Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on a new group of Biden supporters:
Humanists for Biden is a newly formed organization, an off-shoot of Secular Democrats of America, an entity that itself is of recent vintage. The pro-Biden group is headed by Greg Epstein, a humanist “chaplain” who splits his time between Harvard and MIT.
The quotation marks are intentional: Merriam-Webster defines chaplain as “a clergyman in charge of a chapel.” Epstein is a confessed atheist, and a chapel is a place of worship. Therefore, there is no basis in reality for his self-identity. Not only is Epstein delusional, those who access his services as a chaplain are equally delusional. But then again, this is 2020.
Humanists for Biden seek to attract all those who believe in nothing: agnostics, atheists, and the religiously confused. They are a growing part of the nation and are heavily populated by young people, and, of course, the learned ones in the professoriate.
A look at what Humanists for Biden believe yields a lot of pedestrian stuff. They are, of course, fashionable “diverse.” They claim to be fans of science and foes of bigotry, two attributes that distinguish themselves from no one. But are they really opposed to bigotry? The evidence is not persuasive.
Consider what we know of the parent organization, Secular Democrats of America (a redundancy if there ever was one).
Secular Democrats of America is opposed to school vouchers, a social justice cause that just happens to be championed by Catholics. If this is an oblique shot at Catholics, a more direct expression of its animus is the following: “In the United States, 1 in 6 hospital beds are in a Catholic institution, where care can be dictated by religious doctrine.” In other words, we as a nation have a serious problem on our hands: Catholic hospitals follow Catholic teachings. Worse, there are too many of them.
The humanists did not have the courage to say what needs to be done about this alleged problem, though we all know what their atheist agenda entails.
Not surprisingly, Secular Democrats of America is opposed to most religious exemptions; they want to secularize the churches. In fact, they explicitly argue that there should be no distinction in law between secular institutions and religious ones. This would gut the tax-exempt status of all religious institutions, and effectively neuter faith-based organizations.
They also say they are opposed to “religious tests” for public office. For reasons that are not hard to understand, they have said nothing to condemn those Democrats—the secular ones—who have sought to subject Amy Coney Barrett to a religious test.
Naturally, Secular Democrats of America do not value innocent human life. Organized atheists rarely do. For example, they are pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia, goals shared by every totalitarian regime in history (all of which have been expressly atheistic).
What seals their animus against Christians is their charge that “Christian Nationalists” are a threat to democracy. This has become the new dog whistle of Christian bashers. They are always vague in defining who a “Christian Nationalist” is, but they are anything but ambiguous in attributing to evangelical Protestants and traditional Catholics all kinds of nefarious conspiratorial motives and practices.
If a conservative were to link secular Democrats with Antifa, he would be denounced. But somehow it is acceptable to link evangelicals and traditional Catholics with white supremacists. This is exactly what Secular Democrats of America does, warning its followers about the “intersection of Christian nationalism and white supremacy.”
Humanists for Biden say they are not an official part of the Biden campaign, but this is mere window dressing. Secular Democrats of America was welcomed at the Democratic National Convention; they were awarded three panels to promote their Christian-bashing cause.
Joe Biden is no stranger to welcoming these kinds of activists. On February 26, 2010, the Obama-Biden administration became the first presidential administration in history to formally meet with organized atheists. That was when officials from the Secular Coalition for America, home to some of the most rabid Christian haters in the nation, was invited to the White House for consultation.
What makes Humanists for Biden so troubling is that this organization is being rolled out in the same week that one of Biden’s staffers, Deputy Data Director Nikitha Rai, lashed out at Amy Coney Barrett for holding to biblical teachings on marriage and sexuality. Rai said such beliefs—which are held by practicing Catholics, evangelical Protestants, Orthodox Jews, Mormons and Muslims—should disqualify any nominee for public office.
Biden refuses to fire Rai, and now his campaign is befriending a group of Christian-bashing atheists. People of faith take note.
Contact Jen O’Malley-Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager: jod@joebiden.com
