A dedicated member is the reason that the Freedom From Religion Foundation has etched itself into the Granite State during the holiday season for seven years running.
FFRF member Jack Shields has put up an exhibit at the Statehouse grounds in Concord, N.H., to balance religious displays erected there during this time of the year. The display is FFRF’s 6-foot-tall whimsical Bill of Rights “nativity” and will be up through the New Year. The irreverent graphic by artist Jacob Fortin depicts Founders Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington kneeling in adoration before a “baby” Bill of Rights in a manger.
The tongue-in-cheek nativity reads:
At this Season of the Winter Solstice
Join us in honoring the Bill of Rights, adopted on December 15, 1791, which reminds us there can be no religious freedom without the freedom to dissent.
Keep religion and government separate!
“We’re so appreciative that a member has taken the initiative to diversify the exhibits at the New Hampshire Capitol,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker says. “It is important that freethought gets space at such venues, too.”
FFRF is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in New Hampshire. 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.
