We at the Freedom From Religion Foundation seem to be making a habit of being in the spotlight.
When we denounced the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling granting Catholic entities exemption from paying unemployment tax, Reuters quoted our Legal Director Patrick Elliott. And CNN cited statistics from a friend-of-the-court brief we filed in the case, among other major coverage.
Tackling Texas
Our announcement that FFRF will sue Texas as part of a coalition over an awful Ten Commandments measure is getting a lot of play in the Lone Star State.
“Gov. Greg Abbott is poised to sign Senate Bill 10, the bill that would require every public-school classroom in Texas to display a poster of the Ten Commandments,” says a Texas Public Radio story. “If and when he does, a coalition of four civil liberties organizations plans to file a lawsuit to prevent its implementation. The quartet includes the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Texas, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom from Religion Foundation.”
The Dallas Morning News and the NBC affiliate in the state capital were just some of the other media outlets to give us coverage.
A Massachusetts legal mess
Similarly, our lawsuit against the city of Quincy, Mass., over a proposal to install large Catholic statues at the entrance of a new public safety building got featured in the Boston Globe and a prominent legal news portal.
A great FFRF media profile
To top it all, the Religion News Service, the premier organization covering religion and nonreligion, has done a wonderful profile of FFRF highlighting our recent rise in membership.
“The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for separation of state and church and for nontheism, is experiencing what its co-president calls a ‘Trump bump,’” the piece begins.
Read further here for the rest of the piece, including great quotes from FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
Denouncing hate
We joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and dozens of allied organizations in denouncing the recent antisemitic acts of violence in Washington, D.C., and Boulder, Colo. FFRF Governmental Affairs Director Mark Dann stated, “As a proud member of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, we stand with our allies against religiously motivated hate and violence. It has no place in our society.”
The big and not-so-beautiful bill
Our legislative arm, the FFRF Action Fund, has been keeping a vigilant eye on the news. Mark wrote an extremely informative primer on the currently pending budget reconciliation bill. “Here’s an update on what has happened so far, what we expect the Senate to do, some of the most harmful provisions to the separation of state and church in the bill, and what we can do about it,” Mark began.
Trump’s terrible judicial nominations
The Fund strongly opposed a slate of recently announced judicial nominations from the Trump administration.
“These nominees would only add to the number of Christian nationalists in the federal judiciary,” said FFRF Action Fund President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Each is an extremist who can be expected to place dogma over civil liberties.”
Christian nationalist subversion
The Fund also strongly condemned new Christian nationalist efforts to undermine Pride Month by declaring June as “Family Month” or “Life Month.” It will continue to monitor and oppose all efforts to undermine LGBTQ-plus rights, reproductive freedom and the constitutional separation between religion and government.
The good, the bad and the ugly at the state level
A major part of what the Fund does is to keep tabs on lawmaking at the state level. As a majority of state legislatures across the country wind down or adjourn for the year, the Fund assessed the damage and celebrated the victories. From Texas’ theocratic overreach to Delaware’s compassionate progress, here is its end-of-session Strongly Stated roundup.
Sen. Joni Ernst deserves her ‘Theocrat’ title
FFRF Action Fund’s “Theocrat of the Week” is U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, for her callous remarks at a recent town hall and subsequent pitch for folks to “embrace Jesus.” Instead of earnestly listening to and responding to her constituents’ fears, Ernst has repeatedly mocked their concerns.
Secular Student Alliance head keeps it secular
The Fund’s “Secularist of the Week” is Kevin Bolling, executive director of Secular Students Alliance, for his excellent opinion piece in the Oklahoma City newspaper condemning the encroaching Christian nationalism in Oklahoma’s public schools. Bolling has led the Secular Student Alliance since 2017. The FFRF Action Fund thanks Bolling for his piece.
A punk freethought primal scream
Our Facebook Live “Ask an Atheist” feature this week is a fun one. FFRF’s Leo Costello and Sara Tetzloff are joined by punk rock icon Laura Jane Grace. Her fiery new song “Your God (God’s Dick),” a primal scream against religious extremism, got some heat for its live performance at a Bernie Sanders rally in March. The three engage in a lively discussion about the power of punk rock to push back, speak out and give voice to the furious and fed up.
Chronicling freethought history
The central interview on the most recent Freethought Radio show is about a fascinating new history of nontheism. Co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor talk to Professor David C. Hoffman about his “American Freethought: The History of a Social Movement, 1794-1948.”
The falseness of gender exploratory therapy
FFRF Contributing Writer Kat Grant exposes in a new blog the false notion of gender exploratory therapy.
“We owe it to our kids to not fall for this,” Kat concludes. “Our friends’ kids. Our family’s kids. Our neighbors’ kids. The kids we don’t even know, and their children after them. We owe it to every single child in this country to stand up and say that we will not be duped by Christian ‘therapists’ and clergy whose only agenda is forced compliance with their theology.”
Trump’s alarming ‘Mission from God’ statement
Annie Laurie explains in a new column why we must protest a recent President Trump “mission from God” statement in the form of a creepy, antisemitic social media posting.
“Freethinkers and other Americans who care about our constitutional rights and our democracy must continue to organize and speak out against the revocation of our liberties and the rule of law,” she urges, exhorting members to take part in an upcoming national protest. “The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proudly co-sponsoring the “No Kings” Day of Action on Saturday, June 14.”
It’s only with an engaged, growing membership that we can keep this country true to its secular foundational principles.
