By Monica Showalter
The Biden administration is out promoting religion through the State Department door to the locals in other countries, on our taxpayer dime.
That right there is illegal, because the First Amendment states that there is to be no state sponsorship of anybody‘s religion.
What religion is it? Why, the religion of Democrats, which generally speaking, is atheism.
According to Susan Crabtree at RealClearPolitics:
Rep. Mike McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who heads the panel’s human rights subcommittee, are reviving a nearly year-long inquiry into a 2021 State Department grant they say is designed to expand the influence of atheists and humanists in the Middle East and North Africa.
The GOP House members argue that the program could be violating the Establishment Clause of the Constitution, which bars the use of tax dollars to promote theocracy or a specific religion.
McCaul, Smith, and Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, last week sent a letter to Erin Barclay, the State Department’s acting assistant secretary for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs, and Rashad Hussain, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. The letter accuses both officials of “continued noncompliance” with their document requests regarding the atheism program.
“We write once again to ask why it is in America’s interest to promote atheism overseas and why the department refuses to provide certain documents that shed light on that misguided decision,” they wrote.
Who thought that up? Why did that happen? And of what benefit is this illegal promotion of a religion antithetical to that of most Americans to the U.S.?
Along with color revolutions, this looks like Soros promoting his own religion. It’s bound to make us “popular” in the Arab world. Any questions as to why many Arab leaders aren’t taking Biden’s phone calls?
Congress is hitting at the root of the matter, though, which is that the U.S. has no business promoting any religion.
“We write once again to ask why it is in America’s interest to promote atheism overseas and why the department refuses to provide certain documents that shed light on that misguided decision,” they wrote.
Oh sure, as Crabtree notes, the program nominally tries to get around that by calling it protecting religious minorities. But it’s pretty easy for such “programs” to become religious promotion, as the congressional investigators are alleging:
While the State Department grant is designed to assist persecuted religious minorities and those who choose not to believe in a higher power, McCaul, Smith, and Mast are concerned that the program promotes the interest of one specific religious tradition – humanism – as opposed to those of all faith-based minorities. The grant eventually went to Humanists International, or HI, an organization aimed at promoting humanism, an outlook and system of thought attaching prime importance to human effort rather than divine or supernatural powers.
In early June, the State Department told McCaul, Smith, and Mast that its Office of Religious Freedom and the human rights bureau “do not provide funds to any organization with the aim of using such funds to promote or advance specific religious ideologies or beliefs.”
In their most recent letter to the Department, the House critics assert that “even a cursory look into the operations and mantra of Humanists International calls the agency’s claim into question.” On HI’s website, the organization requires all of its member organizations to pay dues and support its five objectives, the first of which is “the advancement of humanism,” the Republicans point out. In HI’s grant application, it specifically states that it will award sub-grants for “organizing events and seminars to promote the positive aspects of humanism and other ethical non-religious worldviews,” including atheism, added McCaul, Smith, and Mast.
Like many churches, you gotta pay dues to be a member. And they are organizing events to promote “the positive aspects” of atheism, as well as support the group’s objectives.
We all know what this is about. It’s ironic to see this, given the father of Hunter Biden’s campaign-trail-activated claims to being Mr. Devout Catholic. This is the same administration that has been caught targeting Catholics as domestic terrorists. This is also the same administration that promotes abortion abroad and targets pro-life activists domestically, two things that suggest a more anti-Catholic and anti-Christian objective, as well as anti-religion in general, given that many Jews, Muslims and Hindus abhor abortion, too.
This is obviously not going to win friends or influence people in other countries. And it’s certainly anti-Catholic, anti-Christian and even anti-Jewish, given the encompassing role of atheist communists in persecuting Christians and Jews. (Not every atheist, of course, is one of these, and yes, there are many good atheists.) But what’s the Biden administration doing illegally promoting their real religion to other countries? It’s like these people are a cult and want to spread their own religion on our dime.
Do they have any decency at all?
Congress is right to investigate this new scandal from the Bidenites because it sure as heck isn’t serving the national interest or our “values” as Constitutionally-minded Americans. This is just serving Joe Biden’s values and the values of Biden’s own cronies.