Supporting Religious Freedom and Diversity
- For a decade, Members of the CFC have been pushing to increase representation for all religious and nonreligious communities in the People’s House. As part of this effort, the CFC advocated for the Chaplain to invite the first-ever nontheistic guest chaplain to deliver an invocation before the House of Representatives and filed an amicus brief to protest the exclusion of a nontheistic guest chaplain.
- With our support and leadership, President Biden recently updated federal faith-based regulations to ensure that people from all backgrounds can participate in social services without fear of religious discrimination or exclusion.
- CFC supports the efforts of religious minorities and non-religious servicemembers to tackle religious discrimination and improve religious inclusion in the military.
- The CFC supported the efforts of groups such as Ex Muslims of North America to protect religious liberty for individuals who have left their religious faiths. Ex-religious individuals often find that online groups are some of the only places where they can talk openly about leaving their faiths or being non-religious. However, these communities found that their online groups were being intentionally reported as offensive and subsequently taken down by religious extremists simply because those religious extremists oppose their secular views. After sending a letter to Facebook to express concerns about their content moderation policies, the CFC brought Facebook and Ex Muslims of North America together to have a productive conversation about how the social media platform can better understand the concerns of the secular community.
- Leaders of the caucus opposed the Trump administration’s repeated attacks on civil liberties and religious freedom through new programs and regulations that supported religious extremism in the false name of religious liberty.
- CFC Members led an amicus brief in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, arguing that by pressuring students to join his public prayers at the 50-yard line during school football games, Bremerton High School football coach Joseph A. Kennedy violated the Establishment Clause and students’ religious freedom.