U.S. Attorney General William Barr spoke at the Notre Dame Law School on Oct. 11, 2019. (Justin Hicks/IPB News)
A large online Christian group has filed a complaint against U.S. Attorney General William Barr over his recent speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School.
Barr spoke to a closed group of Notre Dame law students on October 11th.
The non-profit group, Faithful America, filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice saying Barr’s speech violated his oath to uphold the constitution.
Barr’s speech was reportedly on ‘religious liberty.’ In it, he blamed secularism for societal problems. Faithful America says the speech is a clear violation of the first amendment’s ban on an establishment of religion. The group also filed a petition with more than 13-thousand of its member’s signatures.
The following is the group's complaint to the Department of Justice:
Dear Director Amundson,
On behalf of the Christian 501(c)4 organization Faithful America, I am filing this complaint against Attorney General William Barr in regard to his public remarks on “religious liberty” at the University of Notre Dame on Friday, October 11, 2019.
The Attorney General delivered this speech in his capacity as a government official: The remarks include a reference to his job title and are posted on the official Department of Justice website. The text of these remarks clearly favors religion over non-religion, and Christianity over other religions. This is a violation of Mr. Barr’s oath to support and defend the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty to all Americans, not just those who hold Judeo-Christian views.
The Attorney General’s remarks also appear to have been a possible coordinated execution of the Trump Pence 2020 campaign’s reelection strategy, an improper use of government resources.
Faithful America is the country’s largest online community of Christians putting our faith into action for social justice. A petition signed by 13,649 of our members in support of this complaint is attached to this email, along with additional comments from many of those members.
Failure to Defend the Religious Liberty of all Americans
Text of William Barr’s speech: https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-law-school-and-de-nicola-center-ethics
In his Notre Dame speech, the Attorney General said it is better for the nation to follow religious values than non-religious values, blaming “militant secularists” for many of America’s social ills. He declared, “No secular creed has emerged capable of performing the role of religion.” Mr. Barr also quoted John Adams as saying, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people." This Adams quotation is a personal opinion rather than a binding Constitutional interpretation, and is appalling for our nation's chief law enforcement officer to favorably cite in official remarks. Legally, the Constitution is and must be for all Americans, including those who are not "a religious people."
These official remarks not only show inappropriate favoritism to religion over nonreligion, but also favor Christianity over other religions. The Attorney General specifically lifted up Judeo-Christian values as “the ultimate utilitarian rules for human conduct.” While this was one of five references to "Judeo-Christian" values and moral systems, Mr. Barr also made numerous positive references to Christianity alone, but no mentions of Judaism alone. He cited perceived attacks on conservative Christianity as evidence of "secular" and "progressive" attacks on religious liberty but did not mention any other religions, despite numerous recent attacks on American Muslims and Jews from supporters of the administration.
What was presented as a defense of religious liberty for all Americans quickly became an attack on the religious freedom of everyone except conservative Christians. Not only do these remarks violate the Attorney General’s oath to treat citizens of all religions (and none) equally, they also call into question his ability to defend the civil rights of atheists and other non-Christians.
Christian Nationalism
Faithful America is a participant in the broad coalition “Christians Against Christian Nationalism.” Christian nationalism is a dangerous political ideology that seeks to merge Christian and American identities, demanding that Christianity be privileged by the government and implying that to be a good American, one must be Christian. This is the ideology that was on display during the Attorney General’s speech.
In contrast to the beliefs of Christian nationalism, one’s religious affiliation and values -- or lack thereof -- should be irrelevant to one’s standing in the civic community. Moreover, as the Constitution makes clear, it is the government 's duty not to prefer one religion over another or religion over nonreligion. Mr. Barr failed in this duty at Notre Dame.
Government and Campaign Collusion
The timing of the Attorney General’s speech is suspect. His speech came just three days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered a speech called "On Being a Christian Leader," as well as three days before President Trump told the Values Voters Summit that progressive Americans "resent and disdain faithful Americans," and "are trying to silence and punish the speech of Christians and religious believers of all faiths."
On June 30, 2019, the news website Axios reported that according to the president's campaign officials, "President Trump’s re-election campaign is developing an aggressive, state-by-state plan to mobilize even more evangelical voters than supported him last time." Mr. Barr appears to be possibly engaged in a coordinated strategy by campaign and administration officials to signal to Christian voters that they must support the president in 2020. In light of this pattern, we are forced to ask: Is the supposedly independent Attorney General using his official capacity to improperly further the goals of a politician’s reelection campaign?
Requests
As Americans and as a Christians, we request that Mr. Barr’s October 11 speech be removed from the DOJ website, that he apologize for making remarks in favor of Christian nationalism, and that he deliver a new speech outlining new steps to combat right-wing attacks on the religious liberty of Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, progressive Christians, American Indians, and atheists.
Video of Barr's speech is below and the text of his remarks is available here.
