The IRS should investigate five Ohio churches that have been blatantly campaigning for an Ohio senatorial candidate, the Freedom From Religion Foundation is insisting.

Northwest Baptist Church in Toledo invited Josh Mandel, a Republican candidate for the Ohio Senate primary, and Sen. Ted Cruz to come speak to its members on April 30. Northwest Baptist Church advertised this event on its Facebook page as a gathering to join Mandel and Cruz “as they rally for the upcoming Ohio primary.” The church did not invite any of Mandel’s opposing candidates. Pastor Andrew Edwards III introduced Mandel to his congregation, touting his record when he was state treasurer:

Father, we thank you Lord for the opportunity we have today to fight for our faith and freedom. Lord, I thank you for these men that are with us today. As a result of his innovation in this area, Josh earned Ohio the number one ranking in America for government transparency. Let’s welcome the next senator of the state of Ohio, Josh Mandel.

Victory Christian Church in Kettering also recently engaged in unabashed campaigning for Mandel. The church reportedly hosted two political rallies in April, both of which had Mandel as a guest. On April 21, it invited Mandel to come speak at its “Faith and Freedom Rally.” The church advertised this event on its Facebook page, and according to its Facebook post, the church was “honored to host” the rally. Soon after this event, the church hosted another “Faith and Freedom Rally” on April 29 with guest speakers Mandel and Cruz. In a post depicting Pastor Steve McCuin praying over Mandel and Cruz, Victory Christian called this event a “success.” The church did not invite any of Mandel’s opposing candidates. Mandel also posted about this event on his official campaign Facebook.

Solid Rock Church, based in the town of Lebanon, Ohio, has recently politicked on Mandel’s behalf, too. In late October last year, Solid Rock hosted a political rally at its church. Mandel told attendees that he believed the “election was stolen from Donald J. Trump.” He claimed that if elected, he would vote with the Constitution in one hand and the bible in the other.

On Dec. 5, 2021, Pastor Lawrence Bishop publicly applauded Josh Mandel for his conservative beliefs in front of his congregation: “A man that is running for Senate like Josh Mandel who is nationally known and big-time in politics goes to Lakota school board meeting and gets booed for telling his conservative beliefs that he’s against mandatory mask mandates for children and for this transgender bathrooms and all this. He says all these things and has to be escorted out because people that are booing him because he’s pro-life, because he’s for the things of God.”

On April 30 of this year, Solid Rock Church hosted a “Faith and Freedom Rally.” The church advertised for the event through its Facebook page and also posted a video of the rally. In attendance at the rally were lieutenant governor candidate Candice Keller, Cruz and Mandel. During the event, Keller introduced Mandel: “I hope every single person here votes on Tuesday and I hope you vote rightly. He has repeatedly stood up for Judeo-Chrsitian values even when it could have hurt him politically. It is my absolute honor to introduce you to our conservative hero, please stand for Josh Mandel.”

And the primary pastors at Solid Rock, Pastor Lawrence Bishop and Pastor Darlene Bishop, were two of the 114 Ohio pastors to publicly endorse Josh Mandel for the Ohio Senate Primary Election.

Yet another church that has been shilling for Mandel is Calvary Baptist Church in Portsmouth. On Nov. 12, 2021, Calvary Baptist invited Mandel to come speak at its church. It advertised this event on its Facebook page as an opportunity to meet with “the leading candidate for Senate for the state of Ohio.” The church also noted in its promotion of this event that it believes that “elected officials should have to speak to and answer to bible-believing people.” The church did not invite any of Mandel’s opposing candidates. Mandel posted on his official Facebook page after this stop on his church-based campaign that he discussed how “Judeo-Christian values and American values are one in the same” with the Calvary Baptist Church members.

In another violation FFRF is asking the IRS to probe, Ascent Church in Westlake, Ohio, invited Mandel to come speak at its church on March 8. Ascent Church advertised this “Faith Family Freedom Rally” on its Facebook page as a gathering to “support biblical values.” Ascent Church also invited Pastor JC Church, one of the 114 Ohio pastors who officially endorsed Mandel, to speak at its rally. The church did not invite any of Mandel’s opposing candidates. Mandel posted on his official Facebook after this stop on his “church-based campaign” that he discussed with church members how “separation of church and state does not exist.”

IRS regulations specify that 501(c)(3) organizations, which include churches and other religious organizations, are prohibited from “[participating in or intervening in] . . . any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office,” Staff Attorney Madeline Ziegler underscores on behalf of FFRF in complaint letters to the IRS. Because these churches invited a political candidate to speak to its members and endorsed him shortly before the Ohio Senate primary election, they should no longer receive the benefits of 501(c)(3) recognition, including tax-exempt status.

“Groups that are tax-exempt are essentially subsidized by the public,” explains FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Political donations are not tax-exempt. Churches and other (c)(3) tax-exempt organizations therefore may not engage in partisan politicking for that reason, or they should lose their exemption.”

That’s why FFRF is urging that the IRS commence an immediate investigation into these five churches and take appropriate action to remedy any violations of 501(c)(3) regulations that have occurred or which continue to occur.

You can read one of FFRF’s letters to the IRS here.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 37,000 members and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,000 members and two local chapters in Ohio. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

Arizona has enacted the most expansive private school voucher program in the country in the wake of the Supreme Court’s attempted destruction of state-church separation.

Taxpayers in the Grand Canyon State are now required to pay for any student’s private schooling, including those who attend religious schools that conflict with the taxpayer’s own religious beliefs. Muslims must fund tuition at Jewish schools, Protestants must fund tuition at Catholic schools, and atheists must fund all forms of religious indoctrination.

HB 2853 includes a number of alarming provisions. The law allows anyone, regardless of whether they have attended public school, to receive a voucher for private or alternative schools. This is a dramatic departure from existing voucher programs. Wealthy Arizona families are eligible for the same voucher as lower-class families, meaning the elites are able to use public funds to help pay for their children’s education at private, often religious, schools.

The new law also harms the educational opportunities of Arizona students by creating a predatory market and leaving the struggling public school system by the wayside. Under this law, accountability in the form of test scores, to ensure schools are providing an adequate education, is largely kept a secret from families and legislators. This prevents Arizona from policing unscrupulous actors who enter into the education system with the sole intent to make money, as state Rep. Lorenzo Sierra has pointed out. The lack of oversight and accountability measures extends to how recipients of vouchers use those public funds. Audits of Arizona’s voucher program in 2016 and 2018 found that the program was riddled with abuse of funds by parents. In 2018 alone, parents who received such vouchers misused more than $700,000 of voucher funds.

In passing HB 2853, Arizona legislators seem to have relied on the recent Supreme Court judgment in Carson v. Makin. The court ruled that states are unable to prohibit school voucher recipients from using their vouchers to pay for tuition at private, religious schools. The court has hence signaled to the country that states may be unable to prevent religion from entering the classroom if they open the door by funding private education. Arizona has seized upon that signal to require Arizona taxpayers, including atheists, agnostics and people of minority faiths, to fund private, religious and predominantly Christian education. After Carson, the only remaining way to prohibit taxpayer funds from funding religious education is to use public money to fund only public education and ditch voucher schemes altogether — a solution which the Freedom From Religion Foundation heartily endorses.

Voucher programs do not improve educational outcomes, lack accountability and oversight, and increase segregation. The fight against such schemes continues. Save Our Schools Arizona has previously defeated a similar attempt at expanding the state’s voucher program by deferring it to the ballot, where Arizona voters handily rejected the expansion. That same group is currently in the process of collecting signatures in order to trigger a public referendum on HB 2853.

“We are going to lose the revered concept of ‘common schools,’” warns FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Public funds should go only toward schools that welcome everyone, open to all, whose purpose is to educate, not indoctrinate. They should not go to religiously segregated schools.”

Gaylor points out that earlier generations of Americans strongly agreed, even writing in prohibitions of funding parochial schools into most state constitutions — prohibitions that the extremist Supreme Court is gutting.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wholeheartedly endorses Save Our Schools Arizona’s mission to protect the education of Arizona youth — and defend the separation between state and church.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 37,000 members and several chapters across the country, including almost 1,000 members and a chapter in Arizona. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

The White House must do much more than the baby steps it has recently taken to safeguard abortion access, contends the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

“This is a national health emergency,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president, “and President Biden needs to act accordingly. The Supreme Court’s cruel reversal of Roe v. Wade has thrown our nation into crisis and turmoil and is the equivalent of a national disaster.”

At least eight states already ban abortion and half the states are expected to do imminently. Meanwhile, ever more bans and restrictions are being introduced at the state level.

Biden on Sunday indicated that he is weighing calling a public health emergency, adding, “Keep protesting, keep making your point, it’s critical.” Biden’s “playbook” has already been provided by 23 U.S. senators led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Patty Murray, who urged the president to adopt a national plan to defend fundamental reproductive rights even before Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Some of their suggestions have been adopted or promoted by Biden, including increasing access to medication abortion. However, Biden has yet to create a health ombudsperson at the Department of Health and Human Services. Another urgent need is to clarify protections on sensitive health and location data that could be used against women ordering pills online or crossing state borders for abortion care.

The most controversial but meaningful executive action Biden could take would be to use federal property — VA hospitals and clinics — as oases of abortion care in states with bans. Utilizing the more than 150 VA medical centers and over 1,400 community-based outpatient clinics would ensure that citizens in all states would have access to abortion care.

FFRF nevertheless commends the Biden administration’s steps to date to protect abortion care. Last week, Biden signed an executive order directed toward the Department of Health and Human Services that broadens access to abortion pills, defends people who are seeking or providing abortion care, and expands birth control coverage in the Affordable Care Act. To be clear, this measure does not restore abortion access to millions of women throughout the country who are without this essential health care. But the order affirms that abortion care is health care.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation also applauds the Biden administration’s insistence that hospitals provide abortion services if the life of the pregnant person is at risk — no matter what the state law says. The administration indicates that federal law on emergency treatment guidelines supercedes state laws banning abortion without any exceptions. This is vital because states that ban abortion with exceptions for “the life of the woman” often impose stringent requirements on this exception.

For example, doctors in Tennessee must prove that “the abortion is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman or to prevent serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” Medical professionals in Arizona and Oklahoma face similar situations. Essentially, doctors are forced to put women’s lives in jeopardy. Notably, mental health is almost never considered an excusable exception.

As such, the Biden administration’s directive is a necessary move, since the forced-birth crowd is aiming for a future where abortion is illegal in all circumstances. In fact, some candidates for governor, such as in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are campaigning on that cruel clause.

The passage of the Women’s Health Protection Act would ensure abortion rights are protected nationwide, since it would codify abortion access in all 50 states and territories. It is being voted on again in the House, which approved it last fall, as a symbolic gesture but is blocked in the Senate. Use FFRF’s automated system to contact your members of Congress now.

“Ultimately, we need court reform,” Gaylor remarks. “The federal judiciary and Supreme Court were captured by Trump on behalf of Christian nationalism, and no individual liberty is safe.” That’s another reform the president should finally get behind.

The Biden administration’s actions are welcome — but not nearly enough.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its allies are urging Chief Justice John Roberts to probe into a Religious Right outfit’s startling claims that it has prayed with Supreme Court justices inside the court itself. 

Peggy Nienaber, vice president of Faith & Liberty, has insisted in a recent Rolling Stone story that she has prayed in the past with justices inside the Supreme Court building. The group’s founder, Rob Schenck, has likewise confirmed that while he was in charge of Faith & Liberty up until the mid-2010s (then called Faith and Action), he met with and prayed with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas (as well as then-Justice Antonin Scalia), reportedly saying that “he would pray with them inside the high court.”

Nienaber and Schenck’s assertions are alarming because Faith & Liberty is a subsidiary of Liberty Counsel, a frequent litigant before the court, as FFRF, the Center For Inquiry and American Atheists point out in the joint letter. Liberty Counsel has represented parties in front of the court at least four times and has filed at least 17 amicus curiae briefs with the court, including in the just-decided Kennedy v. Bremerton and Dobbs cases. (Faith & Liberty is, interestingly, physically located directly next to the Supreme Court building.)

“We respectfully ask that you commence a formal investigation by the court into visits to the Supreme Court building and meetings with justices by advocates before the court,” the letter asks. “If confirmed, justices should be advised that such meetings are improper because they impart on the public a sense of impropriety and an appearance of bias. If Nienaber’s claims of praying with justices are false, the court should reassure the public that justices have not improperly met with advocates before the court in the manner alleged.”

The letter asks Chief Justice John Roberts to note the extraordinary nature of these allegations. None of the organizations signing on to the letter has ever before requested a formal investigation into the conduct of those appearing before the court and toward the justices. If confirmed, the allegations cast serious doubt on the impartiality of multiple justices — and the court itself. That’s why an investigation is absolutely necessary, the three secular groups assert.

“These outrageous allegations make clear why it’s imperative for Congress to pass Rep. Hank Johnson’s bill, the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency Act (SCERT),” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. It was approved by the House Judiciary Committee in May and would require justices of the Supreme Court to adopt and follow a code of ethics, place transparency standards on gifts and travel, codify recusal standards and require the court to disclose lobbying and dark money interests before it. Johnson is a member of the Congressional Freethought Caucus.

You can read the entire letter here.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 38,000 members across the country, including members in all 50 states and in the District of Columbia. FFRF protects the constitutional separation between state and church and educates about nontheism.