A Democratic political action committee representing “secular values” issued a sweeping agenda for Joe Biden to reverse many of President Trump’s advances for religious liberty and “restore a vision of constitutional secularism.”
The Secular Democrats of America PAC and Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Jared Huffman, D-Calif. – members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus – were behind the 28-page document, which was issued Monday.
It would ban religious organizations from participating in government programs, support governors who want to close down churches amid the COVID pandemic, require new disclosures from churches, overturn religious-rights precedents such as the Hobby Lobby case, prevent mention of creationism in education and work for a “deradicalization” of “white Christian nationalism.”
The document declares the “rise of white Christian nationalism is a national security threat.”
It recommends to Biden that he “encourage the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to dedicate resources to deradicalization programs aimed at hate groups, including, but not limited to, white nationalists; increase monitoring of such groups, including the online environment, and take action to address increased hate crimes toward minority faith communities; and shift rhetoric to label violent white nationalist extremists as terrorists.”
