Under guise of fighting anti-Catholic bias, Kash Patel fires FBI analysts who kept us safe
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Four FBI intelligence analysts as well as a supervisory analyst were fired by Director Kash Patel on Friday on the grounds that they wrote up a memo that conservatives insisted targeted Catholics.
That memo was one of more eye-popping examples included in a report by Trump’s sham “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias.” It was first mentioned in a detailed 2023 report by the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee—titled “The FBI’s breach of religious freedom: The weaponization of law enforcement against Catholic Americans”—which said the analysts painted “certain ‘radical-traditionalist Catholics’ (RTCs) as violent extremists and proposed opportunities for the FBI to infiltrate Catholic churches as a form of ‘threat mitigation.’”
But a closer look at what those analysts actually did shows that religious animus had nothing to do with this. They were just trying to protect the country from a potential attack.
Here’s what happened, according to former Department of Justice Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.
Beginning in 2019, the FBI began tracking a(n unnamed) man who advocated civil war and the assassination of politicians… and then purchased semi-automatic weapons and ammo. He was then arrested for other reasons, but in jail, his online threats grew even worse. He would make phone calls to family members during which he talked about the need to “build guns, explosives, and other forms of weaponry and store them in [his] room without fear of the law finding out about it.” He also said he needed to “make total war against the Satanic occultist government and the Zionist devil worshiping bankers who control it.”
He completed his sentence in June of 2021, and once he was released, there was reason to believe this guy wanted to put his violent rhetoric into action—specifically against “pro-choice, Jewish, and LGBTQ individuals.”
Because of his status as a convicted felon and due to his plea agreement, however, he couldn’t actually purchase any weapons to carry out his planned attacks. But he did have social media accounts in which he posted Nazi symbols, talked about killing police officers, “ganging up on and beating” racial/religious minorities, carry out a mass shooting as a “school for special needs children,” etc.
In early 2022, the guy began attending a church that’s not formally affiliated with the Catholic Church but pushed “traditional Catholic theology and liturgy.” He also described himself on social media as “‘Fascist and Catholic’ and a ‘[radical-traditional (rad-trad)] Catholic clerical fascist.’” Even worse, it appeared that he was recruiting members in that church to carry out an attack.
He even made comments to members of the church saying he was going to commit violence and suggested he was building a pressure cooker bomb. (These members were not on board with any of this.)
At that point, the FBI office in Richmond send an undercover agent to the church to interact with the man and find out how serious these threats were. The answer? Very. It led the office to declare the man to be their “highest priority domestic terrorism subject.”
The man kept taking steps indicating he was going to kill people. He even purchased equipment that would let him lock the doors of commercial buildings, preventing hostages from exiting. He also bought a truck and posted a video on social media saying that was his final step before the attack.
On November 12, 2022, investigators obtained a search warrant for his home and found all kinds of disturbing stuff: ammo, a 3D printer, lock-picking devices, “multiple Molotov cocktail-type improvised incendiary devices.”
They felt like they had enough to work with here and arrested him. Crisis averted. (In June of 2023, the man was indicted in federal court and pleaded guilty.)
But part of building their case meant talking with people who may have communicated with him during his planning process. So FBI agents interviewed the church’s priest, choir director, and other members. It seemed that all of them knew exactly why the FBI wanted to speak to them.
It was that guy, wasn’t it?
They cited his “unusual” and “concerning” behavior and racism. The FBI considered reaching out to nearby churches just to let religious leaders know what potential warning signs to look out for, and to give them a way to reach out to the FBI if they saw anything suspicious.
The point is: The church wasn’t the problem. It was just that one guy.
When two FBI analysts—both with decades of experience—began drafting a memo about all this (called a Domain Analysis), noting potential areas of concern for the future, one possibility was the link between the man’s extremism and his faith. But even that possibility was dismissed by the very same analyst, who pointed out that this guy was already on the FBI’s radar before he ever joined this church.
Still, if he was recruiting members for an assault through this church, perhaps there was reason to investigate further—if for no other reason than to help churches like theirs identify potential threats in the future.
Why did their memo include language like “rad-trad Catholic clerical fascist” and “radical-traditionalist Catholic”? Both analysts said those were the words the man himself used and that phrasing was common in his corner of the internet. They never defined it, though, which became an issue later on.
In fact, when the analysts did more research, they learned there were two other men on the FBI’s radar—through their offices in Portland and Milwaukee—who had similar extremist ideologies and a connection to the same kind of church. That’s what led to the publication of a report suggesting the link.
That report even included a legal caveat saying they were not infringing upon anyone’s First Amendment freedoms to practice their faith and they weren’t monitoring anyone in this church solely because of their religious beliefs:
Potential criminality exhibited by certain members of a group referenced herein does not negate nor is it a comment on the constitutional rights of the group itself or its members to exercise their rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The FBI does not investigate, collect, or maintain information on U.S. persons solely for the purpose of monitoring activities protected by the First Amendment.
The analysts hoped to create a different, more simplified, version of the report that could be shared with others within the FBI—beyond their own office—so they enlisted the help of additional analysts in drafting it.
But the FBI never got around to that.
The original draft report—never meant to be seen by the public—was somehow leaked to right-wing media outlets, and conservatives began running with the story that the FBI, under the Biden administration, was targeting Catholic churches.
That was a lie. There was no anti-Christian bias here. It was a valid documentation of a potentially dangerous phenomenon. It wasn’t even against the Catholic Church, but rather a potentially extremist sect calling itself Catholic.
To ignore that possibility would have been malpractice on the FBI’s part. But right-wing websites were quick to claim the FBI was targeting Catholics who preferred a “Traditional Latin Mass.” (That was one of many descriptors of those churches.) They were misinterpreting everything those analysts had said, but true to form, conservatives began spreading those lies to feed their claims of religious persecution.
When word about this leak got back to the FBI, then-director Christopher Wray rescinded the original document, saying it “failed to adhere to FBI standards.” The agency also “formally admonish[ed] the employees involved.” Former Attorney General Merrick Garland also said he was “appalled” by the memo, but he dismissed any claims that there was discrimination against Catholics.
Conservatives used those actions to insist the FBI was trying to cover up for the religious persecution they were trying to get away with… AND WOULD HAVE, if not for the whistleblower who shared the original document.
But as the Inspector General later explained, that wasn’t the case. Documents like these go through layers of editing and there was no evidence of any malicious intent against a religious group. Just because this memo didn’t meet expectations, it didn’t mean anyone did anything wrong.
The [FBI Inspection Division (or INSD)] report found that although there was no evidence of malicious intent or an improper purpose, the [Richmond Virginia Domain Perspective or DP] failed to adhere to analytic tradecraft standards and evinced errors in professional judgment, including that it lacked sufficient evidence or articulable support for a relationship between [Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists or RMVEs] and so-called [Radical Traditionalist Catholic or RTC] ideology; incorrectly conflated the subjects’ religious views with their RMVE activities, creating the appearance that the FBI had inappropriately considered religious beliefs and affiliation as a basis for conducting investigative activity; and reflected a lack of training and awareness concerning proper domestic terrorism terminology. As a result, the INSD report concluded that the employees involved in drafting, editing, and reviewing the Richmond DP failed to adhere to FBI standards. The INSD report also examined the approval process for the Richmond DP, concluding that it was insufficient, and the circumstances surrounding its removal from FBI systems following the disclosure of the document into the public domain. Based on the results of the FBI’s Strategic Review, the FBI instituted a number of corrective actions, including enhancing approval requirements for intelligence products involving a sensitive investigative matter and formally admonishing the employees involved in the Richmond DP.
That wasn’t how everyone took it, though.
Wray, who was appointed by Trump during his first administration, said the memo “violated the agency’s policies on conducting investigations based on religious affiliation,” which was a ridiculous reason to dismiss a memo that necessitated the mention of a guy’s religious affiliation.
Whether or not you agree with the FBI’s assessment on the memo, though, it appeared that they handled it all internally. The report never should have seen the light of day for reasons they explained and the analysts were, fairly or not, admonished. That sounds like the government working as it should.
It didn’t matter to right-wing propagandists. They ran with the lie, as they so often do. The GOP-led Judiciary Committee, run by Rep. Jim Jordan, said in its report that this proved the “FBI abused its counterterrorism tools to target Catholic Americans as potential domestic terrorists”: “The documents received pursuant to the Committee’s subpoena show that the FBI singled out Americans who are pro-life, pro-family, and support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.”
That’s not accurate.
But now, Republicans have successfully run everyone involved in this investigation out of the FBI.
Several FBI analysts tied to the creation of a 2023 memo warning of a potential threat from Catholic “violent extremists” were fired Friday, according to their lawyer, the latest wave of terminations under the leadership of its director Kash Patel.
The fired employees included four intelligence analysts and a supervisory analyst. The FBI declined to comment.
“This action is manifestly unjust, completely unsupported by the facts, and subverts standard FBI policy and procedure,” their lawyer, David Laufman, said in a statement. “These individuals deserved far better for the exceptional and faithful public service they rendered to protect our country.”
The lawyer, of course, is correct. There’s no indication of any anti-religious bigotry on the part of the analysts. They successfully prevented a domestic terrorist attack, and this is the reward they get. Their only mistake, if anything, involved the technical elements of producing a report based on their findings. Substantively, however, they didn’t do anything wrong.
The Trump administration is so dead-set on pretending they’re saving the country that they’re quite literally firing the very people who keep the country safe.
FFRF calls out Pentagon for sidelining ‘atheists in foxholes’ and others
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
FFRF Lifetime Member Joseph Cunningham, a veteran who served in World War II, standing beside FFRF’s monument to “atheists in foxholes and other freethinkers.”
Maintaining that there are indeed many “atheists in foxholes,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation is condemning a sweeping Pentagon directive that eliminates recognition for approximately 180 religious and nonreligious belief systems, including “atheist.”
According to a May 20 memorandum obtained and reported on by Military.com, the Department of Defense has reduced its list of recognized religious affiliation codes from roughly 211 categories to just 31. The new system continues to recognize many major religious groups, including various Christian denominations, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism. Those purged include atheists, humanists, pagans, Wiccans, Druids and Unitarians. For mysterious reasons known only to the Defense Department, it will continue to list “agnostic.” Categories for “No Religion” and “Other Religions” are available. The effacement was made at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, and was justified as a way to “streamline” religious support services provided by military chaplains.
FFRF objected to Hegseth’s actions back in January and filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking all records related to the directives and internal communications about chaplaincy reform, but has been informed that the records won’t be provided until August at the earliest.
This erasure of atheists makes no demographic sense, contends FFRF, the nation’s largest association of atheists and agnostics. Eighteen percent of active military members are atheist/agnostic. Another 32 percent have no religious affiliation, according to researcher Ryan Burge, putting the “Nones” overall at half of current military members! (That is a far greater percentage of nonreligious than the U.S. adult population generally, at 29 percent.)
“There are indeed atheists in foxholes, as well as humanists and Unitarians,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “That trite old chestnut about no atheists in foxholes was never true, but it’s never been less true in the United States than today.”
FFRF has erected a monument to “Atheists in Foxholes” at Freethought Hall, its office building.
The deletion follows a series of troubling statements and actions by Hegseth to reshape military culture around his preferred religious beliefs. Hegseth has openly criticized secular humanism, pledged to make the Chaplain Corps “great again,” hosted sectarian prayer events at the Pentagon and promoted what he describes as a militarywide “cultural shift” centered on “spiritual readiness.”
The military’s religious affiliation system serves important administrative and pastoral functions. For the religious, it helps ensure that service members can receive appropriate religious accommodations. For the nonreligious and everyone else being expunged from the records, it means their religious or nonreligious identification will not be accurately reflected in military records and chaplains will not be provided with such information. By removing dozens of minority belief systems — or disbelief — from official recognition, the Pentagon has marginalized thousands of service members and has flouted its constitutional obligation to protect religious freedom for all of its personnel.
“It is unacceptable to think that many members of the armed services will not be permitted to properly identify as atheists,” Gaylor adds.
The First Amendment protects freedom of conscience for everyone, not just members of favored religions. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government must maintain neutrality “between religion and religion, and between religion and nonreligion.” That principle is particularly important within the military, where service members operate within a hierarchical command structure and often have limited access to outside religious or secular support.
Gaylor charges that the Pentagon’s refusal to identify or recognize atheists, as well as the expunged religious groups, is “blatantly unconstitutional.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF calls out Pentagon for sidelining ‘atheists in foxholes’ and others appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Christians got Route 666 to Hel canceled. It’s finally getting resurrected.
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In 2023, the Poland bus company PKS Gdynia announced that it would officially end bus route 666 to the city of Hel, halting one of the truly great marketing opportunities for that city.
But that bus route has just been resurrected.
A quick reminder of what happened in 2023: The bus company issued a notice that Route 666 would be renumbered 669.
Why would they do that? It appeared that the link between the town name and the bus number was creating more problems for the company than it was worth, especially given that this was a coincidence to begin with. In recent years, they were getting a lot of complaints from Christians. One conservative Catholic website even lamented the “malicious” route number, saying that it “strikes at the Christian order of the Polish state and its foundations, and hence… at the good of all of us.” As if the numbering was done specifically to persecute Christians.
That theory was later confirmed. While the company offered no public explanation of their decision, one official told a local news outlet that religious complaints were the basis for the shift:
… Marcin Szwaczyk, who oversees PKS Gdynia’s route planning, confirmed that such complaints were indeed behind the firm’s decision.
“For years, we have received objections from opponents of this number,” he told local news service Trojmiasto.pl. “So we changed it from 666 to 669, [which is] less controversial and less conspicuous.”
However, he revealed that, in the two days since the change was announced, the firm has been inundated with complaints “from the other side” by those who want the old 666 back.
As for the city itself, Hel is a (very real) town on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. It’s so popular with tourists that one enthusiast noted, “Hel is like paradise on earth.” The fact that, since 2006, the “666 to Hel” had been a real journey you could take undoubtedly boosted the local economy. (Just think of the shirts!) The fact that it’s a seaside resort town only made everything better.
Such numbering isn’t even all that unique. In 2017, Finnair flight 666 flew to Helsinki on Friday the 13th, leading to all kinds of headlines about Flight 666 to HEL on the unluckiest day of the year. When you place unwarranted importance on certain numbers or places, you shouldn’t be surprised when coincidences occur.
But here’s the good news.
A private German-owned bus company called FlixBus has now launched a new seasonal route from Krakow to Hel, and you better believe they’re using Route 666 to do it. And just for good measure, the full route with all the stops takes 13 hours to complete.
A representative of FlixBus, Aleksander Kalenik, confirmed to broadcaster TVN that “the number 666 was deliberately chosen as a marketing communication element, intended to increase the visibility of the connection on the popular holiday route to Hel”.
He added that the company had, before making its decision, conducted analysis of passenger reactions and potential reputational damage, but found that the response was mainly positive or neutral.
Hey, would you look at that? Most people didn’t think anything of it because why should they?! It was just religious zealots who freaked out over it.
FlixBus is fully leaning into the joy of all this:
[FlixBus Eastern Europe managing director Michał] Leman dismissed the controversy surrounding the route.
“It’s vacations. Let’s have fun, let’s do some jokes about the thing,” he told CBS News on Monday. “I don’t think that there is anything bad in that.”
The route will run once a day during the summer season. Tickets are under $30 (USD) for anyone curious enough to go on the Highway to Hel. From what I can gather, the inaugural trip will take place on June 25 and the final one will run on August 29.
(via Notes from Poland. Portions of this article were published earlier)
Freethought Radio – June 4, 2026
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Founder and President of Black Nonbelievers Mandisa Thomas tells us about the June 12–14 “Revival of Reason” in Atlanta, celebrating the lives and views of Black Americans who live without religion. We also talk about Ten Commandments monuments, FFRF victories removing religion from public schools, and public officials discussing “aliens and demons.”
The post Freethought Radio – June 4, 2026 appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
FFRF welcomes judicial check on transgender military ban
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Photo by Joel Rivera-Camacho
The Freedom From Religion Foundation welcomes a federal appeals court decision calling the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops illegal for targeting service members based on their gender identity.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled this week that the Pentagon policy appears designed to exclude transgender Americans from military service, partially upholding a lower court order protecting currently serving transgender plaintiffs from being discharged. Unfortunately, the ruling does not allow new transgender recruits to enlist, and the decision has been temporarily stayed while the administration seeks further review.
Judge Robert Wilkins, writing for the majority, concluded that the policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender.”
FFRF previously denounced Trump’s January 2025 executive order for demeaning transgender service members and claiming that transgender identity is incompatible with an “honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.” FFRF considers it a sop to Christian nationalists and an attack on human dignity and national security. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, later issued a policy presumptively disqualifying people with gender dysphoria from service.
The ruling arrives during Pride Month, at a time when several Republican-led states are attempting to counterprogram LGBTQ+ recognition with official celebrations of the so-called “nuclear family,” “strong families” or “fidelity.” These proclamations define family through narrow religious and political terms, elevating heterosexual marriage and traditional gender roles while implicitly excluding LGBTQ+ families.
“This ruling is a welcome rebuke to a cruel policy rooted in prejudice, not military necessity,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “The government should not be in the business of declaring that transgender Americans are unfit to serve because they offend the religious or political sensibilities of Christian nationalists.
“The timing is not subtle,” Barker adds. “During a month meant to recognize the dignity and resilience of LGBTQ+ people, political leaders are using government proclamations and federal policy to tell them they are lesser citizens. That is exactly why Pride Month remains necessary and why FFRF stands firmly with the LGBTQ+ community, including the 11 percent of its membership who identify as LGBTQ+.”
Barker notes that thousands of transgender Americans serve or have served honorably in the armed forces. Qualified people in a fair and secular democracy should never be excluded from service because they are transgender, which scapegoats them, undermines equality and weakens military readiness.
FFRF warns that this discrimination is a part of the broader Christian nationalist goal: to use government power to enforce a narrow religious vision of gender, sexuality and family and to privilege one religious worldview at the expense of everyone else. The state/church watchdog will continue working for America to live up to its ideals and be a country where every American is judged by their character and contributions, not by whether they conform to someone else’s religious beliefs.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF welcomes judicial check on transgender military ban appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Pete Hegseth shrinks military’s recognized religions list, erasing atheists and Humanists
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The Department of Defense/War, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, has just pared down the list of recognized religious labels in the military to a mere 31, making it harder for service members to use the proper identification. A decade ago, as part of a larger mission to be more welcoming to people outside traditional faiths, the list of labels had expanded to well over 200.
It’s yet another example of the Trump administration just doing away with useful information as part of their irrational war on “wokeness.”
Here’s why this is important even if you’re not in the military yourself: One of the strengths of our military is that it brings together people from a variety of backgrounds who are working together for a common cause. In theory, it’s supposed to be merit-based; it’s not dependent on your family’s name or your religious background.
One of the ways the military can accommodate people who had previously felt left out of the system is by simply allowing soldiers to more accurately describe their beliefs. Why? Because, for example, a military chaplain who only knows you’re “Christian” isn’t going to be as helpful as one who knows you’re “Southern Baptist.” Similarly, someone who has “No religion” is very different from someone who’s explicitly “atheist.” More information is good for everybody involved.
(Also, if you knew the military had a sizable population of Humanists, it might make it easier to hire Humanist chaplains, something that still hasn’t happened.)
It’s also important because there are benefits to being associated with a religious group. Since religious beliefs must be accommodated, the same rationale that allows Christians in the military to gather for Bible study can be used by Humanists to meet up and talk about philosophy. They can all have time off to attend worship services regardless of what that looks like. If there are enough people with a particular label, they may be able to have a dedicated space to gather. And, of course, if you die in combat, you can be assured you’ll be treated in accordance with your beliefs instead of some generically Christian one.
Before 2014, there were a limited number of “faith codes” you could use to describe yourself. They included “Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, Jewish, Buddhist, or one of more than 100 Christian denominations.” But non-religious soldiers could only choose from “atheist” or “no religious preference.”
After 2014, the list was expanded to include “Humanist.” A hard-fought win that was years in the making!
In 2017, the list was expanded again to include even more specific non-religious categories like “Heathen,” “Deism,” “No Preference,” and “No Religion.”
Again, the goal was accuracy. There was finally an understanding that the spectrum of non-religious thought wasn’t as simple as saying “I’m not.” Much like there are many denominations of Christianity, each of which has meaning for people who belong to those groups, there are non-religious people who believe “Humanist” or “Deist” or “Agnostic” more accurately describes who they are and what they believe.
That’s where we were at after 2017. The military has always treated faith like it’s a net positive for good soldiers but they were finally using language that was less overtly Christian. And they were finally more open to the diversity of thought in an increasingly non-religious country.
But Hegseth is now blowing up that progress like it’s a harmless fishing boat in the Caribbean.
Hegseth, a Christian Nationalist who wants to turn the military into crusaders for Christ, posted a video last December saying the list of faiths and beliefs would be “simplified” to get rid of all that diversity.
That’s why today at my direction, we are also simplifying the faith and belief coding system. In recent years, it ballooned to over 200 overly complex faith and belief codes. An overwhelming majority of the military population only uses six codes. Eleven are not used by anyone. We’re going to streamline it and move it to a new list of religious affiliation codes so that our chaplains can actually use it to minister better to the flock.
He said he would “streamline” the list of military religious affiliation codes. But how would that help chaplains “minister better to the flock”? If anything, as I said earlier, having less specific information to work with would make their jobs harder. Republicans want to eliminate an expansion of religious codes that took over a decade to approve for the simple reason that they can’t handle complexity of thought.
It’s stupidity for the sake of stupidity.
Hegseth doesn’t understand the military and he refuses to listen to the people who have spent their lives in it, so his only solution is to destroy what others have carefully crafted. Instead of deferring to military leaders, Hegseth is imposing his idiotic will because he always assumes he knows best. It’s the kind of unearned arrogance that defines the modern Republican Party.
Anyway, for months now, I’ve been asking the Department of Defense/War to send me the updated list, but they kept telling me they had no updates. The list hadn’t changed despite Hegseth’s claims. I thought (hoped?) that perhaps he just forgot about it.
Alas. Last week, I was tipped off that the list had indeed been changed, though the DoD didn’t respond to my request for the official memo saying so. All I’ve been able to get access to is the first page of the memo which doesn’t include the full list:
Yesterday, however, Military.com (an independent site) said the list was updated and would go into effect within two months:
… The changes were iterated in a May 20, 2026, memorandum issued by the Under Secretary of War and signed by Anthony Tata, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness of the United States, and obtained by Military.com.
This latest revision to the faith codes comes at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Tata-signed memo, done to “streamline the DoW collection of religious preferences collection for service members to enhance the delivery of targeted religious support from the Chaplaincy.” It calls for the previously instituted faith and belief codes to be revised within a 60-day period from the issuance of the memorandum.
“The new list will provide chaplains with clear, readily available information that will better enable them to anticipate the religious support needs of service members and to provide religious support activities that align with service members’ personal faith and practices,” Tata wrote.
All of that is bullshit. It doesn’t make chaplains’ jobs any easier when they have less useful information about what service members believe.
Let’s be blunt: This is being done to erase and push out military personnel who are not Christian or a member of one of the larger religious denominations (that even Hegseth can’t ignore).
According to the memo, which I’m still trying to obtain, the new list of 31 codes includes Agnostic, Baha’i, Buddhist, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Hindu, Islam (Muslim), Judaism (Jewish), No Religion, Other Religions, Sikh, and 21 different flavors of Christianity.
This is the purported list:
What’s gone? Humanist. Heathen. Deist. Pagan. Wiccan. Atheist. And literally dozens upon dozens of smaller religious groups.
Think about what this means: If you’re an atheist, like I am, the only sensible category would be “No Religion.” What about people who no longer buy into organized religion but still think there’s a Higher Power somewhere up there? They would also be listed under “No Religion.” What about people who never think about religion at all? “No Religion.”
It’s a catch-all term that erases open atheists from the military by lumping them in with people who don’t share their views at all.
This isn’t helpful for Christians either, because there’s far more diversity under the broader Christian umbrella than the 21 options listed here. There are progressive Baptists and very conservative Southern Baptists. The United Methodist Church recently underwent a massive schism but the list doesn’t recognize that. If you belong to a non-denominational megachurch, are you “Christian – Non-denominational” or “Christian – Evangelical”?
There are also very different kinds of Jewish people just as there are different sects of Islam.
None of it matters to Hegseth.
There’s no rhyme or reason for this list to be shrunk, but we’re doing it anyway because Hegseth wants to destroy the military from the inside by making it less welcoming for the type of people he doesn’t like: minorities of any stripe.
As one anonymous chaplain told Military.com:
“There’s a lot of faith groups out there that I particularly don’t have an interest in, but there are service members who are sending their sons and daughters into the military, and they’re expecting pastoral care for their sons and daughters as needed—and I don’t think they’re going to get it.
“All it takes is the chaplain to say, ‘Well, I don’t see them on this list. I don’t know how I can help you. Maybe go off the installation and see if you can find anybody who can work with you. Goodbye.’ And that’s it. That’s not the American way.”
To put this another way, the National Cemetery Administration (under the Department of Veterans Affairs) has over 80 “emblems of belief” that they can put on the headstones of dead service members.
That means, when it comes to the military, our government is more interested in your religious affiliation when you’re dead than when you’re alive.
Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, said this move by Hegseth was “entirely unsurprising”:
As much as Hegseth wants to push the lie that the U.S. is a Christian Nation, repeating a lie doesn’t make it true. This is a nation with hundreds of faith and belief systems and our military reflects that simple fact. That Hegseth apparently believes numbers larger than 30 are just too complicated to handle says a lot about his management of the Pentagon.
If reports are accurate, his decision to remove the atheist designation makes it clear this has nothing to do with “streamlining” anything. The exclusion of millions of Americans and countless members of our military sends a message about who counts as a “real” American to Hegseth and the extremists aligned with him.
No matter how hard White Christian Nationalists like Hegseth try, they will never succeed in writing us out of our history or in silencing us. Atheist soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and guardians are patriots committed to protecting our nation and our Constitution. It’s a shame we can’t say the same thing about Hegseth.
This unnecessary change is all the more infuriating because it solves a problem that doesn’t exist while creating a bunch of new ones. No service members were harmed because the military allowed people to identify themselves accurately. No chaplain was overwhelmed because there were too many religious categories. If anything, the expanded list was a small but meaningful acknowledgment that the people serving this country come from a wide range of backgrounds and deserve to be treated accordingly.
No one would ever say a doctor is better served by having fewer options to diagnose you. Yet that’s effectively the logic Hegseth is applying here. And this hits hardest on the very groups that have spent years fighting for recognition, like Humanists. Their inclusion on the earlier list reflected the reality that America’s military is more diverse than we give it credit for, not less. Hegseth has been on a mission to downplay that diversity, ejecting people who don’t fit his vision of what the military ought to look like and preventing minorities from receiving earned promotions. As if pretending diversity doesn’t exist will magically make it all go away.
This move doesn’t save money. It doesn’t improve readiness. It doesn’t strengthen unit cohesion. It doesn’t help chaplains. It doesn’t make the military more effective in any measurable way. All that will happen is that thousands of service members will be less accurately represented in the system.
