Florida council nixes godly motto
After protests by local activists and a letter from FFRF, the Venice, Fla., City Council voted 5-2 on April 28 against displaying “In God We Trust” in its chambers.
David Williamson, head of the Central Florida Freethought Community, a chapter of FFRF, spoke at the meeting, as did Marie Glidewell of the Gulf Coast Humanists Association. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that about 20 supporters of the display also showed up.
“This is not a chamber of the majority, it is a chamber of all,” Williamson told the council.
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor sent the council a letter April 27: “Posting ‘In God We Trust’ interferes with citizens’ rights of conscience and is a misuse of city property for the benefit of a system of religion.”
The proposal was just the latest in a series of nearly identical efforts pushed nationally by a California-based group called In God We Trust ~ America Inc. Its aim is to display the phrase “in every city and county chamber in America.”
Such campaigns show why the phrase, adopted by Congress in 1956 at the height of the McCarthy era, should not be a national motto because it excludes a large percentage of the population, Gaylor said.
FFRF, Dawkins group expel creationism
The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science were successful in getting a science teacher in Arroyo Grande, Calif., to stop teaching creationism. The groups sent a letter that sparked an investigation by the Lucia Mar Unified School District into lessons on creationism by Brandon Pettenger at Arroyo Grande High School.
In an April 29 email to Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel, Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Chuck Fiorentino reported that he and the school principal met with Pettenger on April 23 and told him “to immediately cease using [creationist materials] and not to instruct at all on the topics of creationism, intelligent design, or anything related.”
They also told Pettenger he must adhere to state-adopted science standards and that anything outside those standards needed approval. Creationist material was also removed from his school district Web page.
In addition, the district “will be reminding all teachers of their legal obligation to teach only material that is in the State adopted Standard, or Curriculum, or Board approved.”
Dawkins Foundation CEO Robyn Blumner praised the anonymous student for bringing the situation to light. “That student helped bring evidence-based science back into a public school classroom hijacked by religious teachings.”
FFRF weighs in on California prayer case
FFRF filed an amicus brief April 22 in a case over government-sponsored prayer in Eureka, Calif. In Beaton v. Eureka, city resident and atheist Carole Beaton filed suit over prayers that start city council meetings. FFRF’s “friend of the court” brief supports Beaton’s position that prayers at government meetings violate the Constitution.
FFRF argues that the California Constitution provides extensive protection of state/church separation, broader than that required by the Establishment Clause, and that the government should refuse to lend its “prestige and power” to religion by endorsing religious practices.
The brief also criticizes U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Marsh v. Chambers and Greece v. Galloway, which upheld legislative prayer. The cases reject legal principles in favor of relying on a misguided view of history, alleges FFRF, urging California courts to refuse to incorporate flawed reasoning into state law.
Florida students support FFRF bible verse protest
Gator Freethought and Humanists on Campus, two student groups at the University of Florida in Gainesville, sent a letter to university President W. Kent Fuchs in support of FFRF’s April 13 objection to a bible verse inscribed on a new business school building.
Heavener Hall has a bible verse on an archway reading, “He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your god. Micah 6:8.”
In an April 23 letter, the two groups said, “We, as students and staff of the University of Florida, feel that the quote promotes Judeo-Christian beliefs over all other beliefs on campus, and that this alienates members of the University of Florida community, such as ourselves, who do not hold the same beliefs and encourages discrimination against ourselves and other individuals of different faiths, creeds and beliefs.”
The organizations, which have about 45 active members total, requested the verse be replaced with “a more secular, encompassing inscription.”
“It’s wonderful to see students standing up for their rights and taking an active interest in upholding the Constitution,” said FFRF Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel.
The university told FFRF on April 15 that it was reviewing the complaint.
Church signs down at L.A. high school
The Los Angeles Unified School District removed church advertising from school grounds after Staff Attorney Andrew Seidel informed the district March 6 that four permanently posted signs at University High School on Texas Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard violated the Constitution.
“When a school permanently displays a banner on its property advertising a church, it has unconstitutionally entangled itself with a religious message, here a Christian message,” Seidel wrote.
FFRF’s local complainant reported on March 27 that the banners had been removed.
