House Foreign Affairs chair subpoenas group that got $500K in US funding to promote atheism
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has subpoenaed Humanists International for refusing to hand over records related to its $500,000 grant from the US State Department to promote atheism in Nepal.
“For too long, organizations with extreme, ideological agendas — like Humanists International — have been allowed to implement publicly funded programs far from the public eye and with minimal congressional oversight,” McCaul said Thursday in announcing the subpoena.
“I was forced to subpoena HI because it has refused to provide transparency to Congress and the American people despite receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars,” he added.
“It has been a complicit partner to the State Department, which I am also prepared to subpoena in the coming days for repeatedly resisting production of documents and obfuscating its role in intentionally exporting atheism abroad and distorting religious freedom in a partisan manner,” McCaul also said.
The State Department first solicited applications for the controversial grant in April 2021 — and it later became the target of a multi-year investigation by House Republicans.
McCaul’s investigation has been supported by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), a devout Southern Baptist, according to RealClearPolitics, as Foreign Affairs GOP members believe the grant may be unconstitutional.
The US Constitution’s Establishment Clause bans US taxpayers’ money from being used to advocate for any religion.
On its grant application webpage, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor wrote: “Applicants will be responsible for ensuring program activities and products are implemented in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution.”
Awardees were encouraged to use the funding to prop up or strengthen “networks of advocates for the diverse communities of atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities in target countries.”
While supposedly part of its religious freedom programming, the State Department potentially misappropriated taxpayer funds and misled Foreign Affairs panel members about the potentially anti-religious grant.
Contents of PowerPoint slide decks obtained by the panel included “damning” evidence that the Humanists International grant in Nepal “was designed to recruit new members” to their atheistic cause.
“To be sure, despite all of the evasions by the Department, it is now plain that the grant promoted atheism and expanded atheist networks abroad, while neglecting Christian and Muslim minorities who, unlike atheists and humanists, face real persecution in the relevant parts of South Asia,” Foreign Affairs lawmakers wrote in an April letter to State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Verma.
None expressed confidence that the State Department would either “take immediate action” or “recoup misused funds.”
Reps for Humanists International did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
