Actor and FFRF After-Life Member John de Lancie of “Star Trek” “Q” fame is the celebrity guest on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s TV show this Sunday.
If you don’t live in the 22 percent of the country’s markets where the show broadcasts, you can already catch the show on FFRF’s YouTube channel.
On the fall season’s fourth episode of “Freethought Matters,” airing in 12 cities on Sunday, Sept. 27, FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor first talk to de Lancie, also part of other famous shows such as “Breaking Bad and “West Wing,” about a new play he’s written on the attempt to sneak in creationism into public schools. This is a sneak preview of his play about the famous “Intelligent Design” trial in Dover, Pa. As a bonus, the show then airs de Lancie’s inspiring COVID-era graduation address for the Secular Student Alliance the past spring.
“I felt quite poorly about the fact that these students not only were not going to have a graduation, but also here were some kids who were going to start their life right on the cusp of probably a terrible economic cataclysm, just like my children had started in 2009,” de Lancie says on the show. “I have great sympathy for that generation. And so I felt that I could, I wanted to speak to them.” De Lancie further notes, “Being secular is not a lapel pin, it’s a mission.”
FFRF has enthusiastically launched the fall season of its TV show, “Freethought Matters,” in the face of the pandemic. The season’s first episode was broadcast with the distinguished journalist and pundit Eleanor Clift, which you can watch here. The second show had as the guest Professor Khyati Joshi, an expert on Christian privilege, while the third one had as the joint interviewees possibly the foremost scholars on Christian Nationalism in the United States.
Upcoming guests and topics include the imperiled Constitution with Supreme Court expert Linda Greenhouse, who covered the court for 30 years for the New York Times. “Freethought Matters” will also soon feature a interview with the distinguished D.C. delegate, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (a member of the Congressional Freethought Caucus), and ’60s and ’70s pop star, movie and TV actor and singer John Davidson, today a nonbeliever.
Freethought Matters” airs in:
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Denver, KWGN-CW (Ch. 2), Sundays at 7 a.m.
- Houston, KUBE-IND (Ch. 57), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- Minneapolis, KSTC-IND (Ch. 45), Sundays at 9:30 a.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Phoenix, KASW-CW (Ch. 61, or 6 or 1006 for HD), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Portland, Ore., KRCW-CW (Ch. 32), Sundays at 9 a.m. Comcast channel 703 for High Def, or Channel 3.
- Sacramento, KQCA-MY (Ch. 58), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Seattle, KONG-IND (Ch. 16 or Ch. 106 on Comcast). Sundays at 8 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 8 a.m.
Watch previous seasons here, including recent interviews with Ron Reagan, Julia Sweeney and Ed Asner, as well as U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin, co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus.
“We want to provide sympathetic programming for the ‘unmassed masses,’ and offer an alternative, so that religious programming does not win by default,” says Gaylor.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
P.S. Please tune in or record according to the times given above regardless of what is listed in your TV guide (it may be listed simply as “paid programming” or even be misidentified). To set up an automatic weekly recording, try taping manually by time or channel. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers!