FFRF’s radio ad starring Julia Sweeney and countering the Catholic Bishops’ war against contraception began airing this week on the Randi Rhodes Show:
Hi, I’m Julia Sweeney and I’m an atheist and former Catholic, I even wrote a play about it called “Letting Go of God.” Right now Catholic Bishops are using their considerable influence to deny women contraceptive rights. Please join the Freedom From Religion Foundation and help keep church and state separate. You can call 1-800-335-4021, that’s 1-800-335-4021 or visit FFRF.ORG to stand up for true religious freedom.
The commercial will play once per broadcast for the next two weeks.
The ad is part of FFRF’s “Counter the Bishops” PR campaign in response to the bishops’ announced multimillion dollar blitz against Health and Human Services’ contraceptive mandate. The mandate to ensure contraception coverage for insured women employees goes into effect in August. The church is wrapping itself in the flag and the First Amendment trying to turn public opinion against the mandate with a campaign leading up to July 4.
On May 24, FFRF announced a minimum $100,000 goal to raise funds for a June PR campaign to counter the bishops. The “thermometer” tracking donations as of today is at an impressive $76,783! Some of those funds were already used to pay for a full-page ad in USA Today.
Watch for news on FFRF’s new billboards saying “Quit the Church: Put Women’s Rights over Bishops’ Wrongs,” which will be going up in targeted cities. FFRF is working to place Julia Sweeney’s recorded TV commercial on some high profile TV shows. FFRF is also looking at local and regional markets.
“The bishops are crying wolf — churches and religious denominations are automatically exempted from covering contraception by HHS. And private insurance companies will cover contraceptive coverage for employees at religious schools and hospitals,” noted FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “The bishops have no case. They are not working to protect religious liberty, they are working to deny it to employees by forcing health care to conform to Catholic dictates.”
More than 40 dioceses and Catholic institutions are in federal court in multiple lawsuits suing the Obama Administration over the mandate.
The bishops have introduced a bill in Congress to permit any employer who has religious objections to have veto power over health care services of their employees.
“The bishops are engaged in a profoundly unpatriotic theopolitical Inquisition. The Pope doesn’t rule the United States . . . yet. Americans —including Catholic Americans — overwhelmingly use contraception, and support women’s right to contraceptive coverage. Help us fight the bishops’ imposition of their dogma into our secular laws,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president.