White Christian Nationalism is the dangerous belief that America is – and must remain – a Christian nation founded for its white Christian inhabitants and that our laws and policies must reflect this. Christian Nationalists deny the separation of church and state promised by our Constitution, and they oppose equality for people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and the nonreligious.
Increasingly, members of the media, academics and others use the term “Christian Nationalism,” and often “white Christian Nationalism,” to describe a political movement that seeks to topple our democracy by undermining church-state separation and declaring America a “Christian nation.” This resurgent movement is part of the backlash against the changing demographics in America and the struggle to retain traditional white Christian power structures. These extremists are raging against the dying of their privilege.
Since the late 1970s, Americans United has worked to expose and combat White Christian Nationalism. It began with the Religious Right, a religio-political force of extreme Christian fundamentalists who sought to tear down the church-state wall, ‘Christianize’ public schools and other government institutions, roll back women’s rights, strip LGBTQ+ people of basic freedoms, and impose a theocratic state on the country. Backed by a billion-dollar shadow network of powerful organizations and political allies spending millions on litigation, lobbying, and messaging, this movement will stop at nothing to secure their power and privilege.
Abortion bans in all instances; fundamental Christianity in public schools; an end to LGBTQ rights; book, entertainment and art bans, to make America a fundamentalist Christian nation; and to dismantle all concepts of secular government and the separation of church and state.
White Christian nationalism wants to rewrite our history and values. It is pushing forward a government that values fundamental Christianity above all other religions and a legal system that disfavors the nonreligious, religious minorities, women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.
A billion-dollar Shadow Network that has stalked American courts, statehouses and other halls of power for decades, quietly working to upend democracy and equality by undermining the separation of church and state and redefining religious freedom. They seek to concentrate political power and legal privilege in conservative white Christians.
The Do No Harm Act will help ensure that our laws are a shield to protect religious freedom and not used as a sword to harm others by undermining civil rights laws and denying access to health care.
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