Showing posts with label separation of church and state. Show all posts
Showing posts with label separation of church and state. Show all posts
Monday, August 14, 2023
Oklahoma sued for funding US’s first ‘state-sponsored’ religious charter school
"Our public tax dollars should not be sent to a religious school that asserts a right to discriminate against students with disabilities. St Isidore should not be allowed to divert scarce resources away from public schools that are open to all children regardless of ability, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion."…
Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Lawsuit seeks to block first publicly-funded religious school in US | Reuters
"Allowing St. Isidore to operate as planned would transform Oklahoma's public schools into tools of discrimination and religious indoctrination," the ACLU said in a written statement...
Sunday, July 30, 2023
Ban the Bible? (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)
FFRF attorney Chris Line explains why many evangelicals are boycotting the "Barbie" movie. Colorado activist Rob Rogers tells us how he is protesting book banning by insisting that the bible should also be banned. Then we remember freethinking author and editor James A. Haught, from West Virginia, who died this week at age 91.
Interview:
Saturday, June 24, 2023
Andrew Seidel, Katherine Stewart, Rob Boston on Hope and Fear in 2024 – And Beyond. (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)
Brad shares the recording of a roundtable he hosted at Americans United’s Summit for Religious Freedom. He asked Andrew Seidel, Katherine Stewart, and Rob Boston what they are worried about in the year ahead – and what gives them surprising amounts of hope as we careen toward 2024. They expound on SCOTUS, public schools, LGBTQ+ rights, and more.
Interview:
Wednesday, June 14, 2023
Weekly Roundup: Trump Indicted, Robertson Dead, + Catholic Public Schools? (Bradley Onishi and Daniel Miller; Straight White American Jesus podcast)
Brad and Dan being by discussing Trump’s indictment on federal charges. They then break down the life and death of Pat Robertson – an architect of the Religious Right and someone whose influence resounds in American Christian nationalism today, from media, to spiritual warfare, to queerphobia, and more. They finish the episode with a discussion of SCOTUS’ surprising decision to defend voting rights and Oklahoma’s move to create a Catholic public school.
Interview:
Friday, June 9, 2023
The new breed of charter schools pushing limits on separation of church and state - The Washington Post
The network's newest report looks at charter schools that it says are designed to attract Christian nationalists with specific imagery and curriculum. The student bodies of these schools are largely Whiter and wealthier than in other schools — in the charter sector and in traditional public districts — and have deep connections to people within conservative Christian movements, the report says...
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Texas bills on school chaplains, 10 Commandments merge church and state - The Washington Post
The bill, which is scheduled Tuesday for the House floor, is one of about a half-dozen religion bills approved this session by the Texas Senate, including one that would allow uncertified chaplains to replace trained, professional counselors in K-12 schools...
Wednesday, May 17, 2023
Churches’ Role in TX Election Prompts Calls for Investigations — ProPublica
"Beard is insisting that he has returned the donation checks, but his belated attempt at contrition doesn't mitigate the initial transgressions" of the churches making the donations, the Freedom from Religion Foundation wrote in a news release. The group has sued the IRS in the past "to force it to take steps to enforce the law against tax-exempt entities from engaging in partisan politicking, and is prepared to sue again if necessary." …
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Sunday, March 12, 2023
Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Will Larkins & Max Nibert: Student Activist Awardees (Freedom From Religion Foundation National Conference speeches)
Will Larkins spoke about his internationally-covered protests of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. As a junior at Winter Park High School, he was one of the organizers of the impressive Say Gay Anyway walkout of 500 students in March. He also testified in person before the Florida Legislature against the punitive measure.
Max Nibert gained notoriety following his initiation and orchestration of a walk-out at Huntington High School over a religious revival sermon held on campus with students forced to attend. He is a lead plaintiff in the FFRF lawsuit against his school. Max is proud to claim his Appalachian upbringing as a driving force behind his political and humanitarian passions.
Interview:
Max Nibert gained notoriety following his initiation and orchestration of a walk-out at Huntington High School over a religious revival sermon held on campus with students forced to attend. He is a lead plaintiff in the FFRF lawsuit against his school. Max is proud to claim his Appalachian upbringing as a driving force behind his political and humanitarian passions.
Interview:
Wednesday, March 1, 2023
FFRF urges IRS to look into church electioneering - Freethought Today
Fairrington prayed in front of his congregation, stating, "Lord God, that you would inspire voters here in the state of California to cast their vote for the sanctity of life. Lord God, that they would get behind a conservative Christian candidate."…
Thursday, February 23, 2023
No more "thoughts & prayers" (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)
Amy Hagstrom Miller, with Whole Woman’s Health Alliance, tells us about the devastation to abortion access wrought by the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. We hear jazz singer Tahira Clayton perform freethinking composer Jerome Kern's song "I'm Old Fashioned," and we cover many local, national and international stories about religion and government.
Interview:
Saturday, February 18, 2023
How Christian Crusaders Weaponized the Court to Steal a Country (feat. Andrew Seidel)
A federal court ruling allows a Kentucky photography business to openly discriminate against protected classes of citizens under the guise of religious freedom. Constitutional and civil rights attorney, Andrew Seidel, joins us to discuss how this is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the victories already proclaimed by a literal cabal of Christian Crusaders pulling the strings at the highest levels of U.S. power.
ANDREW'S BOOKS
- American Crusade: How the Supreme Court Is Weaponizing Religious Freedom: https://amzn.to/3U3pKvl
- The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American https://amzn.to/3sV6Bje
- Signed Copies: http://bit.ly/signedac
Interview:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023
James Madison | The First Amendment Encyclopedia
The target of the pamphlet was a bill before the Virginia Assembly supported by Gov. Patrick Henry that would have laid a general tax to pay Christian teachers a modest salary. The bill would not have established any one denomination (all Christian churches were eligible for the funds), but it would have made Christianity the established religion of the state.
Madison considered the bill a "dangerous abuse of power"; he reasoned that if government could establish Christianity over other religions, then it would also have the power to elevate one Christian group over another. Madison believed that religion was a matter of individual conscience and that giving legislators control over religious belief would inevitably lead to violation of other basic rights: "It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties." Madison succeeded in defeating the religious assessment bill and then spearheaded passage, in 1786, of Thomas Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom...
Monday, January 9, 2023
U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman & Jamie Raskin: Congressional Freethought Caucus (Freedom From Religion Foundation National Conference speeches)
U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin have been stalwart defenders of secularism in Congress, as founding members and co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus.
Interview:
Friday, December 16, 2022
Celebrate Dissent (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor; Freethought Radio podcast)
Guest: Sami Abdallah. Christian nationalism is now proudly rearing its head in the United States. FFRF Senior Litigation Counsel Patrick Elliott describes the friend-of-the-court brief we filed at the Supreme Court in the "303 Creative" case where a business owner wants to discriminate against LGBTQ customers on religious grounds. Then, we speak with Sami Abdallah, co-founder and president of Freethought Lebanon and co-organizer of the "Celebrating Dissent" conference that took place in Cologne, Germany, this month, about the challenges of being an apostate in the Muslim world.
Interview:
Tuesday, November 8, 2022
20 Examples of Johnson Amendment Violations, Experts Say — ProPublica
Under the law, pastors can endorse candidates in their personal capacities outside of church and weigh in on political issues from the pulpit as long as they don't veer into support or condemnation of a particular candidate. But the law prohibits pastors from endorsing candidates during official church functions such as sermons.
Violations can lead to the revocation of a church's tax-exempt status…:quality(70)/https://static.texastribune.org/media/files/f80939b7596d30f590769861cf9b91d8/UniteFF.png)
Sunday, November 6, 2022
The History of the Separation of Church and State in the US
While increasingly attacked by legal scholars and even some justices, the Lemon test was until very recently still the standard for lower courts to use in assessing establishment clause litigation. Twenty years ago, it provided the Justices with the precedent they used in Santa Fe v. Doe in holding unconstitutional the policy of allowing student-led prayers at school football games, because the practice had a religious, not secular, purpose. As recently as 2005, litigants specifically asked the court to overturn Lemon and the Justices refused to do so.
In 2019, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for himself alone, insisted that "the Lemon test is not good law." Justice Clarence Thomas said he would overrule the precedent.
Finally, in 2022, they abandoned Lemon. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, by a 6-3 vote, the justices said the school district was wrong to fire a coach for ignoring orders not to lead midfield prayers after football games. Henceforth, they decreed, the courts in considering conflicts between the two religious freedom clauses of the First Amendment should use not the Lemontest but "historical practices and understandings."
Saturday, November 5, 2022
The Power of Protest (Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Freethought Radio podcast)
Iranian-born Maryam Namazie, with "Ex-Muslims of Britain" and "One Law For All," describes the dire situation in Iran where protesters of the patriarchal regime are being persecuted and killed; she also tells us how we can help. Then we speak with Harvard student Aidan Scully, who writes a secular bi-weekly column for the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson called "The Free Exercise Thereof" that combats Christian Nationalism and advocates for state/church separation.
Interview:
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