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We have a victory to report in Colorado and a victory to defend in Florida. After hearing 19th-century Robert G. Ingersoll’s 1897 “Thanksgiving Sermon,” the 21st-century comedian Leighann Lord gives us “Six things to argue about at Thanksgiving other than politics.” Then we talk with the first winner of FFRF’s new “Avijit Roy Courage Award,” Rasel Ahmed, co-editor of Bangladesh’s first and only LGBTQ magazine who had to leave the country to seek asylum in the United States because of threats to his life.
We announce a new lawsuit challenging the creation of a Christian chaplaincy in Wisconsin’s Department of Justice. After exposing the dangerous Christian nationalism of the acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker (appointed by President Trump to replace Jeff Sessions), we talk with FFRF’s new Editorial Assistant Bailey Nachreiner-Mackesey about the Trump administration’s latest assault on women’s health care. Then we interview former Pentecostal Jessica Wilbanks about her poignant new memoir, When I Spoke in Tongues: A Story of Faith and Its Loss.
Just returning from our national convention in San Francisco, we hear the Moment of Bedlam at the annual Nonprayer Breakfast and hear parts of speeches by actor John de Lancie, Secular Coalition for America director Larry Decker, U.S. Representative (Ca.) Jared Huffman, and comedian Leighann Lord. After hearing Dan Barker’s song “The Freethought Blues,” we talk with Maryam Namazie, who is organizing the “International Sharia, Segregation & Secularism” conference in London this month.
FFRF lead attorney Rebecca Markert, celebrating 10 years at FFRF, updates us on the legal department’s past year of litigation and non-litigation victories for state/church separation. After hearing Joni Mitchell sing “Big Yellow Taxi” and Dan Barker sing “Bread & Roses” (in honor of Annie Laurie’s birthday), we talk with United Church of Canada pastor Gretta Vosper, an open atheist and author of With Or Without God, who is undergoing a “heresy trial” even though her congregation wants her to remain in the pulpit.
This week we discuss the oral arguments in two federal cases by FFRF: Barker v. Conroy, in DC Circuit Court of Appeals, dealing with discrimination by the chaplain of the U.S. House of Representatives, and Gaylor v. Mnuchin, in Chicago’s 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, dealing with FFRF’s challenge of the IRS code that allows ministers to exclude their “housing allowance” from income. Then we talk with Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood, about her new book, Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead–My Life Story.
“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.
