Establishing an Office to Promote Religious Conservatism and Enable Federally Funded Discrimination

Executive Order 14205: Establishing an Office to Promote Religious Conservatism and Enable Federally Funded Discrimination

Official Title: Establishment of the White House Faith Office

Date Signed: February 7, 2025

Key Provisions:

• Renames the “White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives” to the “White House Faith Office.” It will be housed within the Domestic Policy Council.
• It will identify and consult with experts “based on their expertise in a broad range of areas in which faith-based entities, community organizations, and houses of worship operate, including protecting women and children; strengthening marriage and family; lifting up individuals through work and self-sufficiency, defending religious liberty; combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias; promoting foster care and adoption programs in partnership with faith-based entities; providing wholesome and effective education; preventing and reducing crime and facilitating prisoner reentry; promoting recovery from substance use disorder; and fostering flourishing minds.”
• It will coordinate widely between the federal government and faith-based organizations, including to provide “training and education regarding religious liberty exceptions, accommodations, or exemptions” (likely from nondiscrimination requirements) and to identify grant opportunities for faith groups that have previously been ineligible for this type of support.
• It will collaborate with the Attorney General’s office to identify concerns from faith-based partners and supposedly work to uphold the highest standard of religious liberty.
• Agencies that lack a Center of Faith will “designate or appoint a Faith Liaison” to oversee the agency’s relationship to the White House Faith Office
• Televangelist pastor Paula White-Cain will lead the office. She was involved in the first Trump administration and is a well-known member of the New Apostolic Reformation, a group seeking Christian dominion over American politics, and a proponent of the "prosperity gospel”.

Threats to Religious Freedom:

• The government can engage with faith-based organizations, secular groups, and community initiatives in a way that respects church-state separation and meets the needs of diverse communities, but this Executive Order lays the groundwork for this office to violate certain constitutional guardrails.
• By removing “and neighborhood partnerships” from the office’s name and mission, this Order signals that it intends to use the office to promote religion. It is not the government’s role to aid or inhibit religious exercise. Instead of partnering with both faith-based and community-based organizations as previous administrations have attempted, this Office will focus only on faith-based organizations. It also says nothing of secular organizations that represent the 3-in-10 Americans with no religious affiliation.
• The Office’s stated policy priorities, such as strengthening marriage and promoting adopt, suggest it will largely center on the interests of conservative Christians rather than serving the diverse perspectives of other faith communities and non-religious individuals.
• By highlighting the trainings around religious exemptions, this Office indicates it will concentrate on providing federal funding and technical support for religious organizations to learn more about how to weaponize an organization’s religious affiliation to evade anti-discrimination laws.