Washington, D.C. — On Thursday, the Department of Justice released a report from President Trump’s “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.”
The publication claims, “The Biden administration’s policies regularly clashed with a Christian worldview,” citing abortion, gender identity, and sexual orientation as areas of conflict and framing civil rights protections as violations of religious liberty. But the report relies heavily on Christian Nationalist groups like the Heritage Foundation, the American Principles Project, and the First Liberty Institute.
The 197-page report mentions atheists only twice in footnotes, effectively excluding the 29% of Americans who identify as religiously unaffiliated. It also overlooks the widespread stigmatization and discrimination faced by atheists under every presidential administration, as documented by American Atheists’ groundbreaking U.S. Secular Survey.
American Atheists president Nick Fish said, “True religious freedom — the kind our nation’s founders enshrined in the Constitution — protects and treats equally people of all faiths and of none. It’s very clear this administration is only concerned about Americans of a certain faith.”
Nearly a third of respondents to the Secular Survey reported negative experiences in education due to their nonreligious identity, and more than 20% reported discrimination in the workplace. These experiences are especially profound in areas where religious conformity is expected.
American Atheists warns that the current administration is increasingly invoking “anti-Christian bias” as a way to reinforce the false narrative that the United States is a Christian nation; to reframe civil rights protections for LGBTQ+ Americans as discriminatory; and to recast any disagreement with the White Christian Nationalist worldview as improper or even criminal.
Fish added, “The Trump Administration’s deliberate distortion of our American laws and values will have devastating consequences on pluralism, freedom, and democracy — all foundational pillars of our nation that distinguish us from the theocracies and autocracies abroad.”
The 2025 Freedom of Thought Report, released by Humanists International in February, found that the United States, which historically received a more favorable rating, is currently undergoing “an unprecedented backsliding of democratic rights and fundamental freedoms.’”
The “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias” is expected to issue an additional report in 2027 outlining policy recommendations, which are likely to include proposals to roll back civil rights protections, expand religious exemptions, weaken the Johnson Amendment, and direct public funding toward religious institutions.
“American Atheists will continue opposing any such measures,” Fish said. “We remain committed to defending religious pluralism, ending discrimination against atheists and the nonreligious, and ensuring equality for all Americans.”
