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We are suing the US House Chaplain! Dan Barker, with the help of FFRF attorneys Andrew Seidel and Sam Grover and litigation attorney Rich Bolton, filed a federal lawsuit May 5 challenging Chaplain Father Conroy’s refusal to allow an atheist to offer a secular invocation before Congress. Andrew and Sam join us on the show to discuss the 2-year saga that led to this lawsuit. After hearing Irving Berlin’s irreverent 1922 song “Pack Up Your Sins and Go To the Devil in Hades,” we talk with sociologist and author Phil Zuckerman about his newest book Living the Secular Life: New Answers to Old Questions.
We observe our 10th anniversary by celebrating how much has changed since Freethought Radio began in 2006. We announce victories and complaints in public schools and at a Tennessee city council. We listen to the song “Adrift On a Star” by Yip Harburg and Dan Barker. Then we talk with Declan Mulkerin, Margaux Sorenson, and Peter Opitz, students at Middleton (Wisconsin) High School, about why they are protesting the proselytizing “Jesus Lunch” held during school hours at their campus.
Hear coverage of the “Jesus Lunch” protest at Middleton (WI) High School, which is being challenged by students and FFRF staff. Rebecca Markert updates us on FFRF’s new lawsuit against a Christian cross in a city park in Santa Clara, California. After hearing the Chad Mitchell Trio perform Yip Harburg’s “Rhymes for the Irreverent,” we talk with physicist, cosmologist, and author Lawrence M. Krauss about the “Origins Project” at Arizona State, and about his book A Universe From Nothing: Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing.
FFRF stops an Ohio high-school teacher from preaching in class, removes a bible verse from a Texas school district webpage, files a Minnesota friend-of-the-court brief supporting “death with dignity,” and files a new lawsuit challenging censorship of FFRF’s freethought high-school essay scholarships by a California school district. After hearing Josh White singing freethinking songwriter Yip Harburg’s song “Free And Equal Blues,” we talk with biologist Jerry Coyne about “Faith Versus Fact.”
This week we announce a new IRS lawsuit challenging the Housing Allowance that gives special tax benefits to clergy, and we complain about a bill to make the Bible the “state book” of Tennessee. FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel tells us about the censorship of FFRF’s literature in a Colorado school district. Then we talk with Lyz Liddell, Executive Director of The Reason Rally Coalition, about the music, speakers and other events at the exciting Reason Rally to be held June 2-4 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.
After we announce our “I’m an Atheist and I Vote” billboard campaign, welcoming candidates to Madison, Wisconsin during the week of the Wisconsin primary election, FFRF legal fellow Maddy Ziegler describes how she got a Las Vegas, Nevada, school graduation removed from a church. We celebrate the 120th birthday of composer Yip Harburg (“Over the Rainbow”). Then we hear excerpts of the “Lifetime Achievement” award acceptance speech given at FFRF’s 2015 convention by Rita Swan, founder and director of C.H.I.L.D (Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty) talking about the danger to children of state laws exempting parents from providing healthcare to their children on religious grounds.
Lisa Miller (Treu) joins us this “Easter” weekend (on Black Sabbath) to talk about the movie The Life of Brian and to introduce the irreverent song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” We celebrate spring and bemoan war/terrorism by listening to Yip Harburg’s evocative peace song “One Sweet Morning.” Then we talk, on his birthday, with evolutionary biologist and prolific author Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, The God Delusion) about his autobiographical book, Brief Candle in the Dark: My Life in Science.
We welcome the spring with some light music by freethinking songwriter Yip Harburg (who wrote “Over The Rainbow”) and country singer-songwriter Robbie Fulks (“God Isn’t Real”). After FFRF staff attorney Sam Grover updates us on some state/church victories in southern states, we announce a new drawing for the Yip Harburg book Rhymes For The Irreverent. Then we talk with author, historian, and cultural critic Susan Jacoby about her new book, Strange Gods: A Secular History of Conversion.
FFRF’s JFK ad is airing on Colbert’s Late Show this month. After talking with law student Seth Wrinkle about the amicus brief he drafted for FFRF about a 40-foot Maryland cross, we listen to Univision’s Jorge Ramos explain why he rejected his Mexican Catholic faith and is now an agnostic. Then we interview agnostic bible scholar Bart Ehrman about his new book, Jesus Before The Gospels: How the earliest Christians remembered, changed, and invented their stories of the savior.
