Chris Lange, FISM News
Republican lawmakers are questioning the constitutionality of the Biden State Department’s funding program to promote the spread of atheism and humanism internationally under the guise of religious freedom.
A group of 15 GOP members of Congress sent a letter to President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month seeking information about a State Department funding program that “would award grants of up to $500,000 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 legislators point out that both atheism and humanism “are official belief systems,” and that “any such program — for any religiously-identifiable group — in the United States would be unconstitutional.”
The lawmakers argue that efforts to spread these anti-Christian beliefs do not promote religious freedom and that the grant program “like others we have reviewed, prioritizes atheists and humanists above all other potential recipients.”
“Not only does such a priority violate both the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses, but also the No Religious Test Clause of Article VI of our nation’s constitution,” the letter states.
Rep. Glenn Grotham (R-Wisc.) decried the fact that “the Biden administration is going to take your tax dollars and promote atheism and humanism around the world” during a John Solomon Reports podcast Thursday.
Grotham observed that atheism is the “religion” of communists and progressives, pointing out that “as our country becomes more and more close to communist, as we get more and more progressives in the government, I don’t think it should be surprising that Joe Biden wants to educate the world that one of the reasons for our success is, apparently, our belief in atheism.”
The Wisconsin lawmaker called on the “slumbering America clergy” to “wake up” to the Biden administration’s unprecedented effort to spread anti-Christian beliefs in the U.S. and abroad, pointing out that if the State Dept. was “giving out grants to promote Catholicism” or other Christian religions, “the liberals would be up in arms.”
“But when we send out grants to promote atheism, the mainstream media, the popular culture, they are quiet,” Grotham continued.
Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, one of the letter’s signatories, said the left has been trying to eradicate Christianity in America for decades, with great success, and is now “turning their attention to the rest of the world” in a recent newsletter.
“Beginning in the 1960s, leftist activists posing as judges started to dismantle our Christian heritage and iconography. Crosses were ordered removed from parks. A prayer before school was limited, then banned. The left did their best to remove our Christian culture from public life,” Gosar said, adding that he is “working to reverse that cultural cleansing with others in Congress and to restore our Christian heritage.
“In addition to its constitutionally dubious legal foundation, I question how such a grant program advances the foreign policy interests of the United States,” Gosar said.
The legislators also cite additional, legally dubious State Department initiatives in the letter, including the appointment of a “‘Special Representative for Racial Equity and Justice’ whose mission will be to spread Critical Race Theory and other progressive dogmas worldwide” as well as efforts to “remove restrictions on abortion around the globe.”