Match the VA’s enthusiasm for creating an integrated U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced the establishment of a new taskforce. This taskforce will address cases of “anti-Christian bias” in the organization. This program, mandated by the VA, is designed to incentivize employees to report co-workers they believe are showing this type of bias. This action advances former President Donald Trump’s broader agenda to upend government policy on religious expression. He started this campaign with an executive order, signed in February of his second term.
The VA’s directive comes in the wake of Trump’s executive order, which sought to eradicate “anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” within government institutions. According to an internal email, the newly established taskforce will scrutinize “all instances of anti-Christian bias,” specifically looking for “any informal policies, procedures, or unofficial understandings hostile to Christian views.” Each staffer is told to send their reports to a specific email address set up just for this.
Unsurprisingly, this proposal has drawn fierce criticism, with opponents claiming that the move disproportionately favors evangelical Christians at the expense of other religious minorities. Rachel Laser, the president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, criticized the announcement. She argued that it is a transparent effort to boost evangelical Christianity at the expense of other religions.
“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,” – Rachel Laser.
Laser led a vigorous opposition against the establishment of the taskforce. He called it what it was—an effort to make America an ultra-conservative Christian nationalist country, not a legitimate measure in response to persecution of Christians.
Doug Collins, a prominent figure in the VA’s communications, reiterated the taskforce’s purpose, stating that it calls for all VA employees to report any instance of anti-Christian discrimination.
“The VA Task Force now requests all VA employees to submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov,” – Doug Collins.
This initiative is part of a larger pattern of the federal government toward encouraging religious expression, specifically that of Christianity, in public life. The taskforce’s establishment underscores the highly charged, contentious national debate over the scope of religious freedoms. Its other huge impact is to highlight the obvious discrimination and bias against federal agencies.