Religious freedom struggle intensifies

From Peoria, Ill., to Peoria Ariz., Washington, D.C., to Washington, Ill., the fight to freely worship is accelerating.

Stark differences continue between government authorities advocating for Christian nationalism on the one hand and on the other following the law, the U.S. Constitution, and officials’ oaths of office.

People have the right to practice whatever faith they choose – or no religion.

The issue was covered last month in my Community Word commentary about a lawsuit filed against the Trump White House’s Religious Liberty Commission. A coalition of Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and others sued the Trump administration, challenging the commission’s secrecy and makeup, but mostly that panel’s betraying its purpose – defending religious liberty for all since it’s slanted toward evangelical Christians. Plus, it violates a 1972 law mandating such commissions to reflect competing ideas and different viewpoints, the suit says.

Now, a second suit has been filed about government proselytizing (this time focusing on USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins) by a labor union and USDA employees – including a Peorian.

The National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), seven USDA workers, and other plaintiffs in federal court accuse Rollins of repeatedly violating the Constitution’s First Amendment, which forbids the “establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Defying religious freedom by forcefully endorsing one version of one faith may be common government-wide, NFFE President Randy Erwin says, but Rollins’ “bully pulpit” actions stand out.

“We’re seeing this blurring of the separation of church and state in many different places,” he said. “But for our members, USDA was an outlier. It was so explicit and so obviously illegal. In 25 years, I don’t ever remember this becoming an issue.”

The plaintiffs include 35-year-old physical science technician Ethan Roberts, who said, “We work for the federal government, not a church.

“I just want to go to work and make my country better,” said Roberts, who works at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research (the “Ag Lab”). I shouldn’t have to suffer through sermons and other religious messages forced upon me by the head of a federal agency.

“When the Secretary sends an email, I have to read it,” he added. “And when those emails are telling me what to believe, they make me feel unwelcome in an agency I’ve dedicated 10 years to.”

Rollins has advocated her interpretation of Christianity to all USDA employees. For example, last December, she e-mailed a video to them preaching, “The spirit of generosity flows from the very first Christmas when God gave us the greatest gift possible, the gift of his Son and our Savior Jesus Christ, who came to free us from our sins and open the door to eternal life.” She followed that in April with what the lawsuit calls her “Easter Sermon,” a lengthy message stating, “So like the very first disciples to encounter our risen Lord in the Upper Room almost 2,000 years ago, this Easter let us too be alive with hope, full of Paschal joy, and confident in the mission each of us has been called for.”

One imagines the response to Buddhist bureaucrats emailing their worldview or an elected official endorsing Scientology or atheism.

All this is happening in the wake of other Trump events in Washington, such as the government-sponsored Christian nationalist rally May 17 and this summer’s Great American State Fair, cancelled after its announced acts withdrew when they discovered it was a Trump propaganda stunt. Trump reacted by suggesting a rally with him as headliner, commenting, “I am thinking about bringing the Number One Attraction anywhere in the World, the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, … DONALD J TRUMP, to … give a major speech.”

That’s entertainment!

On May 17, speakers were mostly evangelical hardliners who’ve mistakenly claimed the Founders established the country as a Christian nation. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who’s supported laws and policies based on conservative interpretations of select Bible passages, Also appearing was Jonathan Falwell, chancellor of Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, who started the Moral Majority, and Pentagon boss Pete Hegseth, who referred to a painting of George Washington praying at Valley Forge and said, “Let us pray for our nation on bended knee, and let us ask our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as Washington did on that momentous day: 'So help us God’.”

NFFE and its supporters say all that is coercion for its 19,000 USDA workers, some of whom are not Christians.

“People have a right to their religious views, but this crossed into someone’s official capacity,” Erwin said of Rollins’ sending Christian advocacy messages. “When the Secretary of Agriculture does that, it’s a violation of religious freedom.”

In Idaho, the Rev. Benjamin Cremer, a pastor at a United Methodist Church, warned, “Beware of any Christian movement that demands the government be an instrument of God's wrath but never a source of God's mercy, generosity, or compassion. Beware of any political movement that demands Christianity be an instrument of religious justification for its authoritarianism, bigotry, and greed, and never speak truth to its power."