It’s Halloween, a fun day to venture close to the dark side and give ourselves a good-natured fright.
The black-shrouded ghost, the dapper vampire and the guy with the chainsaw and hockey mask may haunt your dreams tonight, but let’s face it – you’re not likely to encounter them in real life. (Thank goodness!) However, some true-life horrors exist that we all must face, among them the absolutely terrifying agenda of Christian Nationalists.
With that disturbing thought in mind, here are five of the scariest ways Christian Nationalists want to remake our nation:
Christian Nationalists want to either abolish or “Christianize” public schools: The Christian Nationalist agenda for public education is truly horrifying. These schools serve 90% of our young people. Christian Nationalists would either get rid of them altogether and shift to a system of taxpayer-funded private schools through vouchers or infuse the public schools with their narrow version of Christianity. In either case, millions of kids would be left out in the cold.
Christian Nationalists aim to control our reproductive lives: It’s not just legal abortion that Christian Nationalists want to abolish, they’re coming after many forms of birth control, too. And to enforce these repressive laws, they want to fashion a far-reaching surveillance state and crack down on people crossing state borders to access abortion. They’ve outlined their plans in Project 2025. It’s terrifying!
Christian Nationalists are scheming to roll back LGBTQ+ rights: LGBTQ+ rights have been on the march for decades, and most Americans support them. Christian Nationalists don’t care. They call for legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ+ people (in the name of “religious freedom”) and overturning a slew of anti-discrimination laws. In the case of transgender people, it’s even worse: Christian Nationalists deny their very existence.
Christian Nationalists are attacking the freedom to read and learn: The wave of book banning that engulfed the nation, often led by Christian Nationalist groups like Moms for Liberty, is really scary. The books targeted in our libraries often deal with LGBTQ+ themes, but others are history volumes or works that explore America’s troubled racial legacy. When it comes to history, Christian Nationalists would prefer that our children remain ignorant rather than learn truths that can (and should) make us uncomfortable.
Christian Nationalists are trying to rewrite our history: The U.S. Constitution makes it clear that the United States was not founded to be a “Christian Nation.” Thanks to the separation of church and state, Americans of all faiths and those who choose to be non-religious are welcome and are equal citizens. The Christian Nation myth is dangerous (and scary) because it promotes the pernicious idea that some Americans are privileged because they have the “correct” religious beliefs, while everyone else is a second-class citizen.
If you celebrate Halloween, I hope you enjoy today. And if some pint-sized ghouls and goblins approach your door tonight, I recommend having some fun-sized Snickers on hand for them. Take in a scary movie if you’re so inclined.
But when it comes to Christian Nationalists, don’t get too scared. Yes, we must take what Christian Nationalists are doing seriously, but we can’t let them frighten us into inaction.
If we work together and build a national recommitment to separation of church and state, we will ensure that the nightmarish hellscape of theocracy that Christian Nationalists seek to create is left to cower in the dark corners of extremism where it belongs.
