A US Department of Justice task force has published a 200-page report finding that the Biden administration's prosecutions, policies and practices systematically disadvantaged traditional Christians across the federal government.

The central conclusion is that the previous administration tolerated privately held Christian belief but used the levers of executive power to discourage and penalise public expression of that belief. The pattern, the task force found, was systemic.

The specifics matter. Pro-life demonstrators outside abortion clinics were prosecuted aggressively under the federal FACE Act, with the Justice Department requesting an average sentence of 26.8 months for pro-life defendants compared with 12.3 months for pro-abortion defendants.

Pro-abortionist attacks on Christian pregnancy resource centres drew a softer response. At the same time, traditionalist Catholic priests were placed under FBI surveillance, and internal communications revealed prosecutors discussing the targeting of nuns.

The unifying feature is how each measure was packaged. In almost every instance, the discriminatory effect was achieved under the cover of other policy goals: gender and LGBT ideology, abortion access, and anti-discrimination enforcement. The task force concluded that the Biden administration had "zealously pursued" outcomes that conflicted with traditional Christian belief.

That is the pattern Australians should recognise.

In Australia, similar trade-offs are being legislated and enforced, often without acknowledgment that fundamental freedoms are in retreat.

Religious exemptions to anti-discrimination law are being narrowed, with consequences for the staffing of religious schools and the operation of faith-based charities. Victoria's Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Act 2021 reaches into ordinary pastoral conversation and even prayer, carrying penalties of up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Queensland Children's Hospital child psychiatrist Dr Jillian Spencer has spent years in legal proceedings after questioning the automatic affirmation of gender-distressed children.

Foster carers Byron and Keira Hordyk endured years of litigation to defend their right to be considered as carers while holding to their Christian beliefs.

Equality Australia, an organisation that campaigns against religious schools’ staffing freedoms, was granted tax-deductible status under special legislation after the charity regulator and the courts repeatedly refused to grant it.

None of these measures was directly targeted at Christians. Each was presented as protecting some other interest: equality, child safety, public health, social inclusion.

The practical outcome, however, is consistent. Australians who hold to traditional teaching on marriage, sexuality, identity, and the unborn find themselves on the wrong side of regulatory action and litigation. At the same time, their lawful speech and ordinary religious practice attract suspicion or sanction.

The DOJ report is a reminder that Western governments have used neutral-sounding administrative tools to produce outcomes that would be politically unacceptable if pursued openly. The legal mechanisms differ across jurisdictions. The effect on people of faith does not.

Religious freedom in modern democracies is rarely curtailed by laws that name Christians as the target. Instead, it’s through the steady accumulation of administrative and regulatory measures that gradually limit the public practice of faith.

HRLA continues to act for clients facing precisely these pressures. The question for any free society is whether its institutions are prepared to enforce equal treatment under the law, regardless of which beliefs are currently fashionable.