Chirstian Right Bill Mill, Project Blitz, Hasn’t Gone Away, It’s Just Gotten More Secretive
Religion Dispatches
Frederick Clarkson
In the Fall of 2019, the secretive Christian Right state legislative campaign, Project Blitz, became even more of a secret. When RD first reported on Project Blitz in April 2018 the website featured their annual state legislative playbook of model bills and talking points. They also named the members of the State Legislative Prayer Caucuses that drew on the model bills for their own legislation. But in the face of public scrutiny, RD’s revelation of a second playbook and the unwanted media attention that followed our reports (from The New York Times, Salon, The Guardian, Religion News Service, USA Today, Church & State magazine and many more) the sponsoring Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation (CPCF) scrubbed everything under the rubric of Project Blitz from their site. One Ohio state senator went so far as to lie to a reporter about even knowing about Project Blitz—despite being the state’s co-chair.
The Project Blitz playbooks for the state legislative sessions of 2019-2020 (PDF) and 2020-21 (PDF) remained hidden—until now. They’ve added some new bills—including a dramatic attack on the integrity of public libraries—but the Dominionism-driven Christian nationalist agenda remains the same. The playbooks advise legislators to cloak their religious mission in the guise of more secular intentions and they’ve renamed several bills to make them sound more appealing.