The instructions came in a cable obtained by The Epoch Times.
The State Department recently instructed employees to report workers who exhibited anti-religious bias, including bias against Christians, according to a cable obtained by The Epoch Times.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the April 11 cable directed State Department employees to a reporting form and instructed them to provide “information regarding any Department or individual practices involving anti-religious bias during the last presidential administration (2021-2025); and recommendations to the Secretary of State to remedy any anti-religious bias at the Department.”
The cable was obtained by The Epoch Times via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Employees could provide information anonymously, Rubio said.
The submitted information would be collated, he said, to help the department contribute to an interagency report required by President Donald Trump’s February order aimed at halting anti-Christian discrimination.
“It is the policy of the United States, and the purpose of this order, to protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponization of government,” Trump wrote in the order, which alleged that during the Biden administration, government officials “engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” such as bringing charges against people who demonstrated outside facilities that perform abortions.
Rubio said that while the order focused on anti-Christian bias, targeting anyone for their religious beliefs violates the Constitution, so people can report other instances of anti-religious bias.
The cable listed examples such as being mistreated for requesting religious exemptions from mandatory vaccination or observing religious holidays; being forced to remove displays of religious faith from desks and clothing; and being mistreated for refusing to participate in activities with themes that ran counter to religious beliefs, such as those “related to preferred personal pronouns.”
The State Department declined to say whether any employees have been fired or otherwise disciplined for exhibiting bias against Christians. “As a general practice, we do not comment on internal personnel matters,” a spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on April 30.
Last week, Rubio participated in the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the federal government, which was created by a Trump executive order.
During that meeting, Rubio raised some of the reported allegations of bias, including claims that Christian Foreign Service officers who homeschooled their children were either reported to the IRS or threatened with a child abuse investigation, according to a Department of Justice readout.
He also disclosed that State Department employees were called “murderers” and “troublemakers” for opposing the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds.
“In one instance, an ambassador yelled at an employee, accusing the employee of wanting to kill the ambassador’s mother despite her being back in the States,” the readout stated.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said in an April 22 statement that “Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” adding, “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”