As December begins this year, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is ushering in a different kind of seasonal greeting in the Atlanta area.

On Friday, Dec. 1, the national freethought association is placing its cheerfully irreverent message, "Reason's Greetings," on a prominent lighted 14 by 48 foot digital billboard near the intersection of Interstate 75 and the Gresham Road overpass. Two different versions of the same message will rotate on the billboard throughout the month of December.

"We humans in the Northern Hemisphere have been celebrating the Winter Solstice, a natural holiday, long before Christmas crashed the party," says FFRF co-founder and Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "The Winter Solstice, on Dec. 21 this year, is the real reason for the season — the shortest, darkest day of the year, heralding the rebirth of the sun, the lengthening of days and the natural New Year."

FFRF member Jack Egger was pivotal in getting the billboard up. FFRF also has a chapter in the Atlanta area that works to spread freethought and secularism.

"If all of us had faith in science and humanism, we would improve life on Earth so fast," says Egger. "By giving up supernaturalism, we all can have a more fulfilling life, with a brighter, more peaceful and predictable future."

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its members work to promote the viewpoint of freethinkers, including atheists and agnostics, and to protect the constitutional principle of separation between religion and government. FFRF has roughly 30,000 members and 20 chapters all over the country, including 500-plus and the Atlanta chapter in Georgia.

A federal judge for a second time has ruled in favor of FFRF's historic challenge of a housing tax allowance that uniquely privileges clergy.

At issue is the constitutionality of a provision in the tax code that excludes from gross income a housing allowance paid to a "minister of the gospel."

Rep. Peter Mack, sponsor of the 1954 law challenged by FFRF, argued that ministers should be rewarded with a clergy allowance for "carrying on such a courageous fight against this [a godless and anti-religious world movement]." The clergy allowance is not a tax deduction but an exemption — allowing housing allowances paid as part of clergy salary to be subtracted from taxable income.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled in FFRF's favor in its original challenge. Crabb's finding sent "shockwaves through the religious community," according to the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, which bitterly fought the ruling, along with just about every religious denomination in the country.

In November 2014, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out that victory — not on the merits, but on the question of standing — arguing that FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor hadn't yet sought a refund of their housing allowance from the IRS. Accordingly, they sought them and when denied, went back to court.

FFRF renewed its challenge of the housing allowance in April 2016. Sued are Steve Mnuchin, U.S. secretary of the treasury, and John Koskinen, IRS commissioner. The case also had religious intervenors as defendants.

Plaintiffs are Barker and Gaylor, and Ian Gaylor, representing the estate of President Emerita Anne Nicol Gaylor, whose retirement was paid in part as a housing allowance.

"Although defendants try to characterize [this provision of the tax code] as an effort by Congress to treat ministers fairly and avoid religious entanglement, the plain language of the statute, its legislative history and its operation in practice all demonstrate a preference for ministers over secular employees," writes Crabb, for the Western District of Wisconsin.

"As I noted in the earlier lawsuit," Crabb writes, "there is no reasonable interpretation of the statute under which the phrase minister of the gospel could be construed to include employees of an organization whose purpose is to keep religion out of the public square."

Any reasonable observer would conclude that the purpose and effect of the statute is to provide financial assistance to one group of religious employees without any consideration to the secular employees who are similarly situated to ministers, Crabb noted. "Under current law, that type of provision violates the establishment clause," she adds.

"In reaching this conclusion, I do not mean to imply that any particular minister is undeserving of the exemption or does not have a financial need for one. The important point is that many equally deserving secular employees (as well as other kinds of religious employees) could benefit from the exemption as well, but they must satisfy much more demanding requirements despite the lack of justification for the difference in treatment."

Crabb also discusses financial benefits to even wealthy ministers: ""Thus, an evangelist with a multimillion dollar home is entitled under § 107(2) to deduct the entire rental value of that home, even if it is not used for church purposes. ("Joel Osteen lives in a $10.5 million home and is entitled to exclude the fair rental value of that home so long as he spends that money on the home and his church allocates that amount to housing.")."

The benefit of the tax exemption to the clergy is enormous. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation has reported that the exemption amounts to $700 million a year in lost revenue. Religion News Service calculated the allowance increases the take-home pay of some pastors by up to 10 percent. This is because churches benefit, since tax-free salaries lower their overhead. Christianity Today found that 84 percent of senior pastors receive a housing allowance of $20,000 to $38,000 in added (but not reported) compensation to their base salary.

"The manner in which our housing allowance has been used borders on clergy malpractice," William Thornton, a Georgia pastor and blogger, told Forbes magazine in 2013. "A growing subset of ministers who are very highly paid and who live in multimillion dollar mansions are able to exclude hundreds of thousands of dollars from income taxation."

Clergy are permitted to use the housing allowance not just for rent or mortgage, but for home improvements, including maintenance, home improvements and repairs, dishwashers, cable TV and phone fees, paint, towels, bedding, home décor, even personal computers and bank fees. They may be exempt from taxable income up to the fair market rental value of their home, particularly helping well-heeled pastors. The subsidy extends to churches, which can pay clergy less, as tax-free salaries go further.

Becket, the law firm that represents a group of intervening clergy, released a statement labeling Crabb's decision "a devastating blow" that "threatens churches across the country with nearly $1 billion in new taxes."

Becket said an appeal will be filed with the Chicago-based United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

The case was filed on behalf of FFRF by litigator Richard L. Bolton. Gaylor et al v. U.S. Treasury has case number 3:16-cv-00215.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation's annual Winter Solstice exhibit begins displaying at the Wisconsin Capitol Friday, Dec. 1, morning for the 22nd year running.

A sign features FFRF's traditional message by its principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor. It was composed as an equal-time challenge to combat religious dogmatism at the heart of state government. It reads:

At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.

Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
A major part of the display for a third year in the first floor rotunda is FFRF's whimsical Bill of Rights "nativity." The irreverent cut-out by artist Jacob Fortin depicts founders Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington gazing in adoration at a "baby" Bill of Rights while the Statue of Liberty looks on.

A sign beside the tongue-in-cheek nativity reads:

"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: "Thou shalt not steal, please."

Both exhibits are permitted to be up until the end of December.

Occurring on Dec. 21, the Winter Solstice marks the shortest, darkest day of the year, heralding the symbolic rebirth of the sun. It has been celebrated for millennia in the Northern Hemisphere with festivals of light, evergreens, gift exchanges and seasonal gatherings.

"We'd much rather that the core of our state government be free from religion — and irreligion," says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. "But if religious displays are approved, irreverence and freethought have to be allowed space, too."

The national state/church watchdog, based in Madison, Wis., has approximately 30,000 members and chapters all over the country, including more than 1,300 and the Kenosha Racine Atheists & Freethinkers (KRAFt) chapter in Wisconsin.

Chaplain barred FFRF co-president from delivering invocation

A federal district judge in Washington, D.C., issued a ruling Oct. 11 that legitimizes the exclusion of nonbelievers from the nation's legislative chambers.

U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, a Bush appointee, ruled against plaintiff Dan Barker, co-president of the FFRF. Barker sued House of Representatives Chaplain Patrick Conroy, a Roman Catholic priest, for barring him as an atheist from delivering a guest invocation. Also named as a defendant was Paul Ryan, speaker of the House, who oversees the chaplain's office.

"To decide that Mr. Barker was discriminated against and should be permitted to address the House would be to disregard the Supreme Court precedent that permits legislative prayer," Collyer wrote. Although the court found that Barker was injured, and that the defendants did not have legislative immunity, she ruled that none of the defendants was ultimately responsible for that injury.

The judge claimed that the chaplain was powerless to allow Barker to give the invocation, due to House rules, yet also dismissed Barker's claim against the House itself. The decision fails to identify who, if not the House chaplain and the House itself, could be sued for implementing a rule excluding nonbelievers from participation.

Under her ruling, the program — in which members of the House invite a religious leader of their choice to open a session with an invocation — remains closed to community leaders representing the 23 percent of Americans

overall — including 38 percent of millennials — who are nonreligious.

"We're deeply dismayed that atheists and other nonbelievers are being openly treated as second-class citizens," says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. "Our government is not a theocracy, and it needs to stop acting like one."

"Conroy's personal biases against the nonreligious have prevented me from participating in my government," Barker says. "The judge's acquiescence in this inequity sends a crystal clear message that our government, founded upon our entirely secular Constitution, may discriminate with impunity against atheists and freethinkers."

The case began when U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., who represents Barker's district in Madison, Wis., requested that Barker give the opening invocation before the House. Barker is a former minister.
Although the chaplain had no written requirements for guest chaplains, Conroy not only required proof of ordination, as well as representative backing, but other documentation. Barker, who retains a valid ordination, met each of the ad hoc requirements the chaplain's office invoked to bar him.

After Conroy decided that Barker could not deliver the opening invocation because he lacks belief in a higher power, Barker submitted a draft of his invocation, in which he noted that he could indeed invoke a "higher power": "There is no power higher than 'We, the People of the United States.'" His remarks also invoked the spirit of the founding patriot Thomas Paine, who promoted "common sense over dogma."

In his legal complaint, Barker noted that from the years 2000 to 2015, 96.7 percent of all guest chaplains have been Christian, although Christians are 70.6 percent of the U.S. population; 2.7 percent were Jewish, compared to 1.9 percent of the population, and other religions were underrepresented. Fully 99.8 percent of recent invocations have been by those stemming from Abrahamic religions.

No atheist or agnostic has been allowed to officially offer the opening invocation before Congress.

"Shouldn't the House of Representatives — the People's House — be representative?" Barker asks.

Speaker Ryan hailed the decision, saying that Congress has always sought to acknowledge God.

"Since the first session of the Continental Congress, our nation's legislature has opened with a prayer to God. Today, that tradition was upheld and the freedom to exercise religion was vindicated. The court rightfully dismissed the claims of an atheist that he had the right to deliver a secular invocation in place of the opening prayer," he wrote. "I commend the district court for its decision, and I am grateful that the People's House can continue to begin its work each day as we have for centuries: taking a moment to pray to God."

Congress spends about $800,000 a year on its opening prayers, including Chaplain Conroy's annual salary of $172,000, as well as a salary and office for the Senate chaplain. Conroy's sole duty, Barker points out, is to "offer a prayer at the commencement of each day's sitting on the House" — roughly 135 times per year — a duty that Conroy delegates to a guest chaplain approximately 40 percent of the time. For 2011, FFRF calculates that Conroy earned $1,659 per prayer.

"No atheist has ever been allowed to give an opening invocation in Congress, and a federal court has just blessed suppression of our views and rights by a tax-paid Roman Catholic chaplain," FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor said.

Barker is represented by FFRF Staff Attorneys Andrew L. Seidel and Sam Grover, with Richard L. Bolton serving as a consultant. Barker v. House has case number 1:16-cv -00580.

Artist, filmmaker, novelist Scott Burdick isn't afraid to challenge authority

I was born and raised in 1967 in a working-class neighborhood in Chicago. I attended the same Catholic grade school as my mother had, and the same Jesuit high school as my uncle had. As an altar boy, I felt God's eyes on me night and day. Everyone I knew believed in God, so it was just an obvious fact — until my junior year of high school when I decided to read the entire bible. That was when the first cracks appeared.

Catholic schools taught the basics of Darwinian evolution and accepted that Genesis was not literal. I wondered how to separate the myths from the facts. So I read books on comparative religion, the history of how the Catholic Church formed, and the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection. Within a year, I realized all religions were equally man-made.

I never had any bad experiences with priests, nuns or the Jesuit brothers — I simply didn't believe anymore. I didn't tell anyone I was an atheist, but I did stop going to church, which caused some problems, especially since I was still in Catholic school. Mostly, I felt relief that Big Brother was no longer watching and deciding if I deserved heaven or hell.

After winning a full scholarship to attend The American Academy of Art in downtown Chicago, a famous artist named Richard Schmid asked a group of us young students what we thought about the existence of God. One after the other, each classmate affirmed their belief in God. I was last. My heart was pounding, but I stated my disbelief out loud for the first time. All the other students were shocked. One of them said, "But you're such a good person!" Then, to my utter surprise, Richard Schmid said, "That's what I think, as well." It was the first time I realized I wasn't alone.

While in art school, a girl in my class told me that her mother gave all their savings to Oral Roberts when the televangelist said God would "call him home" (kill him) if he didn't raise $8 million. This was in 1987, and the girl had to leave school because of this family disaster. It was the first really negative consequence of religion I witnessed. Years later, while staying at a collector's house in Tulsa, we were invited to attend an event at a country club where Roberts was a member. I warned our hosts that if I met Roberts, I would tell him the story of my classmate, since I'm not the kind of person who can simply say nothing in the face of such a con artist. I left it up to them if they wanted me to go with them. They decided to take us to a restaurant instead.

After art school, I attended Columbia College for writing and film, and then made a living as a gallery painter, while occasionally doing paid jobs for film. (I worked on a development team for an animated feature called "Spirit" for DreamWorks, as well as writing a couple screenplays for them that never got made.)

Tired of the city, my wife and I moved to North Carolina about 20 years ago. We spend a lot of our time traveling. While in Africa, India, Tibet, Peru, Turkey or wherever else, I love reading the history and religious texts of the culture we're visiting and then talking to people about their beliefs. Many of those stories and images work their way into my novels and paintings.

I wasn't active in the freethought movement until a controversy erupted in King, N.C. (the town we live next to). A very brave Afghan veteran, [FFRF Life Member] Steven Hewett, complained about a Christian flag hanging on a veteran's memorial in our town's public park. After the City Council took the flag down under threat of a lawsuit, near-continuous protests flared up. At a rally attended by 5,000 flag-waving Christians, speaker after speaker said there was no such thing as separation of church and state and anyone who disagreed should be "encouraged" to leave town. People told local businesses that if they didn't hang a Christian flag in their window, they would be boycotted. Everyone complied.

I was so angry that I decided to make a documentary called "In God We Trust?" in my spare time. It took me a year to film and edit entirely on my own. I released it on YouTube simply to feel like I had at least stood up these bullies and exposed them for what they were. To my surprise, the documentary was widely seen and ended up as evidence in a lawsuit brought by Americans United against the town of King's fake public forum that was used to put the flag back up.

A week before I was scheduled to testify in federal court last year, the town finally gave in on all counts. They removed the Christian flag and other statues from the memorial, and the town's insurance company paid half a million dollars in court costs to Americans United (and $1 to Hewett). All the threatening emails I received as a consequence of the film and trial are merely a bonus, but the most gratifying thing about that film were the handful of religious people in town who told me that watching it changed their mind about why the separation of church and state makes sense even for believers.

Because of this film, Sue Kocher of The Triangle Freethought Society contacted me and asked if I'd film a documentary of the first Reason Rally, which I did with her help. Then she talked me into doing another one with the society and Katherine Stewart on The Good News Club — and then the first interviews for the Openly Secular project.

The most exciting part was interviewing so many of my atheist heroes like Annie Laurie Gaylor, Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, Lawrence Krauss, Adam Savage, and on and on.

Because I make good money from my paintings and novels, it's nice to be able to donate my time to a cause I feel is essential for our future. At every museum show or book signing I do, there are always a few people who come up to me (sometimes with tears in their eyes) and say how thankful they are for my openness about being an atheist, since they cannot come out of the closet for fear of retaliation.

On one panel discussion moderated by George Gallo (writer of "Midnight Run"), I was asked if I ever worried that being so openly atheist might hurt my career. I replied that if you're afraid to express your honest thoughts and ideas, you probably shouldn't be an artist, writer, or filmmaker — at least not if you want to do anything of value. Even though George said this was a very good answer, we clashed a few years later when I saw a film he wrote and directed called "Local Color." In the film, his main character says, "In my opinion, an atheist can never be a great painter. In order to create great art, man must make peace with his own mortality and bow to a higher power." I called him out on this publicly, and we had quite an extended and heated exchange, though I never succeeded in getting him to see how insulting and ridiculous such a statement was.

My newest novel (The Immortality Contract) is the first one I've written that focuses entirely on religion. I give Annie Laurie and Dan credit on the Acknowledgements page, since it was while listening to one of their podcasts that I first came up with the story idea. In the novel, a billionaire atheist scientist (Theon) offers a fountain-of-youth pill to the world free of charge — under condition that the recipient abandons any and all support for religion (especially financial). The pill will only be available in countries with strictly secular governments. Almost overnight, every person on the planet must decide if they have more faith in science and life in this world — or religion and the promise of life in the next. Theon's goal is the destruction of organized religion and ushering in a golden age of reason and science. Unfortunately, things don't go as smoothly as he'd hoped. Probably, there won't be as large an audience for this book as for my science fiction novels, but it was fun to write!

To me, questioning and continuing to learn is what art and living is all about. We're all works in progress. The saddest thing would be to mistakenly think you know all the answers and give up searching.

To see Scott's work, visit his website (ScottBurdick.com), his YouTube channel (ScottBurdickArt) or read his novels (Nihala, The Immortality Contract).

By Jackie Douglas

In what can only be described as an eye-opening experience, I recently volunteered at a mobile volunteer clinic to help those in need of free medical, dental or vision care.

My friends Cate Adams and Katie Pajac joined me in volunteering for the Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corp. (RAM) from Sept. 29 to Oct. 1 at Camp Jordan in East Ridge, Tenn.

RAM was founded as a nonprofit organization in 1985 by Stan Brock. If that name sounds familiar, it's because he starred in "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." The mission of RAM is to "prevent pain and alleviate suffering by providing free quality health care to those in need." RAM also does disaster relief in the United States and other countries.

Since 1985, RAM has had more than 100,000 humanitarian volunteers, including licensed dental, vision, veterinary, and medical professionals. It has treated more than 700,000 individuals and 67,000 animals and delivered $112 million worth of free health care services.

FFRF's Nonbelief Relief has donated $10,000 to RAM.

This particular clinic focused on dental, vision and general health services. It also had a women's health exam area the final day.

We were there for three days, which included the setup day on Friday. Even though we wouldn't open until Saturday morning, patients were already camped outside in the parking lot.

On Saturday, I arrived at 5 a.m. to get acclimated and assigned a job, and the doors opened about 45 minutes later. I was sent to the Mobile Optical Lab, where I was trained on the machines that cut lenses, how to assemble glasses, and how to use the lensometer, which verifies the eyeglass prescription.

The Mobile Optical Lab that I worked in can make about 200 pairs of glasses a day when it is running at top efficiency. Unfortunately, not all eyeglasses can be made on site. If a child needs polycarbonate lenses or if the prescription is too high, then the glasses are made at RAM headquarters in Knoxville and then mailed to the patient.

Besides working in the optical lab, I also handled patient registration on Sunday for a couple of hours. It was nice to put faces to the eyeglasses I would make later.

During the course of the weekend, the 510 volunteers who helped that weekend saw more than 800 patients (432 for dental work, 191 for medical reasons and 353 for vision issues), some who needed to be seen in more than one field.

I had an amazing time volunteering for RAM. Everyone was friendly and passionate about what they do. All patients were treated with respect and kindness. I am already planning my next volunteer expedition with RAM in spring of 2018. If you get a chance to volunteer with RAM, please do it. You won't regret it!

Jackie Douglas is FFRF's membership manager.