The Freedom From Religion Foundation is running a full-page ad in the Austin American-Statesman this Sunday with this headline: “Yes, Governor Abbott — You’re Right. Our schools are for education, not indoctrination.”
There the agreement ends.
It is Abbott, FFRF charges, who wants to use public schools to indoctrinate Texas students. Abbott is imposing his personal religious and Christian nationalist beliefs on students and citizens by banning abortion, encouraging censorship of books and touting a so-called parental bill of rights that would allow a minority of extremists to impose their views on others.
FFRF tells Abbott: “Your tax-credit plan would destroy Texas public schools.” Abbott proposes to reward families with $10,000 per student per year if they pull kids out of public schools and send them to (mostly) religious private schools, raiding that funding from public schools. “This is not a needs-based program, but a robbery intended to defund the symbol of our democracy — our public schools,” states the ad.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is the nation’s largest association of freethinkers (atheists and agnostics) with about 40,000 members, including more than 1,600 in Texas, chides Abbott for telling FFRF and atheists not to “mess with Texas.” The ad points out that many Texas are atheists, agnostics and unbelievers. In Austin alone, 33 percent of residents identify as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular,” and most Americans support state/church separation.
The ad urges Texans to “wake up” and help FFRF “mess with Texas” by preserving the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.
FFRF recently won a protracted lawsuit against Abbott, who had censored FFRF’s Bill of Rights Nativity display in the Statehouse while permitting a Christian nativity, which was found to be censorship.