Nicole Carr of ‘The Humanist’ on Project 2025

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/07/03

Nicole Carr is the Interim Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, Editor of the Humanist magazine, and Senior Editor of TheHumanist.com. Prior to joining the staff at the AHA, she worked in development and communications for arts and education non-profit organizations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. Carr received a BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in English and Feminist Literature from the University of Virginia.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: There has been significant upheaval in the global gender landscape. I will read some key points from Human Rights Watch regarding backlash to gender equality. In Afghanistan, the Taliban has prohibited women and teenage girls from participating in many aspects of their lives, including education at schools and universities. China has implemented stringent social controls to silence feminists working on gender issues in the public sphere. Poland has targeted women’s rights activists. In the United States, Roe v. Wade was repealed. 

South Korea is pursuing a series of anti-feminist initiatives, including the abolition of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family. In Pakistan, the annual Aurat March, held in honour of International Women’s Day, has faced extremist backlash from the Pakistani Taliban. Additionally, the Russian Federation has repealed its domestic violence laws. Globally, we are witnessing a backlash against women’s equality. In the United States, humanists indicate that a major issue is the intertwining of religious and national identity, often under the banner of white nationalism. What is happening there? What is the humanist perspective on this issue at present?

Nicole Carr: There is a growing white Christian nationalism movement in the United States. Ironically, this occurs as the percentage of the population identifying with religion is decreasing. This political and social movement threatens many rights that various groups, especially women, have come to rely on. We find ourselves fighting battles we thought were resolved. A prominent example is the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision, which effectively overturned Roe v. Wade, thereby eliminating the constitutional protection of abortion rights.

Consequently, we have seen states moving swiftly to ban abortions or impose stringent restrictions. For instance, six-week abortion bans effectively prohibit abortions since many individuals do not realize they are pregnant within that timeframe. The Dobbs decision has had extensive implications beyond abortion. It has been utilized to challenge contraceptive use and access, and even in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other methods of pregnancy have faced unprecedented regulations. These developments are entirely driven by white Christian nationalists who have gained control of legislatures and courts in numerous states.

An example is a recent Supreme Court case, perceived as a win. The court was asked to ban mifepristone, one of the two drugs used in medical abortions, which has become the most common form of abortion in recent years. The court declined to ban it, but this decision was based on a technicality: the group bringing the suit lacked standing. The court did not address the case’s merits, leaving open the possibility that another group with proper standing could still challenge the availability of mifepristone in many states.

Jacobsen: Is this mainly from the evangelicals, or is it a coalition of Christian groups coming together under this banner of white nationalism? Who exactly is working together on this issue?

Carr: As you know, maybe this goes without saying, but the issue is not just about controlling women. It’s about controlling people’s ability to manage their reproductive health and decide when to have children. And not only when, but with recent moves to ban or restrict IVF, it’s also about whether to have children and how to have them.

Jacobsen: This is a long-standing trend in the United States. While many of their rights have been largely settled, it’s about the politicization of women’s bodies. They may ground it in some rationalization, but when you break those apart, they typically involve selective literalist interpretations of scripture, plus some things they’ve seemingly made up whole-cloth, based on the decrees of either the pope or other religious authorities.

Carr: Right; I will also say that these moves around reproductive health go hand in hand with efforts to discriminate against, and in some cases legislate out of existence, the rights of LGBTQ people, particularly trans people. The same people who work so hard to ban abortions and restrict the use of contraceptives are also the ones banning gender-affirming therapy in some states. We have “Don’t Say Gay” laws in Florida and restrictions on what can and can’t be discussed or even mentioned in schools. For instance, teachers jobs are threatened for simply referring to having a same-sex spouse. These issues all come together and are interconnected. They are about people with particular religious beliefs trying to control the lives, expressions, and identities of groups they have issues with.

Jacobsen: This “freedom for me and not for thee” attitude has been a long-term prospecting plan, heavily implemented in the last few years. It’s coming from multiple angles. So, what’s up with Project 2025?

Carr: The point of Project 2025 is that The Heritage Foundation created it, and the goal is to dismantle the US government in favour of authoritarian rule. The rest of us would have to abide by the religious rules and precepts that white Christian nationalists would like to install. This would mean the destruction of abortion rights, widespread discrimination against LGBTQ people, massive changes in school curricula, and the literal dismantling of the government by dismissing hundreds of thousands of government employees and repopulating most government agencies with people who align with the white Christian nationalist agenda, leading to authoritarian rule. If you go to project2025.org, you can see that The Heritage Foundation and far-right Christian nationalist organizations have laid this out in print. If we don’t work quickly to find ways to prevent it, they’ll work towards this after the next elections. I want to commend Representatives Jared Huffman of California and Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who, along with other members of the House of Representatives and the Congressional Freethought Caucus, are creating a task force to counter The Heritage Foundation’s agenda. This task force was just announced last week and is now getting to work.

Jacobsen: I will commend Project 2025 for one thing, which is surprising for me to say.

Carr: What is that?

Jacobsen: It differs from prior non-science or anti-science moves, such as the Intelligent Design movement. With the Intelligent Design movement, we saw the Wedge Strategy, which had to be leaked. I will commend them on their transparency this time. You have to hand it to them. They are telling us what they want to do and what they intend to do. On reproductive issues and rights, they start from a premise that, as far as I know, doesn’t hold any water in biological sciences. It’s the standard hard-line Catholic conception where life begins at conception.

Carr: Right, which is, of course, a religious belief and not a scientific fact.

Jacobsen: Yes, so, to make that part of a political platform is essentially to openly affirm theocratically oriented beliefs as a political platform, as you and I know: If you’re going to have any valid political orientation, you have to start from at least some facts. Then, you can orient it within the facts because you’re dealing with the real world. If not, you can make up anything you want, and there are no boundaries or rules.

Carr: Absolutely.

Jacobsen: So, are there different conversations among American women friends or humanists in the community about some of these issues that might be discussed more by the wider public? Or are all these things generally talked about by humanists?

Carr: We are doing our best to ensure these issues are generally discussed among humanists. Progressives, more widely, are also very focused on these issues. For instance, closer to home, the members of the Secular Coalition for America, which includes 22 groups — such as the American Humanist Association (AHA), American Atheists, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Center for Inquiry, and a host of smaller groups around the country — are certainly focused on this as a membership organization. We seek opportunities to move the dial on these issues and work against Project 2025. But we’re not the only ones concerned. Slightly wider groups like Americans United just put out a great primer on Project 2025, which boils it down into the headlines, making it easy to understand what they’re trying to do. Also, groups centred on issues of separation of religion and government, like the Leadership Conference, Planned Parenthood, women’s groups, and other reproductive rights organizations, are actively involved. Progressive religious groups like the Baptist Joint Committee and Reverend Barber’s Poor People’s Campaign in North Carolina also fight against the issues that make up Project 2025. We are eager to work with as many of them as possible because, as with all issues, we are stronger when we work together.

Jacobsen: Are these populations — whether or not they identify as such in how they vote, this population of Christian nationalists or individuals who vote that way on particular policies — a continually shrinking portion of the American population? If so, what is the long-term trajectory here? Is it leading to more extreme politics, or will there be a warning, acceptance, and reconciliation with the wider population in the United States?

Carr: Right. So, I don’t know if I have a definitive answer. As a 501(c)(3) organization — our US nonprofit designation — we are prohibited from getting involved in electoral politics on behalf of candidates. We work on issues. So, I haven’t done much analysis on voting demographics, but we certainly encourage everyone to register and vote, as that’s the only way we can protect our values. We have an adjunct organization with a C4 designation, which means they can lobby. That group has a PAC, a political action committee, which can support and give to individual candidates. That’s the Center for Freethought Equality (not the Congressional Freethought Caucus). So, I recommend that people look at CFequality.org to find out more. However, I will say that according to Pew Research Council polls and other sources, the number of people who say they don’t have an affiliation with any religion has been growing for years. This trend suggests that religious people are becoming a smaller part of the voting electorate. Unfortunately, white Christian nationalists and those who support their philosophies and laws are very motivated. Therefore, people who believe in humanist values must be just as motivated, and we must ensure that we get out and vote.

Jacobsen: Nicole, thank you very much for your time.

Carr: Thank you. This has been a great discussion. I appreciate it.

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