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“Cleaning up after dogma” is the theme of this week’s program. After celebrating the births, lives and irreverence of the late Tom Petty and Ursula K. LeGuin, we’ll play an outrageous clip of evangelist Pat Robertson, whitewashing Saudi Arabian abuses. We’ll report on two nationally significant FFRF court challenges and other FFRF news. In honor of the upcoming referendum in next week’s Irish election to remove blasphemy laws from the Irish Constitution, we’ll listen to Dan Barker’s song “Beware of Dogma.” Then we’ll talk with Michael Nugent and Jane Donnelly of Atheist Ireland about their work to remove the archaic and ridiculous blasphemy law from the Irish Constitution.
“Don’t mourn — organize!” Those are fitting words by freethinking labor organizer Joe Hill for discouraged secularists after another right-wing justice has joined the Supreme Court. FFRF legal fellow Colin McNamara tells us about the educational letter he helped us send to Kentucky governor Matt Bevin, who has officially encouraged all children to “bring your Bible to school.” Then we talk with Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association and author of the book Creating Change Through Humanism.
More FFRF state/church victories and school-prayer challenges to report in Georgia and Alabama. After hearing the Joe Hill song “The Preacher and the Slave” (sung by Dan Barker and Kristin Lems), we talk with FFRF attorneys Patrick Elliott and Ryan Jayne, who listened to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s entire initial testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and conclude that his confirmation would be a disaster for the separation of state and church.
The 2018 evangelical “Values Voter Summit” shows that the religious right has abandoned all pretense of values. FFRF attorney Chris Line tells us about some of his recent state/church victories in Utah, Georgia, and Alabama. Then we talk with biographer Angelica Shirley Carpenter about her new book, the long-overdue first biography of a 19th-century freethinking feminist (who, as L. Frank Baum’s mother-in-law, was dubbed “The Mother of Oz”): Born Criminal: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Radical Suffragist.
FFRF urges the IRS to investigate President Trump’s “spiritual adviser” Paula White over illegal church politicking. Annie Laurie explains how Judge Kavanaugh’s alleged attempted rape mirrors biblical teachings. FFRF urges investigation into Catholic Church sexual crimes against children. After talking with FFRF attorney Ryan Jayne about a New Jersey county petitioning the Supreme Court to overturn our federal victory prohibiting tax dollars from repairing churches, we interview Cornell scholar R. Laurence Moore about the new book he co-authored with Isaac Kramnick called Godless Citizens in a Godly Republic: Atheists in American Public Life.
We have two state/church victories to report. FFRF lead attorney Rebecca Markert tells us about our recent win in federal appeals court, ruling that a tall Christian cross in a public park in Pensacola, Florida, is unconstitutional, and we hear a news story about FFRF’s successful letter to a West Virginia school district which prompted them to stop Christian prayers over the loudspeakers at high-school football games. Then we speak with Congressman Jared Huffman (of California) who founded the historic Freethought Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
FFRF’s Director of Strategic Response Andrew Seidel has been watching the Senate confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court and concludes that he is “a wrecking ball aimed at the wall of separation between church and state.” After listening to Dan Barker’s song for children, “Keep An Open Mind,” we talk with former Adventist pastor Ryan Bell, who is now National Organizing Manager for the Secular Student Alliance, promoting freethought on college and high-school campuses.
After analyzing the erroneous remarks President Trump delivered before evangelicals at the White House this week, we describe FFRF’s new ad in the New York Times: “It’s Time to Consider Quitting the Catholic Church.” We hear a clip of comedian Julia Sweeney as she was interviewed on FFRF’s Freethought Matters TV show. Then we talk with William C. Stone, the lead attorney in the historic 1980 Supreme Court case Stone v. Graham, which declared the posting of the Ten Commandments in public schools to be unconstitutional.
Educator and author Sikivu Hutchinson, founder of Black Skeptics of Los Angeles (BSLA), describes the four new winners of FFRF’s and BSLA’s “Catherine Fahringer Memorial Student Scholarships” for students of color. After hearing the “freethought” lyrics of “Dancing In The Dark,” we time-travel back to 2006, during Freethought Radio’s first year of broadcast, to listen to our first interview with Ron Reagan, the atheist son of President Ronald Reagan.
