Trump DOJ Steps Into Breach To Defend Religious Liberty

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has stepped up its defense of religious liberty under the Trump administration.

In the past several months, the DOJ has filed statements of interest in land use cases for churches, helped launch a task force to “eliminate” anti-Christian bias and opened an investigation into an “anti-Catholic” law in Washington.

The DOJ opened an investigation Monday into a Washington law that forces Catholic priests to disclose information received in the confessional related to child abuse or neglect. The law, signed by Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson on Friday, explicitly excludes “members of the clergy” from an exemption for reporting information obtained as a result of “a privileged communication.”

Bishop Thomas Daly of the Spokane Diocese said priests would remain “committed to keeping the seal of confession – even to the point of going to jail” after the law was signed.

“Washington’s new law forces priests to choose between violating their faith or breaking the law,” Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote Monday on X. “That’s unconstitutional.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi hosted cabinet members in April for a meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias established through an executive order.

The DOJ also indicted a man in March for allegedly setting fire to a Mormon church.

Andrea Picciotti Bayer, director of the Conscience Project and former DOJ civil rights attorney, told the Daily Caller News Foundation these steps are “exactly what Americans should expect from the federal government.”

“For far too long the DOJ’s Civil Right’s Division ignored religious freedom and, at times, even was hostile to people of faith and churches,” she said. “These key efforts show that this pattern and practice is ending.”

Dhillon told the DCNF in an interview in April that there is “open hostility to religion in many sectors of our society.”

“We have federal statutes that protect religion, not just the First Amendment, but there’s the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ,” she said. “We’ve brought several cases in the DOJ Civil Rights Division to protect houses of worship, Christian and others.”

RLUIPA protects religious assemblies and institutions from discrimination in zoning and land use regulations.

In April, the civil rights division filed statements of interest in RLUIPA cases brought by an Islamic organization in New York, as well as Christian churches in North Carolina and New Hampshire. It also filed statements in March backing Christian churches in Santa Ana, California and Pennsylvania.

The DOJ first launched its Place to Worship Initiative to increase awareness of RLUIPA in 2018.

Biden’s DOJ used the law to support faith-based services to the homeless, suing in December over a Georgia city’s effort to close a homeless shelter affiliated with the United Methodist Church.

Former Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke wrote a letter informing state, county and municipal officials of their obligations under RLUIPA in May 2024, noting the law applies to “religious social service facilities such as group homes, homeless shelters, and soup kitchens.”

“Our work in this area suggests that litigation is far less likely if local officials are aware of RLUIPA and consider its protections early in the process of reviewing land use applications from religious organizations,” she wrote.

In 11 years, First Liberty senior counsel Jeremy Dys told the DCNF he’s had around four statements of interest filed in religious land use cases by the DOJ — two have come in the past few months. The Trump DOJ is much quicker to “launch in defense of religious liberty” than the prior administration, he said.

“It’s one thing for Congress to pass a law like RLUIPA,” Dys told the DCNF. “It’s an entirely different thing for an administration like this to say, we take that seriously and want to see it enforced at the local level. And if the Department of Justice won’t do that, what we’re going to see is cities and counties and other municipalities running roughshod over the civil rights of America’s religious entities. So I’m very encouraged that the Department of Justice has made this issue, enforcing especially religious land use protections, a priority of the administration itself.”

Under the Biden administration, the DOJ also prosecuted pro-life activists while failing to prosecute many attacks on churches and pro-life pregnancy centers. Dhillon promised during an interview with the DCNF that pattern was “going to change.”

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, hundreds of churches and pregnancy centers were vandalized, broken into, firebombed or otherwise damaged, according to Catholic Vote. Between 1994 to 2024, just six cases were brought under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against abortion activists, though 205 were brought against pro-life activists, the Daily Caller reported.

“The FACE Act can be used to protect clinics where women get counseling about their options for abortion, and 200 of those have been violently attacked, firebombed, picketed and otherwise been obstructed over the last few years with zero action from the DOJ,” Dhillon previously told the DCNF.

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