WASHINGTON DC – The name of a Congressional member that represents Illinois' 6th CD – which includes what was once known as America's center of Christian Evangelism, Wheaton College, where the late evangelist Billy Graham attended college – is included among a group demanding President Joe Biden and VP Kamala Harris remove Christian influence from the nation's culture.
"We urge you to lead our nation on a path that revives the Founders’ vision of religious freedom in our government and promotes a unifying patriotic pluralism—not dogmatic religious chauvinism—in American society," states the Secular Democrats of America within a 28-page list of demands. "We believe that this is a moment not only to enact policies to advance constitutional secularism but to position the Democratic Party to take back the mantle of religious freedom and pluralism from the Republican Party."
The document, presented to the Biden-Harris transition team by Representatives Jamie Raskin and Jared Huffman, was endorsed by Representative Jerry McNerney. Those three are listed as founding members of the Congressional Freethought Caucus – one of which is Illinois Congress member Sean Casten (IL-6).
The document calls on Biden to make the following changes:
- Eliminate government support for all crisis pregnancy centers and all abstinence-only education programs in schools.
- Deny free speech and religious liberty to select Americans based on their religious beliefs.
- Incentivize states to strip parents of all non-medical exemptions to mandatory vaccinations for children in schools or daycare centers.
- Remove “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency.
- Repeal the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)
- Rescind and replace the Trump DOJ’s federal protections for religious liberty.
- Appoint an attorney general who will support governors whose emergency COVID-19 executive orders restrict gatherings at houses of worship.
- Reverse the Trump administration policies that have allowed faith-based government-funded contractors to provide adoption and foster care services and work with Congress to pass the Every Child Deserves a Family Act.
- Fully and robustly fund “comprehensive” sex education, which to the leftist means encouraging elementary and middle school-age children to declare themselves one of dozens of made-up non-biological gender identities and learn how to engage in various deviant forms of sex.
- Work with governors to educate and combat Project Blitz and encourage the introduction of the Do No Harm Act at the state level. [Project Blitz is a pro-family lobbying group described by the Secular Democrats as “a coordinated effort by Christian Nationalists to inject religion into public education, attack reproductive healthcare, and undermine LGBTQ equality using a distorted definition of ‘religious freedom.’”
- The document tells Biden: “We urge you to avoid invoking the phrase ‘Judeo-Christian values,’ as it has been weaponized by the religious right to advance an agenda that has the veneer of inclusivity but actually undermines religious freedom and tolerance and does not represent tens of millions of Americans implicitly excluded from its formulation.
For more information, see "Democrats Demanding Biden Clamp Down on Conservative Christians, Remove Them From Public Office and Re-educate Trump Voters"
The 28 page document can be found HERE
