The Biden administration is actively “anti-God, anti-Christian,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) told Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins on a recent episode of Washington Watch in reference to State Department grants funding the spread of atheism abroad.
“I would say that the activity of the Biden administration is not ‘kind of’; it’s all the way, what I would call anti-God, anti-Christian. A clear majority of Americans voted for the Democrats instead of the Republicans in their House races two years ago. I’m not sure if this is what they expected,” Grothman said, according to the Washington Stand, an online FRC news outlet.
In late June, Republican lawmakers wrote a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asking about State Department grants of up to $500,000 given “to organizations committed to the practice and spread of atheism and humanism, namely in South/Central Asia and in the Middle East/North Africa.”
The Biden State Department is promoting CRT, abortion and now atheism abroad. This is not what America stands for!
Read my letter 👇 @FoxNews https://t.co/0zSgWgexsc
— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) June 30, 2022
“It is one thing for the Department to be tolerant and respectful of a wide range of belief systems, and to encourage governments to respect the religious freedom interests of their citizens,” lawmakers wrote in the letter. “It is quite another for the United States government to work actively to empower atheists, humanists, non-practicing, and non-affiliated in public decision-making. Any such program – for any religiously-identifiable group – in the United States would be unconstitutional.”
The State Department characterized atheists as a “unique religious group” while encouraging them to build “networks and advocacy groups” for atheists, according to the letter:
This would be analogous to official State Department promotion of religious freedom “particularly for Christians” in China, with the express goal being to build a corresponding missionary network. Obviously, this goal that would never pass constitutional muster and would be derided by radical leftist bureaucrats in your agency as completely out-of-bounds. So why is this atheist NOFO [Notice of Funding Opportunity] not viewed with similar objection?
…
Americans rightly discern this as a part of the broader effort on the part of your administration to promote radical, progressive orthodoxy abroad. Atheism is an integral part of the belief system of Marxism and communism.
According to the Washington Stand, the Biden administration says the grants are meant to encourage “religious toleration of secularists.” But Republicans are worried the tax-payer funds could be used “to proselytize for atheism or to lobby foreign government[s] on behalf of atheists’ concerns.”
“You have to ask: What does God think about this? What does the American public think about it? What do those slumbering clergymen of America think about it?” Grothman said.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins said the State Department’s actions are part of a larger “pattern.”
“Whether or not this is even constitutional, it certainly fits a pattern with the Biden administration, which has seized upon every opportunity it can to promote abortion and kind of an anti-Christian agenda,” Perkins said.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.