The Freedom From Religion Foundation has put up an exhibit honoring the Bill of Rights at an Illinois courthouse.

The display was installed by FFRF Member Will Meyer at the Grundy County Courthouse, not too far from Chicago, on Nov. 23 and will be available for public viewing till the end of December.

The mainstay of the tableau is FFRF’s playful Bill of Rights “nativity.” The irreverent cutout by artist Jacob Fortin depicts Founding Fathers Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington gazing adoringly at a “baby” Bill of Rights in a manger while the Statue of Liberty looks on.

A sign beside the tongue-in-cheek nativity states: “Happy Winter Solstice. At this Season of the Winter Solstice, we honor reason and the Bill of Rights (adopted Dec. 15, 1791).” At the bottom, it reads: “Keep State & Church Separate.”

The display exemplifies the take-charge spirit of members of the freethought organization, who often assemble such installations in their home towns to counter religious tableaus on public land. FFRF helps out by providing the materials. With the help of its ever-vigilant membership, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is keeping the flag of freethought flying high around the country.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is the largest national association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics) with roughly 32,000 members and several chapters all over the country, including almost 1,000 members and a Chicago chapter in the state of Illinois. The organization works to protect the constitutional separation between religion and government.

A legal disappointment that the Freedom From Religion Foundation suffered more than a decade ago continues to have repercussions today.

If FFRF had won Hein v. FFRF back in 2007 before the U.S. Supreme Court, it would have been allowed to make the case that it was blatantly unconstitutional for President George W. Bush to set up faith-based offices at the White House and at the cabinet level. Unfortunately, Sandra Day O'Connor, who was a justice when FFRF began its litigation, unexpectedly retired by the time the case, which FFRF won at the appeals court level, wended its way to the highest court. Equally unfortunate, Justice Anthony Kennedy did not "swing" in the correct direction, and the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 decision ruling that FFRF — and, in fact, nobody in the entire United States — had the right (standing) to sue over Bush's actions.

So now the "faith-based" offices are a fixture. And this week, all of us were treated to the news that Scott Lloyd, an official with a sullied record, will soon become senior adviser on outreach to faith-based "partners" for the Department of Health and Human Services.

At least that's good news for the Office of Refugee Resettlement and those at its mercy. As the person in charge of services for refugees and minor immigrants, Lloyd notoriously helped engineer the horrific "zero tolerance" Trump administration policy of separating families of refugees and undocumented immigrants. This former employee of the Catholic Knights of Columbus announced he had to personally sign off on any minor's request for an abortion. He thus became embroiled in litigation when he tried to stop a 17-year-old undocumented immigrant, pregnant from rape, from having an abortion. She was in federal custody at the border in Texas, and Lloyd prevented her release to have the procedure even though she had threatened to harm herself if not allowed to end her unwanted pregnancy. The ACLU had to go to court as the clock was ticking in order to free the young woman to procure a legal abortion. No public funds were allowed to pay for her care.

Also notoriously, Brett Kavanaugh was one of the judges the case went before at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He ruled that the government had the right to continue to obstruct the abortion. Ultimately, the entire D.C. appeals court overturned Kavanaugh (who issued a strong dissent).

For his part, Scott Lloyd has also been accused of violating ethics rules and is additionally working on an anti-abortion book.

"When [Health and Human Services] Secretary [Alex] Azar addressed us in January as our new secretary, he encouraged us to be bold," Lloyd said in a statement provided to news media. "I am joining the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives to help Director [Shannon] Royce and team continue to develop bold ideas on how communities and faith-based entities can play a central role in successfully achieving the secretary's priorities, which will improve the health and well-being of the American people."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation shudders to think what "bold" actions will proceed from this theocrat.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is commending a Colorado school district for cancelling its attendance at an upcoming sermonizing session that an evangelical group is a key part of.

The Todd Becker Foundation, a Christian ministry, is scheduled to appear at a Burlington Middle School Assembly on Nov. 28. This week, FFRF sent letters to the Burlington School District and several area school districts scheduled to attend the event, warning them that it will involve members of the Todd Becker Foundation reading from the bible and praying with students in violation of the Establishment Clause. The school systems slated to be present at the event have included Cheyenne County School District, Hi-Plains School District, Kit Carson School District, and the Arriba-Flagler School District Today, FFRF has learned that the Cheyenne County School District will no longer be sending its students to this religious assembly.

FFRF is now even more insistent that any public school district scheduled to attend this event must cancel, including the Burlington School District that is hosting the affair. Shockingly, Burlington School District Superintendent Tom Satterly signed an agreement with the Todd Becker Foundation that allowed representatives of the group to read the bible and pray with students.

“The Cheyenne County School District has engaged in a praiseworthy move, and it is now imperative for the other school districts to follow its lead,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.

The Todd Becker Foundation travels throughout the Midwest and the Rocky Mountain states putting on assemblies in public schools with the explicit purpose of converting students to its brand of evangelical Christianity. Oftentimes, it infiltrates public schools under the guise of offering a secular presentation, despite its purpose being laid out in no uncertain terms on its website.

If any local parents are concerned with the Todd Becker Foundation’s behavior in Burlington, they are encouraged to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation at 608-256-8900 or by filling out a legal complaint on our website.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 32,000 members and several chapters across the country, including over 800 members in Colorado and chapters in Denver and Colorado Springs. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is appreciative that an upcoming exhibition in Milwaukee on the diversity of faith is truly diverse.

“Gratitude: Faith/Diversity,” a collaboration of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee that is being displayed at the Milwaukee City Hall, includes a Freethought banner in its 15 exhibits. In fact, the banner image was submitted by FFRF part-time Administrative Assistant Katrina Treu, who also attends the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design.

The images will all be up at the City Hall from Monday, Nov. 19, as part of a traveling exhibit. In addition to the City Hall, the banners will also be displayed in November in Milwaukee at the Jewish Community Center and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. The City Hall exhibition will be launched with a grand reception starting at 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 19 in the rotunda. Attendees are encouraged to bring food items in for donation to the Hunger Task Force. The show is sponsored by the ELM II Fund of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

“We are charmed that the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee has made an exhibition on faith to be all-encompassing through the incorporation of non-faith,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Plus, we’re thrilled that one of our colleagues is part of this show.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a Wisconsin-based national nonprofit organization with 32,000 members across the United States, including more than 1,400 in Wisconsin. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism. It is pleased to see an art exhibition in its home state acknowledge the presence of freethought.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation denounces the Trump administration’s most recent attack on birth control.

The Trump administration wasted no time in announcing the day after the midterm elections that it would publish final rules to allow employers to deny their employees access to basic reproductive health care. Those two final rules will significantly expand dangerous exemptions to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate. 

The newly announced rules will be published in the federal register tomorrow and will be effective 60 days later. However, the rules’ implementation will likely be immediately contested by the state attorneys general in California and Pennsylvania, who challenged last year’s version of the rules.

FFRF condemns the Trump administration’s continued use of religious dogma to subjugate women and the Justice Department’s callous, patriarchal claim that “a woman who loses coverage of her chosen contraceptive method through her employer may still have access to such coverage through a spouse’s plan. Or she may otherwise be able to pay out of pocket for contraceptive services.”

Recently, the Trump administration yet again mischaracterized employers’ obligation under the ACA to provide employees insurance coverage for contraceptives, as “nuns ordered to pay for contraceptives.” Trump’s goal is to allow employers to claim a religious exemption, to providing contraceptive coverage and thereby shirk their legal duty.

The administration attempted to ram these rules through outside the usual rule-making channels in 2017, but failed. Two federal courts concluded that the proposed rules were of “remarkable breadth” and violated the Affordable Care Act. The new rules are substantially identical to the 2017 interim rules and will certainly face the same challenges — and likely will suffer the same fate in court.

The contraceptive mandate has given more than 55 million women access to birth control without additional co-payments. Under these new regulations, hundreds of thousands could lose that coverage. The assumption that women can rely on a spouse’s plan for basic health care is an affront to individual liberties. And rolling back protections disproportionately impacts already disenfranchised women.

"This attempt to push through legally defective rules shows how committed this administration is to denying women’s health coverage in the name of religion," notes FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "This is far from the first religiously motivated assault on women’s health care, and it will not be the last."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national organization that protects the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and educates the public on matters relating to nontheism. FFRF will continue to staunchly support a woman’s right to comprehensive and quality health care free from the imposition of her employer’s religious beliefs.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is legally contesting an unconstitutional Wisconsin religion-centered counseling state program.

In a lawsuit filed today in a Dane County court, FFRF is challenging the constitutionality of a faith-based employee chaplaincy that Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel created at the state Department of Justice. 

Schimel, who was defeated in his bid for re-election on Nov. 6, announced the chaplaincy program in mid-October while campaigning. The program became effective on Oct. 4 but had been in the works for at least a year.

Schimel claims that the chaplaincy program is a “critical component” of the DOJ, and has urged other state agencies to contact the DOJ staff to start their own chaplaincy programs. Six all-white men from Christian faiths, many conservative, have been formally appointed DOJ chaplains. Although unpaid, the six agency chaplains are under the direction of a paid DOJ chaplaincy program coordinator and have received training and reimbursement at taxpayer expense. They’re issued DOJ identification and building access cards and are not prohibited from soliciting donations or proselytizing employees. Their explicit duties include providing consultation and spiritual guidance to DOJ employees and their families, and the chaplaincies are integrated into DOJ programs, including new employee classes and orientation.

“The DOJ Chaplaincy Program does not include, and affirmatively excludes, secular mental health professionals,” FFRF’s legal complaint asserts. The complaint notes that the program sets up a religious test as a condition for employment: Chaplains must be ordained or licensed clergy in good standing of a faith group. Yet they aren’t required to be professional mental health providers, or be licensed or otherwise regulated by the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services, like other mental health professionals.

FFRF points out that DOJ employees are not in any way inhibited by their employment from freely exercising any religious preference they may have for religious counseling services. State employees, including nonreligious and non-Christian employees, are being encouraged to seek out Christian counseling, while being denied secular counseling services by bona fide mental health practitioners. FFRF alleges there could be life-and-death consequences due to the fact that the agency chaplains aren’t required to have necessary mental health/substance abuse training.

“There’s absolutely no need or justification for the DOJ to provide religious counseling as an accommodation, such as can be argued that the military is obliged to offer,” adds Gaylor. “This is pure and simple a case of governmental promotion of religion to state employees, and it’s not only unnecessary, it also violates both the Wisconsin and U.S. Constitutions.”

FFRF is asking the circuit court to declare the program a violation of Wisconsin State Constitution, Article 1, Section 18, and of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and to enjoin the DOJ from providing chaplaincy services.

The plaintiffs are FFRF, a Wisconsin-based national group of 32,000 members on behalf of its 1,400 Wisconsin members, and Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker, FFRF’s co-presidents, in their capacity as state taxpayers and as FFRF lifetime members.

The case has been filed in the courtroom of Dane County Circuit Court Judge Josann Reynolds. Case No. is 2018cv3022.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is drawing attention to a Florida city manager’s unconstitutional social media postings.

A concerned area resident recently reported to the state/church watchdog that Lynn Haven City Manager Michael White regularly posts proselytizing messages to the city’s Facebook page at the end of official city posts. For instance, a post from Oct. 31 ended with this bible quote and religious message:

I would like to leave you with this message from my Lord and Savior:
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
I want to encourage you to come to tonight’s event and fellowship with your community. As we enjoy each other’s company, I encourage you to share your faith and know Jesus cleansed us from sin and wants us to love one another.

And his Nov. 5 message concluded:

I would like to leave you with a message from my Savior:
Psalm 23:1
The Lord is my shepherd: I shall not want.
God is our protector and he will deliver us from anything. He gives us the air to breathe and the water to relieve our thirst. He provides shelter when we are cold and food when we are hungry. If you walk with Jesus you shall never want. I encourage you to give him your troubles and the rest is history.

By posting explicitly Christian messages on the city of Lynn Haven Facebook page, such as encouraging readers to “walk with Jesus,” White conveys a message to non-Christians that they are not “favored members of the political community,” FFRF cautions the city. Religious endorsements made by the city or a city official send a message that excludes the 24 percent of American adults who identify as nonreligious, including those residing in Lynn Haven.

“The First Amendment prohibits even the appearance of religious endorsement by government officials,” FFRF Associate Counsel Sam Grover writes to the city’s legal counsel. “Promoting one specific set of religious beliefs on the official Lynn Haven Facebook page violates the city’s obligation under the Constitution as a government entity.”

Finally, FFRF asserts that White’s promotion of Christianity while acting in his capacity as city manager needlessly jeopardizes taxpayer dollars by exposing the city to legal liability. Not long ago, Bradley County in Tennessee agreed to pay more than $40,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees after promoting religion on social media and ignoring objections to the practice. There is no need to expose the city of Lynn Haven to similar liability by continuing to promote Christianity on a government account.

“Such explicit proselytizing on part of a city official is unconstitutional and exclusionary,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The city manager must quit sermonizing in his official capacity.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a nationwide nonprofit organization with the purposes to protect the constitutional separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters related to nontheism. It has more than 32,000 members and several chapters throughout the country, including more than 1,500 in Florida and a chapter in the state, the Central Florida Freethought Community.

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