Provided by Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Remember that crushing feeling when we lost Roe v. Wade? The experts warned us. The Christian nationalists told us that was their main goal and the litmus test for their judges. Still, the moment was as devastating as it was surprising. Big steps backward don’t seem possible. But they are. And we’re on the precipice of another appalling and disastrous backward slide.
Christian nationalists are publicly declaring their goal: They want to create a Christian nation, a theocracy, that favors the “right” kind of conservative Christian. And they’re calling it Project 2025. Their handbook is a play-by-play of Christian nationalism gone mainstream.
Christian nationalism is fundamentally opposed to America’s pluralist democracy — it simply cannot succeed and cannot accomplish its goals without first toppling our democratic institutions and fundamental freedoms. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been warning about that for years.
AU has been defending church-state separation, religious freedom, and American democracy against opponents like the Federalist Society, Leonard Leo, and the Alliance Defending Freedom for more than 75 years, and we’re not about to back down now – our work is more important now than ever before.
In fact, AU has proved so effective to those who seek to dismantle our democracy that our work appears throughout the Project 2025 handbook.
Liz and Gabe Rutan-Ram could not have biological children of their own. Wanting to follow a foster-to-adopt plan, the Rutan-Rams were directed by the state of Tennessee to Holston United Methodist Home for Children, a child-placing agency that received state funding to provide services for current and prospective foster parents.
Holston refused to serve Liz and Gabe … because they are Jews. A child was denied a loving home, a loving couple denied the joy of parenthood. Because they are Jewish. Americans United took on Liz and Gabe’s case and sued.
Project 2025 wants to make such lawsuits impossible and give taxpayer-funded child-placement agencies a license to discriminate against prospective parents.
But “adoption reform,” as Project 2025 euphemistically calls it, is just the beginning of its crusade. Project 2025 is coming for every aspect of the average American’s life. It would:
- Attempt to ban all abortion and severely limit reproductive health care.
- Dismantle racial justice protections and erect new roadblocks to equality.
- Eliminate the US Department of Education and divert public funds to private religious schools.
- Roll back the rights of LGBTQ people.
- Slash public services that are open to all, and redirect billions in much-needed federal social service funding to private Christian nationalist adoption and other agencies that are free to discriminate at will.
- Erase marriage equality and restrict divorce options.
- Redefine religious freedom as an unrestricted license to discriminate.
This is a potential reality we cannot look away from. A true call to action for every American who wants to defend and expand our freedoms as individuals and a collective. There’s no time like right now to learn how you can defend against Project 2025. Learn more and join others in this fight by visiting au.org/mj.
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This article originally appeared in Mother Jones.
