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We celebrate the anniversary of the January 16, 1786, adoption of Jefferson’s Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and the January 17, 1706 birthday of Benjamin Franklin, who opposed public funding for education. FFRF attorneys Patrick Elliott and Sam Grover describe the questions we submitted for the confirmation hearings of Jeff Sessions for Attorney General and Betsy DeVos for Secretary of Education, both of whom have shown a disrespect for state/church separation. Then we talk with professor of philosophy and prolific author A. C. Grayling (founder and Master of New College of the Humanities in London) about his book, The Challenge of Things: Thinking Through Troubled Times.
FFRF sent a letter to president-elect Trump insisting that he not include religion in the inauguration, and that he drop “So help meGod” from the oath. Nonbelievers are vastly under-represented in Congress, and there will be a bumpy road for state church separation in 2017.
FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel tells why Clemson University’s football program proves that pious does not mean moral. Then we hear Bangladeshi-American Rafida Bonya Ahmed’s speech describing how she narrowly survived an assassination attempt that killed her husband Avijit Roy because they are atheists who are critical of religion.
Barack and Michelle Obama’s White House Christmas message acknowledges “nonbelievers” as well as Christians, Jews, and Muslims. We talk with Florida activist Preston Smith, a middle-school teacher who bravely erected FFRF’s secular displays in a Boca Raton park to counter the Christian nativity scene. His displays were repeatedly vandalized and destroyed. Then we welcome the New Year with some hopeful music, including Shirley Horn’s “Everything Must Change,” Yip Harburg’s “Over the Rainbow,” Dan Barker’s “Promise of Dawn,” and freethinker Robert Burns’s “Auld Lang Syne” performed by Scottish singer Mairi Campbell.
Tis the season for FFRF’s winter solstice and Bill of Rights displays to appear in state capitols and other locations around the country, some of which have been defaced and destroyed. We celebrate the secular solstice by hearing Tom Lehrer’s irreverent “A Christmas Carol,” Ken Lonnquist’s “Isthmus Tree,” and the hilarious South Park classic “Merry Frickin Christmas” performed by Dan Barker. Then we listen to the very moving speech by former Christian pastor Carter Warden who came out publicly as an atheist at FFRF’s annual convention in Pittsburgh.
We celebrate the Bill of Rights (December 15) and the Winter Solstice (December 21) this week. Dan reads FFRF’s full-page “Bill of Rights” ad that ran in today’s New York Times and Annie Laurie reads “Away with the manger—in with the Solstice!” FFRF secular holiday signs are going up all over the country. After hearing solstice songs by Kristin Lems and Dan Barker, we listen to part of the speech by Susan Jacoby —“Why I am sick and tired of ‘God Bless America’”—which she gave at FFRF’s October convention in Pittsburgh.
After reporting on winter solstice signs FFRF has been posting around the country (one of which, in Boca Raton, was immediately vandalized) in response to nativity scenes on public property, we comment on two theocrats recently appointed by the president elect: Betsy Devos for Secretary of Education and Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for the Environmental Protection Agency (who has attacked FFRF). In honor of the anniversary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights on December 15, 1791, we hear Rev. Billy and the Stop Shopping choir perform the song “The First Amendment.” Then we talk with Ali A. Rizvi, who grew up in Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, about his new book The Atheist Muslim: A Journey From Religion to Reason.
Peter Singer, atheist, author and Princeton professor, who is considered the world’s leading ethicist, joins us for an illuminating discussion on his book, “The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically,” and his newest book, “Ethics in the Real World.” We celebrate FFRF’s winter solstice “equal time” displays now up in the Wisconsin State Capitol and Daley Plaza (in conjunction with our Chicago chapter), and report on a state/church victory to remove an unconstitutional nativity display in Michigan. In honor of the 120th anniversary of the birth of lyricist Ira Gershwin, we play Ira’s irreverent classic about the bible, “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”
We give thinks this Thanksgiving week to you, the listeners and supporter of FFRF. After a tribute to FFRF principal founder Anne Gaylor (who would have turned 90 this week), we hear a fascinating talk by the young Nadia Duncan, winner of FFRF’s essay contest for students of color. Then we listen to Marie Schaub, the brave Pennsylvania mother who challenged the Ten Commandments at her daughter’s school, in her acceptance speech for winning FFRF’s “Atheist in Foxhole Courage” award.
Freethought Radio has been kicked off The Mic 92.1, replaced with Christmas music! We still broadcast on other stations around the country. (You can hear teh podcast now.) After some post-election analysis, where we talk about Breitbart’s attacks on FFRF and hear President Obama denounce “crude nationalism,” FFRF attorney Maddy Ziegler tells us about a victory removing religion from an Ohio city seal. Then we speak with sociologist Penny Edgell about the 10-year updated study she co-authored, “Atheists and Other Cultural Outsiders: Moral Boundaries and the Non-Religious in the United States.”
