As Secretary of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), Doug Collins is now implementing a controversial policy of encouraging agency employees to surveil their coworkers for any perceived biases against Christianity as part of an executive order signed by President Donald Trump. But activists have condemned the move as an effort by the administration to impose Christian nationalism.
The Guardian reported Tuesday that it received an email from a source claiming that Collins was now forming a task force to look into “treatment of Christians” at the VA under former President Joe Biden. He added that the task force was now asking VA employees to “submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov.”
The task force is now reportedly assembling a list of “any informal policies, procedures, or unofficially understandings hostile to Christian views,” and that those submitting examples should “include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates and locations.”
According to the Guardian, the VA is also expanding its definition of “anti-Christian” sentiment to include “any adverse responses to requests for religious exemptions under the previous vaccine mandates,” along with “any retaliatory actions taken or threatened in response to abstaining from certain procedures or treatments (for example: abortion or hormone therapy).”
Trump signed an executive order in February aimed at “eradicating anti-Christian bias” throughout the federal government, and directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to lead a new task force dedicated to rooting out “anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” within federal agencies. However, critics scoffed at Trump’s stated goal.
Rachel Laser, who is the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a press release that the president’s stated desire to protect religious people from persecution rings hollow when looking at his previous actions.
“If Trump really cared about religious freedom and ending religious persecution, he’d be addressing antisemitism in his inner circle, anti-Muslim bigotry, hate crimes against people of color and other religious minorities,” she said. “This task force is not a response to Christian persecution; it’s an attempt to make America into an ultra-conservative Christian nationalist nation.”
Source: Alternet / Digpu NewsTex