New taskforce demands names in rooting out \u2018policies, procedures \u2026 or understandings hostile to Christian views\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The veterans affairs department (VA) is ordering staff to report colleagues for instances of \u201canti-Christian bias\u201d to a newly established taskforce, as part of Donald Trump\u2019s push to reshape government policy on religious expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The VA secretary, Doug Collins, in an internal email seen by the Guardian, said the department had launched a taskforce to review the Biden administration\u2019s \u201ctreatment of Christians\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe VA Task Force now requests all VA employees to submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov,\u201d the email reads. \u201cSubmissions should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates, and locations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The email states that the department will review \u201call instances of anti-Christian bias\u201d but that it is specifically seeking instances including \u201cany informal policies, procedures, or unofficially understandings hostile to Christian views\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, the department is seeking \u201cany adverse responses to requests for religious exemptions under the previous vaccine mandates\u201d and \u201cany retaliatory actions taken or threatened in response to abstaining from certain procedures or treatments (for example: abortion or hormone therapy)\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Donald Trump signed an executive order<\/a> within weeks of his second term aimed at ending the \u201canti-Christian weaponization of government\u201d, and announced the formation of a taskforce, led by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to end all forms of \u201canti-Christian targeting and discrimination\u201d in the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bondi would work to \u201cfully prosecute anti-Christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move heaven and earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide\u201d, Trump said in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Critics were quick to condemn<\/a> Trump\u2019s announcement at the time as a thinly veiled attempt to privilege evangelical Christianity over other religious minorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he\u2019d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities,\u201d the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, Rachel Laser, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis taskforce is not a response to Christian persecution; it\u2019s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian nationalist nation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n