A freethinkingly entertaining singer-songwriter is the guest on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “Freethought Matters” show this week.
If you don’t live in the 27 percent of the country’s markets where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can already catch the episode on FFRF’s YouTube channel.
Roy Zimmerman is known for his satiric and irreverent commentary on all things sacred — from religion to politics. The Washington Post calls his work splendidly acerbic and Terry Jones of Monty Python fame has hailed Zimmerman’s music as brilliant. The program features Zimmerman’s brilliant video, “Religious Freedom (To Burn Our Own Witches),” performed at historic U.S. sites of religious persecution, including Plymouth Rock and Salem, Mass. As a special treat, Zimmerman performs live his song, “I Want a Marriage Like They Had in the Bible,” sung in a Southern Gospel Quartet style wherein Zimmerman sings all the parts.
“As Dan was saying, if people were to harken to what the bible actually has to say about marriage, they’d be horrified,” Zimmerman says in a fun-filled chat with “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. “For you and I actually read the bible. A lot of believers don’t.”
This is the fall season’s ninth episode of “Freethought Matters,” airing in 12 cities on Sunday, Nov. 1.
Upcoming guests include movie/TV actor and singer John Davidson, a nonbeliever, Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s great-great-granddaughter and feminist Coline Jenkins and atheist/ feminist folksinger Shelley Segal.
“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.
Previous guests this season include: punditEleanor Clift, which you can watch here, Professor Khyati Joshi, an expert on Christian privilege, joint interviews with possibly the foremost scholars on Christian Nationalism in the United States, actor and FFRF After-Life Member John de Lancie of “Star Trek” “Q” fame, atheists and jazz artists Addison Frei and Tahira Clayton providing a double musical treat, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse, the country’s leading analyst of the U.S. Supreme Court, and legislative stalwart and feminist and civil rights pioneer U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. One of the most eminent public intellectuals in the world, Professor Steven Pinker, was interviewed for the most recent episode, talking about his new course on rationality.
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!
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational charity, is the nation's largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics), and has been working since 1978 to keep religion and government separate.