This dispatch is being written on Valentine’s Day — all the more reason to tell you all how much your love is keeping us going in these tough times.
We’re doing all that we can to resist the religious onslaught and are often making the news while doing so.
When the USA Today news service did an extensive story on the dangers that the Trump administration is posing to the First Amendment, it quoted at length FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor: “The separation of church and state is going to be treated as a bad idea,” she said. “He’s going to keep saying we’re a nation of believers, we’re one nation under god. He’s going to make it sound like Christians are being persecuted and he’s going to come rescue them, and it will be at the expense of our First Amendment and religious and nonreligious minorities.”
Opposing the National Prayer Breakfast
Our opposition to the Trump-headlined National Prayer Breakfast “went viral” on social media and beyond.
“‘The government’s job is to protect everyone’s rights, not give special treatment to one religion. Will this office defend non-Christians and the nonreligious, or just push a Christian nationalist agenda?’ The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit working for the separation of church and state, said in a Feb. 7 statement on X, formerly known as Twitter,” stated a McClatchy News Service story carried in the Miami Herald and other newspapers.
The primary news organization covering faith and nonfaith also noticed our objection.
“As they have in the past, atheist and secular groups criticized the prayer gatherings themselves as an inappropriate mixing of politics and religion,” the Religion News Service stated in an article about the National Prayer Breakfast and associated shindigs. “The Freedom From Religion Foundation Action Fund [our lobbying arm] joined other groups in a letter urging members of Congress not to attend the breakfasts or related events.”
We were featured in The Guardian
None other than The London Guardian featured our critique of a Christian group pushing the Ohio Statehouse to grant religious “release time.”
“According to Sammi Lawrence, a staff attorney with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the group received more than 40 complaints from parents and school district employees about LifeWise in 2024,” The Guardian said. “Many reported ‘schools permitting LifeWise representatives to come into the school and try to recruit kids to go, letting representatives come in during classes or come in during lunch, and pass out flyers.’ Public schools cannot legally promote LifeWise, and Lawrence told the Guardian FFRF had successfully intervened to stop such practices.”
An awful bill in our home state
And when media outlets in our home state of Wisconsin wanted a secular perspective on a proposed bill to force public school classrooms to display “In God We Trust,” they, of course, turned to us: “If these lawmakers wanted to be patriotic, they would go back to the original motto, E Pluribus Unum,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, Co-Founder and Co-President of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It is clearly an attempt to force religion on everyone, especially the most impressionable, which is the captive audience of public school children.”
We helped kill a terrible North Dakota resolution
Further away from home, our vociferous opposition to a North Dakota legislative resolution acknowledging the “Kingship of Jesus Christ” was featured in that state’s media outlets: “Protect the separation of church and state because that really protects everyone. You know that’s what we really want to see is the legislator working on things that will make a practical real difference in the lives of North Dakotans. Not doing a messaging bill like this. It doesn’t help anyone but sends an exclusionary message to a lot of people there,” said Chris Line, Legal Counsel at Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Voices like ours were heard, since we learned just today that the resolution has been shelved. Yay!
Alabama media hears us on bad legislation
Even further away from us, Alabama media outfits have noticed our objection to a particularly bad piece of legislation.
“A bill in the Alabama House of Representatives would cause public schools to lose funding if they do not implement a daily prayer,” says a story from a CBS affiliate. “Since the filing of the bill, the Freedom from Religion Foundation has openly criticized the effort, calling it an ‘outrageous attempt to impose religion on captive public school students.’ ‘This bill isn’t about religious freedom; it’s about the government forcing religion onto students,’” a statement from the FFRF stated.”
The first ever freethinking billboard in Africa!
We forged ahead in other ways, too.
We helped unveil Africa’s first-ever atheist billboard in Accra, Ghana. Sponsored by FFRF in partnership with Accra Atheists, this historic installation marks a significant milestone in visibility and advocacy for African humanists, atheists, agnostics and skeptics. “This is a dream come true,” says Roslyn Mould, co-founder and president of Accra Atheists.
RFK Jr.’s threat to public health
Robert Kennedy Jr. is woefully unsuited for his new job as health and human services secretary with his anti-vaccination crusade. And now he’s wrapping himself in a godly mantle. We dissect his absurdities.
Our win for the Constitution in Minnesota
We ensured that the Pequot Lakes Public Schools system in Minnesota will be free of outside pastor participation at a student-led club. “Schools cannot constitutionally allow religious organizations to treat schools as a recruiting ground for their religious mission,” FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle Steinberg wrote to the district. Thankfully, FFRF’s letter wasn’t ignored — and corrective action was taken.
An extremist Idaho bill
We slammed an extremist Idaho bill forcing bible reading in public schools.
“If lawmakers wish to uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution, they should abandon this bill immediately,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “If enacted, it will be swiftly challenged in court — and struck down.”
A rushed Tennessee universal school voucher program
We called attention to a recently passed universal school voucher law in Tennessee — and the concerning lack of public input in its rushed passage. We are urging Tennessee residents to demand that state lawmakers reverse course.
Ron Reagan’s ad on MSNBC
The iconic advertisement that Ron Reagan has done for us as an “unabashed atheist, not afraid of burning in hell” will continue to run periodically over the next several weeks on MSNBC. Check out which shows you can spot it on, and how you can help spread the word.
Humanists International spotlights plight of freethinkers globally
We lauded Humanists International for its invaluable reports on the state of freethinkers around the world. Freethinkers in many nations can live grim existences — and Humanists International deserves praise for bringing attention to their plight.
Our TV show homage to Cecile Richards
Our “Freethought Matters” show this week is a homage to feminist extraordinaire Cecile Richards, who recently died at the age of 67. Richards, who was president of Planned Parenthood for more than a decade, discussed in 2018 with “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor what’s at stake for reproductive rights and reminisced about her feisty famous mother, Texas Gov. Ann Richards. You can already watch the show on our YouTube channel. Or find out where and when to catch it on television Sunday.
A precocious teen author
Our Facebook Live “Ask an Atheist” feature, which was live on Darwin Day, Feb. 12, went in a charming direction. Teen secular activist Bailey Harris talks to FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker about her new children’s book, “Stardust and Friends: Darwin’s Journey,” which takes children and families on a journey to the Galápagos Islands to learn about the plants and animals that helped Charles Darwin develop his theory of evolution. Biologist Melanie Trecek-King joins the conversation.
Religious people aren’t happier or healthier
On our Freethought Radio show this week, we summarize the tsunami of theocratic assaults, then hear co-host Dan Barker’s secular love song “It’s Only Natural” in honor of Valentine’s Day. After that, sociology Professor Ryan T. Cragun demonstrates with data that religious people are not happier, healthier or more moral than nonreligious people.
My radio show on Trump and the Hindu nationalist Indian leader
I am co-hosting a show on Madison’s community radio station that will focus on the “special relationship” between Trump and India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi (they met this week). You can listen to the show live at 5:30 Central on Sunday at this link.
Trump is ‘Theocrat of the Week’
For its “Theocrat of the Week,” the FFRF Action Fund has chosen none other than President Trump, for his incessant privileging of Christians in the early weeks of his second term. He will continue to cloak this in the disguise of combating religious persecution while FFRF Action Fund will continue to monitor these blatant violations of our secular democracy and state-church separation.
Jimmy Kimmel is this week’s ‘secularist’
FFRF Action Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is television host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel for speaking out against President Trump’s cynical utilization of Christianity. Public figures poking fun at the absurdity of Trump’s misuse of religion provides much-needed levity to the early days of the new Trump administration.
Elon Musk’s religious views
Our blogs this week deal with two individuals causing havoc — one of them better known than the other.
Annie Laurie focuses on the person many are calling the country’s co-president in a piece titled, “What freethinkers need to know about Elon Musk’s religious views.” “Whether or not Musk is a true believer, or Trump is, for that matter, is irrelevant in the face of the actions they are taking either in the name of religion or to propitiate Christian nationalists,” she concludes.
A theocratic Okla. state senator
FFRF State Policy Manager Ryan Dudley spotlights Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, who is intent on causing havoc at home.
“Another notorious Oklahoma Christian nationalist, Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, has been so aggressive and unrelenting in his un-American crusade that he has repulsed other Oklahoma lawmakers,” he finishes his piece. “Deevers will hopefully receive the same treatment.”
With your affection and support, we promise this Valentine’s Day that we will be taking on everyone from Elon to Dusty.
