the government. So it's this fund for corruption. And we know that certain groups that want to curry Trump's favor are giving money to it already.
Liz Cavell:
And right, that's totally separate from the looting and the not transparent process of collecting donations or maybe alongside that is we know that kind of like the so – called ballroom fundraising efforts, the administration is soliciting donations and my air quotes are going like bribes from private donors in exchange for access to the president. So it's another one of those things where it's like, if you donate X million dollars to Freedom 250, you get to go to this dinner where the president's going to be there. And it's total pay for access and also support this secretive partisan commission that is totally hijacking what was supposed to be this big, broad bipartisan celebration of our nation's 250th anniversary.
Alison Gill:
Can I just say that this annoys me every morning because I take the Metro into work and I live in DC, so I take the Metro in. And the Metro I go to overlooks the NOAA building, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. And so they have these big pillars you can see from the Metro, it overlooks it. And they say "Freedom 250" on these giant banners on this public agency. There's no mention of the America 250, the actual Congress endorsed programming. Instead, it's Freedom 250, this private sort of nonprofit system that Trump is shifting this money to. So I see it every morning. I'm like, "oh, Trump."
Liz Cavell:
Wow.
Rebecca Markert:
Well that brings up a really good point and sorry to sidetrack us a little bit here, but in all of this Rededicate 250, Freedom 250, I think really the fact that this revival happened sort of kicking off the nationwide celebration, celebrating the Declaration of Independence is really co-opting the ability of anyone else who doesn't identify as a Christian nationalist or with that preferred brand of Christianity. It really excludes them from celebrating the country. And for me, it really bothers me because I'm a bicentennial baby. I was born in 1976 and so I get excited about these celebrations and things like that. The last time I went to DC, I did get a little birthday cake that says 250 and it's all red, white and blue. But it feels
Liz Cavell:
Oh my God you're such a dork.
Rebecca Markert:
I know, but I love it. But it does feel like the entire purpose behind all of this is to really redefine not only what it means to be a true Christian, but what it means to be a true American. And if you don't subscribe to those beliefs, then you're excluded from all of that. And when you're talking about seeing these pillars in that banner, that just brings to mind to me like this celebration wasn't necessarily meant for us. And it's really disheartening and upsetting.
Liz Cavell:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's the whole point of it and we'll get into it in a minute. What actually went down at the Rededicate 250, that was the intent, right? I mean, not only to loot public money and hide donors, but the whole point is so that they could rewrite history and create an event that is partisan and exclusionary and doesn't have to deal with a bipartisan commission. That's going to concern itself with things like being inclusive, being honest about our history, being religiously pluralistic. And it's just sad. It's really sad. I mean, you are a dork with your birthday cake, but it is special and it should be a thing that is unifying the country and that we can all celebrate and take pride in. And instead it is just another opportunity to consolidate power and control, to raid the public coffers and just grift and steal money and also to divide Americans among religious lines, partisan lines.
And it's just ugly. I think originally the congressional appropriation for America 250 was like $150 million. And there's some lawsuits and other FOIA requests that are underway with the administration to find out how much Freedom 250 is redirecting and raiding public funds. But the allegations out there are that so little of that money has actually been appropriated and given to the actual commission that was formed by Congress, America 250. And Freedom 250 has gotten, I mean, one lawsuit has accused it of diverting 100 million of that. I think we know that they've gotten at least 60 to 70 million dollars of taxpayer funds that was appropriated to another thing. That's the thing. This keeps happening in this administration. And it happens so much that it's hard to even keep the urgency on what's going on. But these are congressionally appropriated funds. They are appropriated for this other thing.
Trump administration creates a totally separate thing and is like, "No, we'll just take that money up to half of that money already and do our own thing. All our own events, all our own programming. It's not bipartisan and only our people are involved." So in addition to Rededicate 250 being one of those things that Freedom 250 has already spent money on and hosted, they're doing all these other revisionist history propaganda initiatives. So they have these truck exhibits going around, retrofitted tractor trailer trucks that are supposed to be these mobile history exhibits. And it's Prager U and Hillsdale College content that it's the whole Christian nationalist rewriting of American history that is going around as mobile exhibits during the 250th. It's all just really sad and upsetting.
Alison Gill:
You said something a minute ago that I know we're going to come back to later, but we should explain it. Liz, what is a FOIA?
Liz Cavell:
What is a FOIA? A FOIA is a Freedom of Information Act request. FOIA is basically an open records law that applies to the federal government. And groups like ours, reporters, individual citizens all can make FOIA requests to any federal government agency or actor to request records because public records belong to the public. Yeah,
Alison Gill:
Democracy.
Liz Cavell:
Yes. Yeah. It's news to some in the administration, but it is actually true. And so that's the way that for time in memorial, civil society groups and reporters, media organizations would get information about their government through open records requests. And so that's taking place now. I think this will be recurring throughout all the topics we talk about today because that is one of the only ways that we can get information about what our government is doing by seeing the records.
Rebecca Markert:
And I'll just throw in here the FOIA requests and the investigations that are going on to get these records to figure out where is the money going, that is also really crucial, especially for organizations like ours that are looking into whether what happened at the jubilee, how it was put together, who was invited, and all of the other things is constitutional or not because it's really important for us to get that information before we can just file a lawsuit saying that this national jubilee was unconstitutional and illegal.
Liz Cavell:
Right. I mean, we know the thing itself, it was literally a government sponsored just Christian rally was just a gross violation of what the First Amendment stands for. But it's another thing to be able to go to court and challenge it or stop it or sue over it after the fact because it matters a lot being able to prove your own standing in court and also to show what the government… I mean, it's so flagrantly obvious because this is government officials up and down the government appearing at the thing and basically adopting the religious viewpoint on behalf of the government. But the funding piece, how much did taxpayers pay for this and how much government coordination and planning went into this? All of that is hidden. We don't know that. And so there's a lot of information seeking going on right now about the Rededicate 250 event and just the overall funding rating of public funds and how much money is being diverted to Freedom 250 and all the other things it's planning or spending money on.
We don't know the other events that the administration views as part of the Freedom 250 ambit, the birthday events, the UFC events, things like that. So all of this is information being sought by organizations and reporters. But again, we don't know.
Rebecca Markert:
So what we could see though was the speakers on that day in May. What did they talk about, Liz? Oh my
Liz Cavell:
Gosh.
Rebecca Markert:
And was this wildly successful? Obviously people must have just swarmed the National Mall to see these speakers and to jubilee with everyone. Well,
Liz Cavell:
There was such fervent hopes of America's Faithful coming to the National Mall to celebrate the Christian origins of our nation. I think, I can't remember, it was one of the pastors doing hype for the event that said 80,000 people are going to be there. So they used the word thousands to describe how many people showed up. So in my mind, that means more than 1,000. Yeah. 200. Yeah, you're right. They could just lie. But in my mind, that's a truthful way to say it was more than 1,000 or maybe more than 2,000. 2001 is thousands in the technical truth telling world. So there are lots of pictures that went around the internet of a bunch of empty chairs. The National Mall is a really big place to host your lame event. So there were a lot of empty chairs, a lot of empty space, but it was a humongous event.
People did attend. There were counter protests, including one by FFRF with a progressive Christian group called Faithful America, talk about later. But the vibe of the event was full on, it had fire and brimstone vibes. It was full on religious revival. The overall theme of everyone that spoke from the government officials down to Franklin Graham and Robert Jeffress, the big right wing evangelical preachers that spoke, all really honed in on the same theme, which is like we're rededicating America to its Christian roots. America was founded as a Christian nation. Several of the speakers talked about Christian nationalist identity specifically. Pastor Jeffress, who will be unfortunately talking about him later in the episode too. He's a big evangelical pastor/Trump insider who used his speech to say that the founders, if they were living today, they would all be called Christian nationalists. They're just like us. And also he said, "If being a Christian nationalist means loving Jesus Christ and loving America, count me in.
They're doing some –
Alison Gill:
It doesn't.
Liz Cavell:
What do you call it when you take back a slur?
Alison Gill:
Yeah.
Rebecca Markert:
What is that called?
Liz Cavell:
I want to say reappropriating.
Alison Gill:
Yeah, I guess that's right. No,
Liz Cavell:
It's not that. Well, Jeffress is trying to make it happen for Christian nationalism. I don't know if it's working. Well,
Alison Gill:
First of all, it's not a slur though. It's a
Liz Cavell:
True accurate district. Yeah, you've struck on exactly why it will not work, Alison, because it's just not the same thing. And another theme, several speakers said some version of this, which sent a chill down my spine, which is our rights don't come from government, they come from God. Some version of that, which is literally the opposite of what our nation was founded on. The whole idea that power comes from divinely inspired sources was the monarchy system that was being overthrown explicitly by our founders. But there was a lot of talk about how the whole project of American government and the rights of individuals are divinely inspired and they don't come from government. And I guess they're not inalienable or innate that it's all about religion and specifically Christianity. None
Alison Gill:
Of this is new. I mean, they talk about these Christian nationalist ideas all the time. The issue is them doing it from the National Mall with government funding and government officials, including the president and vice president. This is just such a… It's really kind of outrageous. It's sort of portrayal of Christian nationalism as our true history, despite the fact that it's false, ahistorical, and what's that great book titled? un-American, Christian Nationalism is Un-American. I'm trying to remember the exact name of who wrote that? I remember. I'm trying to remember.
Liz Cavell:
Very funny. My spouse and Rebecca's colleague, Andrew Seidel. The founding myth. Why Christian Nationalism is un-American? It was all founding mythology. It was just this myth making about how much our founders were dedicated to a nationalistic and almost a theocratic vision of our nation. It was truly just like Alison said, outrageous. Again, so many government officials spoke at this event and not just gestured at the religiosity of the whole enterprise, but actively spoke to the theme of America's a Christian nation. Our government is religious and religiously inspired. And anyone who says otherwise, you're not a part of this celebration because you don't accept this revisionist Christian nationalist version of American history. I will say several of the government speakers, many of them actually did appear in person, including the speaker of the house. Many of them gave statements by video, including the president who apparently golfed that day.
So that tells you a lot.
Alison Gill:
Priorities. Yeah.
Liz Cavell:
Unbelievable. He's the force behind the thing, but the man just doesn't go in for Christianity. He recycled his, maybe it was like his national prayer breakfast speech. He did a Bible verse and talked about Christian nationalism and this biblical version of power and government.
Alison Gill:
Two Corinthians.
Liz Cavell:
Two Corinthians. Yeah. Cool. Something like that. Don't ask him. He was golfing. Okay. So this is horrifying and it is a flagrant violation of everything our founders stood for in terms of the First Amendment in the establishment clause and the separation of church and state. There's a lot of information gathering going on about how this event came to be and what the government's involvement was and especially the level of taxpayer money that went to it. But we've got other things to talk about that are in this big milieu of it's all Christian nationalism all the time, all the way down. So the thing we want to talk about that's kind of going on alongside all the Freedom 250 Rededicate 250 stuff is what's happening across agencies in the Trump administration regarding ferreting out anti-Christian bias. So first let's talk about the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.
A real thing that was established early in the administration on February 6th, 2025 via a Trump Executive Order 14202 if you're going to Google it. And it basically established this task force that's to be chaired by the Attorney General of the United States, which at the time was Pam Bondi. And so this is going to be a task force that is seated in the DOJ, but also includes cabinet members and heads across 17 federal agencies, including state, defense, treasury, justice, the FBI and many others. This is an administration wide initiative. And the executive order basically set the task force up to do a few things that are totally real and not invented at all which is end the anti-Christian weaponization of government and eradicate anti-Christian bias. Review all departments and agencies for anti-Christian bias and actions and call for the heads of those offices to end all that bias and recommend actions for the president to take to rectify anti-Christian conduct and advance their version of religious liberty.
The other thing it tells the task force to do is issue reports. So it said one report after 120 days, another report after a year and a final report upon the task force's dissolution. But as far as we know, they've only issued one report and it was just in April. So they did one report about a year and some change after the executive order established the task force.
Alison Gill:
This seems like a follow-up or maybe there's a lot more agency involvement. But if you remember under the first Trump administration, there was the task force on what it called, unalienable rights.
Liz Cavell:
Oh God.
Alison Gill:
Right? Or maybe it was inalienable. I don't know. They framed it and that was a big thing to them, whether it was unalienable or inalienable. I remember there was a whole discussion on that. And it sort of discussed some of these issues and they came out with recommendations including some about education and making sure they use classical education and several others. So this is not the first time they've put together this sort of very tilted commission to talk and sort of ingrain Christianity in different places.
Liz Cavell:
You're right. And they did. Remember back in the first Trump administration, remember Jeff Sessions, the AG?
Alison Gill:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Liz Cavell:
Early-ish in the administration, he established the religious liberty task force also seated in the DOJ. Similar kind of a thing. It was
Rebecca Markert:
Like lifetimes
Liz Cavell:
Ago. It was lifetimes ago. And this thing we're talking about is so much worse because it is pointed at. It's directly telling the task force what to find
And what to manufacture if it doesn't exist. So they're going to issue reports. They're going to find all the anti-Christian weaponization and bias that is definitely in there. So they better find it. Of course, this is seated and funded by the DOJ. And then according to the executive order, it terminates after two years unless extended by the president. So right there in the executive order, you get all the partisan propaganda upfront, which is it says, "the Biden administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians while ignoring violent anti-Christian offenses." That's literally in the executive order. And the examples it gives are that the prior administration brought charges against people who obstructed access to an abortion clinic, more on that in a minute. Investigated domestic violence extremism among certain religious groups, pushed Christians who do not conform to certain beliefs on sexual orientation and gender identity out of the foster care system, and highlighted, this is a big offense, highlighted transgender day of visibility on the same weekend as Easter Sunday.
Alison Gill:
Yeah. The administration picks what day that happens. Clearly. It's not a sick day every year. Clearly it was intentional to make Christians angry at the transes, right?
Liz Cavell:
What an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians. So that's just the examples that are given in the executive order. And then of course the task force being asked to go forth and investigate and figure out all the other incidences of anti-Christian bias that existed in the government and apparently the last administration specifically. And so that was February of last year. Fast forward to April 30th, 2026, not too long ago. They come out with their first, and only so far, report. Now this thing is about 200 pages of report followed by approximately 360 pages of exhibits. It is long and it's incredible because it is truly just like a propaganda document and it does more of the laying out the revisionist history of religious freedom in America. There's a whole relevant history and legal principles section. And then it goes on to allege widespread Christian persecution by the Biden administration specifically in the federal government in what it calls the broader context in the private sector.
And then it gives some current efforts and future steps to take to eradicate all of this horrible bias.
Rebecca Markert:
So in 500 pages, 200 of the actual report but 300 plus in exhibits, are you telling me that there's no smoking gun?
Liz Cavell:
I mean, it depends on what you find smoking or a gun because what's funny is as we're prepping for this episode and we're going through all these different reports and we'll get to other versions of this across other agencies, you see a pattern, right? They found these few things that really happened and they have spun them or flat out lied about them into these examples of Christian persecution or anti-Christian bias, and then they repeat them over and over again to make it look like it's more than it is. If you put something in five reports, it's like, look at how widespread it is. So it's the same exact thing being lied about and repeated over and over again. So let's talk about some of the things that are actually in the report.
Alison Gill:
Well, one thing I noticed is that they over and over and over again basically set up this idea that if you're not propounding various policies that Christians want or if you're putting forth policies that certain Christians don't like, it's somehow anti-Christian bias. And so that's like the root of a lot of this. If you have a policy and you don't have broad enough religious exemptions, that's anti-Christian bias. If you have a policy that conservative Christians don't like, well, that's bias. So it's just over and over and over again we see that. And I think a good example is in LGBTQ issues, the Biden administration implemented Bostock with limited religious exemptions. That's the complaint specifically naming application to sports under Title IX, gender affirming care, and they called it HHS's burdensome case by case analysis for religious exemptions. So they were granted religious exemptions, but they were case by case, which is what RFRA, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires.
And the report says, "Well, that's too much. You just have a blanket exemption for all religious people. How dare you actually consider this case by case?" So that is considered anti-Christian bias, even though it's an accommodation itself, if that makes sense. That's just one example. I could go on and on.
Liz Cavell:
Right. And I mean, you get the flavor of this just from the EO, right? In the category of they recognize the trans day of visibility on Easter Sunday, that's aggressive hostility towards Christian? No, it's like pursuing a policy or stating a position of inclusivity of a marginalized community. And because our whole community finds it offensive, it's evidence of the government persecuting Christians or evincing an anti-Christian bias when the thing itself actually has nothing to do with religion or Christianity. There's many examples like that in the report. The anti-Christian bias quote unquote in the federal government is all in that flavor. And then there's some real enforcement things that have happened that when you scratch the surface, actually don't show anything like bias or anti-Christianity.
Alison Gill:
One of the major ones is the FACE Act stuff, right?
Liz Cavell:
Yeah. Why don't you go into that?
Alison Gill:
Sure. So the FACE Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act was a bipartisan bill passed more than 20 years ago, basically following a series of attacks on abortion clinics to make sure people have access to them. And it basically says if you try to block or restrict access to clinics as well as churches and anti-abortion clinics, also known as crisis pregnancy centers, then that's against the law, that's against federal law. So it creates a sphere of safety and helps people access their healthcare. So it's pretty important. And we saw, especially after Dobbs, this wave of increased violence in this area, there was a number of attacks on clinics. And so DOJ responded, investigated these. There were examples of firebombings. There were examples of blockades of clinic entrances. There were examples of assault against people trying to access clinics or providers. So like violence, real violence.
And people were investigated and convicted, found guilty by a jury for violating the FACE Act. You might remember early in Trump's administration, he pardoned 24 people after they had violated the FACE Act. So these are people that their jury of their peers found to have committed violent acts against clinics and people that work there and patients. And so that happened. And this is sort of like they're now trying to go back and justify it. They're trying to go back and justify it. And they're sort of saying, well, this is actually all about targeting peaceful Christians who were just protesting, ignoring the actual criminal acts they were participating in. And instead they want to turn the focus onto the Biden administration and the investigators. And we'll get more to this about the second report in a second, but it's like they're trying to turn the focus on the people investigating these violent activities as opposed to the violent activities themselves, showing it to be like anti-Christian bias.
Liz Cavell:
Right. And this makes no sense, but this only makes sense if in your brain the fact that you are anti-abortion to the extreme is equivalent with Christian and anything that would remotely impede on any actions driven by your extreme anti-abortion position, i.e. Your Christianity would be like an infringement on your rights.That is what is being put together. And of course it's absurd because what's happening under the FACE Act is Congress making a choice to regulate freedom of access outside of abortion clinics to respond to crisis of violence and physically impeding people that are trying to move in and out of abortion clinics. And then it's reasonable. I mean, it's a governmental choice, but a reasonable one for the Biden administration to think, oh, Dobbs, Roe versus Wade is about to be overturned. In a heightened environment outside of abortion clinics, we're going to step up our enforcement under this law that is on the books that was passed by Congress long ago that exists and is on the books and that we can enforce people that are actually breaking the law, that are physically impeding people's access into clinics.
We're going to talk more about faces in a minute because the administration is quite fixated on this enforcement that happened by the Biden administration. But one of the other examples that I think kind of illustrates what's going on in this report is in the report in the executive summary upfront, they make key findings. And one of the key findings is the Biden administration regulated and suppressed religious speech that it did not like and curtailed Christian's ability to jointly worship and study the Bible. It gives a few examples and they're like these super specific discreet things that are almost like anecdotes. And one of them – Cherry
Alison Gill:
Picked.
Liz Cavell:
Right. They're not like these well-sourced cited cases that happened. They read little anecdotes like I heard from someone that a thing happened. But one of the things that's listed in that section to support that key finding is in 2023, a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma was told to extinguish the flame of a religious candle or risk losing its participation in Medicare and Medicaid, including CHIP funding. Which okay, if true, that sounds like
Maybe that's like religious persecution. What really happened in that situation is a Catholic hospital system in Oklahoma in Tulsa that kept a sanctuary candle burning in its chapel and that is like a devotional practice that was kept burning twenty four seven. And what happened was in 2023, the hospital had a hospital accreditation review. And one of the things cited was there's an open flame that burns unattended twenty four seven and this is a hospital. So there's oxygen equipment and this is being cited as a potential fire safety issue. So the report implies that if it's anti-Christian bias, we're targeting your candle because it's a religious practice. We don't like your devotional candle. And it's like, no, a government agency cited a safety concern that happened to involve an open flame at one of your Catholic hospitals. But again, what happened was ultimately the administration and the hospital reached an agreement that allowed the candle to remain where it was and agreements that it would never be anywhere in contact with equipment that would raise the safety risk.
In other words, the exact thing that is the appropriate thing to happen with government regulation, like balancing the interests, your religious liberty rights with whatever safety concerns exist in a hospital. And also by the way, the candle was never snuffed out so that's just nothing. That's just color because the way this ended was with the hospital getting a waiver and making sure that there were agreed upon safety measures in place. So that's the example cited, the real thing that happened behind that example. And basically it's mostly propaganda because it's not really a true telling of a thing that happened under the Biden administration. I mean, it's a thing that happened, but it doesn't show anti-Christian bias. It just happened to be a thing that happened at a Catholic hospital system.
Rebecca Markert:
What I think is interesting about that anecdote that you just gave Liz and all of the other examples that were cited in this report is really just the government passes a law that applies to everyone and then they enforce that law. And when it is enforced against a Christian person or entity, it's suddenly persecution and not just, "Hey, this person or this entity did something illegal and we are going to get them to comply with the law." When you go into all of these stories, there's always more to it than what is in the report. Even these sentences where they say the pro-life activists got sentenced more harshly than the person who's for abortion rights. And when you get into it, it's really not apples to apples. Something else is happening there.
Liz Cavell:
Right and you'd think with the candle example, you'd think that's like the exact thing you would want because the way it ends is with the religious entity getting a waiver and being accommodated.
It's like –
Alison Gill:
And making sure there's safety while making sure that… Yeah.
Liz Cavell:
Some might call that a win-win. They call it anti-Christian bias and persecution because why? Because the government had audited that in the first place? No, because it's a lie. It's propaganda. And so yeah, it's frustrating because when you scratch the surface of most of the actual, what purports to be factual information and examples, they're all like that.
Alison Gill:
I wanted to talk about some of the remedial actions the report talks about actually. So it lists a number of remedial actions to make up for all this horrible anti-Christian bias. And many of them though are just anti-abortion, anti – LGBTQ, anti-equality actions. So for HHS, for example, they talk about adopting anti-trans policies, expanding religious refusal laws, expanding parental rights in health decisions. For HUD, housing and urban development, they talk about rescinding the equal access rule for LGBTQ, they're able to access shelters. For the Department of Education, they talk about protecting Christian higher-ed institutions, protecting parental rights, banning books around with LGBTQ content, protecting women and the biblical views of gender. EEOC, they talk about expanding religious exemptions for Title VII. For DOJ, we've already talked about the FACE Act. And for Department of Labor, for example, they talk about increasing religious exemptions on contraception provisions.
So those are just like what remediation means. Well, you just do Christian nationalist right wing policies all the time. And if you don't, that's biased. That's what they're doing. It's just sort of recasting their political agenda as if they're suffering this huge victimization constantly.
Liz Cavell:
Yep. Completely. That's so important. Why are they doing this? What is this all in service of? And that's a big question. And I think it goes in a few directions, but a big one is just to cast this unpopular agenda. Basically Project 2025, the Christian nationalist vision for America that is extremely unpopular in most of its particulars. To cast it as like actually it's this essential antidote to correct this persecution and bias that's happening in the law because that's the thing that is expected to be palatable and that most Americans would agree with. We shouldn't have anti-Christian bias in our federal government. So by framing all of these policies as just a necessary remedial action to correct all this anti-Christian bias, this is the way that we're going to justify our extremely unpopular agenda that Alison just described. This turning back the clocks and it's equality for no one and submissiveness for women and go back to the most traditional narrow definitions for family and relationships and sex and no abortions for anyone.
Rebecca Markert:
One of the things that AU did shortly after the EO came down and some of these agencies started having these anti-Christian bias task forces be rolled out specifically within the agencies and implementing the task force there. We started hearing from employees from those different agencies and in order to figure out what are they doing at these agencies AU submitted FOIA requests to two different departments, the State Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs last year. And we were seeking data and records related to how these departments are defining, tracking and responding to alleged anti-Christian policies and conduct. Unfortunately, both of those agencies failed to respond and produce any relevant documents within the statutory deadline. Under the law, they have to respond to you within a certain period of time. The government failed to do that. So we filed a lawsuit to compel production of those records and we're currently in litigation over those. There's information about these cases on our website so you can go ahead and we'll throw those in the show notes and you can go ahead and visit our website to learn more.
Alison Gill:
It's just horrendously inefficient. I mean, they could have just searched for the records and gave them to you for the FOIA. Instead, they have to litigate it, which costs everyone more time, including them. And so lawyers sort of do additional work on the government side, putting together all these documents in addition to defending the case. But sometimes the only way to sort of prod them is through these suits. So they're really important because the government gets away with this all the time. They just wait people out and they can take years, years to get a FOIA response back in many cases. I mean, I have a couple that I've been waiting on for two years.
Liz Cavell:
Same. Same. But again, these are public records. The public has a right to see them. This is public information. And so for the administration likes to claim that they're so transparent and they're the most transparent ever. And they could and should follow the law and produce these public records. They're not. Why? Why are they stonewalling records requests? And that's the question. If you have nothing to hide and these are public records, then they should be produced. If this is public information, it shouldn't be a secret or it shouldn't be hidden. What communication happened in the investigations that went into forming the anti-Christian bias report? I mean, this should be public information. And
Rebecca Markert:
You yourself, the administration is also undergoing this same assessment for its own task force.
Alison Gill:
So we've already talked about the first propagandistic report about the anti-Christian bias task force report. I think we also wanted to highlight the second one, the Biden administration's weaponization of the FACE Act. So we've already talked a little bit about the FACE Act situation, but I think it's important. This is another huge report. I think it's over 400 pages with just tons of exhibits. They actually investigated the investigators who looked into the FACE Act violations and prosecuted them as well as several pro-choice organizations like Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, NAF. So they looked into those and their contacts with the administration. And frankly, they're still investigating. They fired these attorneys and they're still investigating them. So they could take further action against them potentially. And that's really concerning because these are just civil servants. They're non-partisan. They were just doing their job and enforcing the law.
And now they're being prosecuted by an administration that said, "Oh, you're biased against Christians using the most flimsy evidence you've ever seen." They just dove through their email records, hundreds of pages of them and just chose individual sentences to weave together this false story. And at the same time, they sort of compared a level of contact with organizations like Planned Parenthood, which are trying to make sure there's access to clinic entrances versus other organizations like pro-life organizations, which are not. So why would there be equal contact between organizations that are trying to ensure access and those which are not? It makes very little sense. And comparing sentences for violations for different convictions. For example, there were some convictions for vandalizing the crisis pregnancy centers. So people were convicted from that under the FACE Act. So that's vandalism. And then there were also convictions for assault and barricades and actual confrontations against people as opposed to vandalism in the middle of the night against abortion clinics.
So of course those carry heavier sentences. You can't just ignore the crimes involved, but that's what they did in or create this false sort of disparity picture. And it's over and over again, things like that, trying to sort of impugn these people who are all doing their jobs and trying to ensure access to create this sort of false narrative of bias. So this report… Oh, is it 800 plus pages? I misread that 800 pages. I was going to have
Liz Cavell:
To correct you because double the pages.
Jesus. It is so long, Alison, and it is just so much propaganda. And you probably are realizing you just heard us talk about this exact same set of quote unquote biased actions that also appeared in the anti-Christian bias report. This was so nice. They did it twice. They had to tease out just the FACE Act stuff for its own separate report, 800 page report. It was also released in April of 2026. So within a couple of weeks of the anti-Christian bias report, they're like, "We did all this propaganda. We can't just use it in one report. I mean, it's too good to not use in two reports. Let's tease it out into an 800 page report that talks about a totally false narrative of enforcement differences between this one thing and this other thing that is nothing like this one thing." Alison's talking about the differences in sentences and it's comparing apples and oranges deliberately.
But it's the same thing the narrative about the disparities in enforcement. It's like,
Well, the Biden administration enforced this law against people who in broad daylight in front of like a hundred witnesses assaulted a bunch of people and barricaded them, but they're doing way less enforcement of this crime that happens undercover of night when no one's there and it's a totally different crime because it's basically a property vandalizing. And so the only reason for that disparity must be weaponization and bias when obviously this is the normal way that career prosecutors make discretionary decisions about what is easier to enforce and which cases are easier to prosecute and which aren't. And of course, like Alison described, the difference in sentences explained by the differences in the crimes that are being prosecuted. And like Alison said, part of this weaponization working group that this is another DOJ group that was responsible for putting together this report. This resulted in firing at least four career DOJ prosecutors who literally have probably worked under multiple administrations just doing enforcement of federal law.
Also, the Trump administration pardoned 24 criminals that were convicted under the FACE Act. So just add that to the many, many criminals pardoned under this administration for political reasons. These were people that were convicted for violating the FACE Act, which means they were physically, most of them, physically impeding people or like physically barricading people from going from entering an abortion clinic. I mean, this is full on just like double speak where it's like we're going to make a report that's about the Biden administration weaponizing the FACE Act, but really the whole exercise of this is our own weaponization of the law to pardon the criminals that we agree with politically and punish the career civil servants who are just doing their jobs, but we don't agree with the laws that they're enforcing. It is very scary stuff.
Alison Gill:
That last point was especially important, I think Liz. And let me just build on that. This is sort of retroactively justifying the policy that the administration put in place just after they pardon the people, which is basically, and there's a whole memo that they issued around this. We're going to enforce the FACE Act only as it applies to crisis pregnancy centers and churches, not to abortion clinics and reproductive health clinics. So basically they're just going to enforce it in context that they agree with politically. And frankly, based on religious beliefs. Because they're sort of saying, "well, this was anti-Christian bias," but just the opposite is true. They're justifying based on this fake bias, actual bias, actual selective prosecution. And it could not be more explicit. Like you can find the paper trail, they have this memo, they say we are not going to enforce it for all these situations where the violence most often occurs.
We're going to enforce it only when it agrees with our people and their beliefs and that's it. And then they use this to try to justify the whole things while saying, "Well, the previous administration weaponized this, so we have to stop the weaponization. So we're just not going to enforce it now."
Liz Cavell:
Which is actual weaponization.
Alison Gill:
Yeah. And as part of that, if you recall recently, Todd Blanch, acting AG, tried to set up a slush fund for the president to give money for people that had faced weaponization of government. Some of the people that were going to get payouts under that slush fund were the 24 pardoned people who were convicted under the FACE Act. So in a sense, they would be not only pardoning it, but subsidizing this violence against women. That is what the goal of this was. I mean, to not only sort of pay for the January 6th rioters, but also for this violence. It's completely forgivable. It's pardoned. Oh and by the way, you're going to get a big payout. And that was stopped for now, but Todd Blanch has been nominated to be attorney general. So I think we're all watching that pretty closely.
Liz Cavell:
Right. And again, like the January 6th insurrectionists, these are people that were charged under the law for their actions, their criminal actions, found guilty by a jury of their peers and sentenced after being given due process.This is unlike the people that are currently being targeted and investigated by the regime for trumped up stuff that really isn't real and no jury is going to ever convict them or maybe even can't even get grand juries to indict them because it's all so fake.That's actual weaponization of government against a targeted person for retribution. The anti-weaponization quote unquote "fund," the billions that we were supposed to pay to pardoned criminals, they're pardoned criminals. They were literally convicted of crimes by a jury of their peers after receiving due process of law in our court system. It is just so upside down what is happening and what is being described as happening that it is crazy making.
So we've talked about task force and the working group and these reports and Rededicate 250. And this is all part of a broad project and there's more to talk about. So we want to talk about in a later episode, the Religious Liberty Commission, which is yet another group, another federal agency group formed to do a bunch of investigating and manufacture some religious liberty concerns. But they are still in the process of meeting and haven't issued their report yet. So we're going to save that for another episode. And we're going to wrap up for today here. I will say that all of the reports and the executive orders and the different government actions that we've talked about in this episode all going to be linked in the show notes. If you're interested, you should read about it and follow what's going on. There's so much going on.
I'm glad we took the time to sit here and talk and drill in on just a few of these as we talk about the Christian nationalist takeover of the government that's embodied in what's happening around the 250th. But any final thoughts on what we're talking about today and also knowing that we're bookmarking for a future conversation about more propaganda?
Rebecca Markert:
I just want to highlight for everyone all of our listeners at the beginning of this episode in particular, we were laughing and joking a lot about what was coming out of these reports and out of the jubilee and things like that. But I do want to pause and recognize as we all do that these issues and what's going on is very serious and also very dangerous. The events and the policies and the repeated rhetoric we were saying before the show while we were prepping for this show, they just keep saying the same things over and over in different reports constantly. And really it's because if you continue to repeat this rhetoric and repeat these lies, it eventually becomes truth. And all of this is very intentional and designed to create a vision of what America should look like and that the Christian nationalists are actively trying to make happen.
And it's really why we're all still in this fight and why our organizations do what they do. So obviously you've probably heard it before, like we have to laugh or we're going to cry and just become miserable shells of ourselves, but this is really serious and really important for us to highlight and illuminate what's going on in halls of power in our country.
Alison Gill:
Yeah. I think you're right, Rebecca. Some of the propaganda is laughable, but it is also serious. This rhetoric can stoke violence, right? If people sort of assume Christians are under attack, it justifies violence to defend them. It justifies violence against courts. People often sort of attack judges and other sorts of legal institutions and this administration and Trump have been especially guilty of that sort of to stoke violence. And I'll also say we talk about this as propaganda, but there is or could be a legal impact here. Like for example, let's say the next administration wants to actually enforce the FACE Act. Well, they do so. They go into court and what's the first thing their defense is going to do for the people? They're going to say, "Well, the The last administration said that there was all this bias in the enforcement. Here's a whole 800 page report on bias.
How do we know that this investigation is not selective investigation against Christians? And that just will help set up making it more and more difficult to enforce the law. And that's just one example. I mean, this entire project of the Supreme Court is to bring forward these imaginary examples of animus against Christians to justify religious exemptions and other really bad policies. So I think self-victimization is ridiculous, but we can't ignore it because they're trying to create a long-term narrative and it does have legal impact.
Liz Cavell:
Yeah. And of course, just thinking about our last episode, all of this slots right into the narrative of actually anti-Christian ideology is terrorism.
Oh yes. Yes. You know what I mean? It all is supporting this bigger, broader project of authoritarianism and having this very small vision of who is American and everyone else is a terrorist or going to be subject to prosecution. And Alison, what you're talking about is so important because so much of the purpose of this or the effect of this type of stuff is to just undermine completely our laws, our institutions, the concept of truth and reality and language having meaning. It's undermining all of those things that we need in a secular democracy. So it was a long talk and there's more to come, but I think that's it for today's episode.
Rebecca Markert:
That is. I'm Rebecca Markert.
Alison Gill:
I'm Alison Gill.
Liz Cavell:
And I'm Liz Cavell. And if you haven't already, please follow us on our socials. We're on Facebook, Instagram, BluSky and X. Please also remember to let us know how you are liking the show by leaving us a review. It's the best way to help new listeners find the show, so thank you for reviewing us. You can also find us at we-dissent.org. Thanks for listening.
Rebecca Markert:
We Dissent is a joint production of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, the National Women's Law Center, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It is hosted by attorneys Liz Cavell, Alison Gill, and me, Rebecca Markert. Other production support comes from Grata Martens. Audio engineering is provided by Audio for the Arts based in Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks for listening.
