A Trump administration task force has alleged wide-ranging discrimination against Christians during the tenure of former President Joe Biden, claiming in a new report they were targeted in areas such as education, tax law and prosecution of anti-abortion protesters.
Progressive groups criticized the report, saying it fails to document a pattern of discrimination, focuses on causes favored by conservative Christians and amounts to “advocacy dressed
up as investigation.”
The Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, created within the Justice Department by President Donald Trump last year, issued its conclusions Thursday in a 200-page report.
“When Christian beliefs about morality and human nature conflicted with the Biden Administration’s views, religious rights often suffered," the report said.
The task force — which included numerous Cabinet secretaries — didn't accuse the Biden administration of any large pattern of suppressing churches themselves or the right to worship. But the report did accuse it of taking a hard line against those who advocated for conservative policies on the basis of their faith in such areas as abortion, gender, school curriculum and vaccine exemptions.
“The Biden Administration generally tolerated religious beliefs that were privately held but zealously pursued actions to limit Christians’ ability to act in accordance with their faith," it said.
Critics said the report essentially equates one stand of conservative Christianity to be representative of Christians overall, then construes policy disagreements to be persecution.
The report is “advocacy dressed up as investigation,” said Jim Simpson, executive director of the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University.
He said report falsely deems policy disagreements to be “evidence of anti-Christian bias rather than the normal functioning of a pluralistic democracy." He also said it falsely positions Christians — nearly two-thirds of Americans — as “a persecuted minority despite being the country’s largest and most politically influential religious group.”
The task force report contends that the Biden-era Justice Department sought severe penalties for anti-abortion activists who illegally blockaded clinics and took such protests more seriously than threats to pregnancy resource centers — often Christian-run facilities that seek to persuade women not to obtain abortions.
It cited a group of people convicted in federal court and sentenced to prison after invading and blockading a Washington abortion clinic. Trump pardoned them in 2025.
The report contended that the Biden administration “sidelined Christians in favor of their preferred constituencies.”
One section of the report accuses Biden of “replacing Easter" with Transgender Day of Visibility, which takes place every March 31. That event coincided with Easter on 2024. In fact, Biden issued proclamations honoring both occasions. The report accused Biden of “profound lack of consideration for the Christian faith.”
Christian groups have mixed views on LGBTQ+ issues, with some progressive churches flying Pride flags. Conservative denominations generally oppose same-sex marriage and transgender rights. The report chided the Biden administration for flying Pride flags at U.S. Embassies, including at the Vatican.
Melissa Rogers, who served as executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships under Biden, contrasted Trump's Easter messaging this year with his predecessor's.
“President Biden spent Easter and Orthodox Easter wishing Christians worldwide joyful Resurrection Sundays, not by pretending to be Jesus, by tweeting profanities, and by attacking the pope,” she said.
She also noted that Biden is a devout Catholic, and that his administration's officials routinely met with Christian and other faith leaders to cooperate on a wide range of concerns, from the security of sanctuaries to immigration to supporting COVID-19 clinics.
The task force’s report criticized a Biden-era Justice Department memo that discussed possible efforts to prevent violence and threats targeting school boards. The discussions never led to federal action, and then-Attorney General Merrick Garland defended the effort, saying it was to curtail violence, not inhibit debates over policy.
The report did not directly say how it considered this anti-Christian bias, though many school board meetings in that time period did draw conservative Christians and other critics denouncing school policies and lessons on such topics as gender and race.
The report also criticized denials in federal agencies for Christians seeking exemptions from such things as COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
It criticized federal regulators that had told a Catholic hospital in Oklahoma to snuff its chapel candle, deemed a safety hazard because of the risk of combustion to patients with oxygen equipment. The hospital was allowed to keep the candle while putting up a barrier and a warning notice.
The report also cited what it said were disproportionately heavy fines imposed by Biden's Department of Education on two Christian universities — Grand Canyon University for allegedly deceiving thousands of students over program costs, and Liberty University for failures to comply with required disclosures of crime statistics. The Trump administration cleared Grand Canyon University of the charges and rescinded the fine.
Amanda Tyler, executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, criticized the report for “cherry-picked anecdotes” that don't add up to a pattern of persecution.
“To the extent that the government ever did overreach or violate the law in any of these examples, the courts of law, not a partisan political report, provide the right venue to settle any legal disputes,” she said. “Focusing government resources on this narrow issue while ignoring or discounting the much more widespread instances of anti-religious discrimination against other faith groups in the U.S. further harms religious freedom for all.”
The report comes even as the Religious Liberty Commission, another entity created by Trump, prepares a report on its findings; its hearings featured many of the same grievances cited by the task force.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
