From the pope and Christian patriarchy to climate change and the Project 2025 presidential roadmap — we at the Freedom From Religion Foundation have had a lot on our minds this week.
We told Pope Francis to butt out of the U.S. presidential election, which he has inappropriately weighed in on due to the Catholic Church’s war against abortion. In doing so, he has crossed a state/church line.
Evangelicals are ruining the climate
We highlighted new research confirming that evangelical Christian beliefs are the strongest predictors of climate change denial. While evangelicals turn a blind eye to this crisis, the “Nones” are most likely to agree that there is climate change, that it is human induced and that climate mitigation policy is necessary to combat it. “Atheists, agnostics, and others with no religion see the writing on the wall and we are the ones who should be leading the charge to implement policy solutions to combat this crisis,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president.
Springfield (Mo.) paper gives us coverage
As always, we intervened extensively at the local level — gathering media coverage in the process.
“A nonprofit watchdog committed to the separation of church and state recently notified Bolivar school officials that leading a prayer during a staff meeting is inappropriate,” reports the Springfield, Mo., News-Leader in an extensive story with lots of quotes from us. “The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent the Polk County district a letter Sept. 11 to new superintendent Michael Methvin. In it, attorney Hirsh Joshi said a concerned employee reported that a local pastor ‘recited a school-sponsored prayer over the audience using a loudspeaker’ during the Aug. 13 all-staff assembly.”
Mississippi television notices us
Our chastising of law enforcement in the Deep South also attracted some attention.
“A national nonprofit organization has called on a Mississippi sheriff to cease promoting Christianity through official channels.,” reported a TV station. “The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has raised concerns that Monroe County Sheriff Kevin Cook’s office has been using its platforms, including its website and Facebook page, to broadcast religious messages. Notably, the sheriff’s page features ‘In God We Trust!’ and has posted content with Christian themes.”
Cancel a church partnership
No partnership with a church, we advised a Virginia school board, asking it to nix at a meeting next week an unconstitutional proposal for a tie-up with a local church. FFRF Staff Attorney Chris Line has written to the board chair: “By partnering with Fellowship Bible Church and providing its representatives special access to meet, talk to, and mentor students, the district risks displaying clear favoritism towards religion over nonreligion, Christianity over all other faiths, and a preference for Fellowship Bible Church over other churches.”
No ‘Donuts & God’
We strongly objected to a Texas school district’s ‘Donuts & God’ bible study. The district recently promoted and celebrated attendance at a local junior high school’s bible study group with bible quotes on its official Facebook page. “Government-sponsored [devotional] bible studies are unconstitutional,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Fellow Hirsh M. Joshi has written to the district.
Our chapters are organizing a national billboard campaign
We are able to do so much more due to your help. More than 20 FFRF volunteer chapters have pooled their resources in order to erect voter awareness billboards on behalf of FFRF in all seven swing states. The swing state campaign is the brainchild of Judy Saint, who runs the Greater Sacramento Chapter of FFRF. Saint says, “As we fight Christian nationalism in this next election, our chapter decided to pull together all the national chapters of FFRF to put up at least one billboard in each swing state.”
The scourge of Christian patriarchy
Both our TV and radio shows this week focus on the scourge of Christian patriarchy.
“Freethought Matters” guest Cait West was raised in the Christian purity movement, where women are taught to be completely subservient to fathers. She is the author of a gripping new personal account, “Rift: A Memoir of Breaking Away from Christian Patriarchy,” in which she explains that in Christian patriarchy, each family’s father is deemed a prophet, priest, even a Christ figure. You can already watch the show on our YouTube channel. Or find out where and when to watch it on television Sunday.
On the main interview segment of this week’s Freethought Radio, co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor speak with Tia Levings, author of the bestselling “A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy,” which describes years in a Christian subservient relationship and warns that fundamentalists want to run the country like their run their families.
Getting to know the American Humanist Association
Dan and Staff Attorney Chris Line got acquainted with the new executive director of the American Humanist Association, Fish Stark, on the latest episode of “Ask an Atheist,” FFRF’s Facebook Live feature. Stark explained how he intends to fulfill his organization’s mission of bringing good to the world without a god.
Project 2025 — a roadmap to hell
The hosts of the “We Dissent” podcast discuss on its latest episode the most urgent Christian nationalist threat to democracy — Project 2025. FFRF Deputy Legal Director Liz Cavell, Americans United Legal Director Rebecca Markert and American Atheists Vice President for Legal and Policy Alison Gill dig into the project, the comprehensive transition roadmap for the next conservative administration. Listen in here.
Blowing the whistle on Project 2025
Project 2025 is on a lot of people’s minds. The FFRF Action Fund, our lobbying arm, has commended Rep. Jared Huffman (who co-chairs the Stop Project 2025 Task Force in Congress) for announcing a confidential tip line encouraging members of the public to come forward with information about the hidden “fourth pillar” of Project 2025, its takeover plan for the first 180 days of a Trump presidency that is aimed at dismantling constitutional rights through executive actions. Woah!
FFRF chapter head is ‘Secularist of the Week’
The Fund has chosen one of you as its “Secularist of the Week.” David Williamson is a stellar secular activist (and the head of our central Florida chapter) who recently testified before a Florida school board, urging board members to vote down a chaplain program in its public schools. Our “Theocrat of the Week,” Jon Arguello, is the leading proponent for this school district to install chaplains in its schools. The vote went with David!
States constitutions are the battleground for reproductive rights
State constitutions are the new frontier in the reproductive rights fight, FFRF Legal Fellow Sammi Lawrence asserts in a new column. Recent court decisions from largely rural, conservative states signal that reproductive autonomy and abortion access are not lost causes; on the contrary, states with friendly constitutions are very much in play. “As the fight for reproductive freedom continues, state constitutions will continue to be the battleground for abortion access,” Sammi concludes.
Arthur Miller’s classic still resonates
FFRF Contributing Writer Kat Grant has written a gripping new blog linking Arthur Miller’s classic “The Crucible” to current-day anti-trans hysteria. Read on.
Some things you may have missed
The news cycle moves so swiftly that it’s easy to miss major developments or have a chance to reflect on them. Annie Laurie rounds up some items (such as on Supreme Court justices) that you may have overlooked.
We are able to keep track of an astonishing array of events week in and week out as a result of your unstinting backing.
