President Joe Biden speaks during an interfaith prayer service at the Cathedral-Basilica of St. Louis, King of France, in New Orleans on Jan. 6, 2025. / Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 7, 2025 / 14:11 pm (CNA).
A report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) compiled regulatory actions under former President Joe Biden that the researchers argue show systematic anti-Christian bias from the prior administration.
The Nov. 3 report was released in response to President Donald Trump’s Feb. 6 executive order to eradicate anti-Christian bias and protect religious liberty through changes to federal policies and regulations.
According to the report, the Biden administration disregarded religious liberty as a means to enforce its “radical pro-abortion and pro-LGBTQI+ policies.” It states that religious liberty was ignored “when it came to those policy priorities,” which affected public and private employees, businesses, religious organizations, students, and those seeking federal partnerships.
The report lists three key ways in which this was carried out: policies at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that attacked health-care-related rights of conscience, policies at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that jeopardized religious liberty, and a broader failure to respect religious liberty through the rulemaking process.
Anti-Christian policies and practices
Under Biden, the report said HHS dismantled the enforcement of conscience protections for health care workers despite safeguards in federal law. It says former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra got rid of most mentions of conscience and religious freedom protections and eliminated the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.
Biden’s HHS website listed four actions regarding conscience protections as of 2024, and two of those were to halt enforcement measures taken under Trump, the report said. The two other measures sought to protect health care workers who participated in abortions.
HHS also sought to enforce the Affordable Care Act’s ban on “sex” discrimination to include a ban on discriminating against a person based on “gender identity” or having an abortion. HHS later conceded it would hear religious liberty objections on a “case-by-case basis” to permit employees to bring cases against religious employers, according to the report.
The report said HHS used the same “case-by-case” standard for other anti-discrimination rules, including in the administration of grants.
At EEOC, the administration sought to limit religious exemptions to anti-discrimination laws, the report notes. One example listed was enforcement of the Protecting Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, in which the administration sought to force employers, including religious organizations, to offer accommodations for women to procure abortions. This prompted a lawsuit from the U.S. Catholic bishops and other groups, which led to multiple courts halting enforcement.
The report notes that the EEOC also pushed transgender pronoun and bathroom mandates on businesses and often argued against religious liberty exemption requests in court proceedings.
The authors of the report encouraged the Trump administration to rewrite any regulations that jeopardize religious liberty. It also suggested that Congress pass laws to better protect religious liberty, which could prevent future administrations from disregarding those protections.
EPPC President Ryan Anderson serves on the Religious Liberty Commission, which Trump created earlier this year to combat discrimination against religious people and organizations.
