The Freedom From Religion Foundation applauds the U.S. Supreme Court for rejecting Alabama’s attempt to weaken our secular democracy.
In a 5-4 decision, the court upheld Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and ruled that Alabama’s racially gerrymandered map violated the law in diluting the Black vote. Alabama was defending its racially discriminatory congressional maps when it urged the court to disregard the law-enforcing Section 2 of the act. As a result of the court’s ruling, Alabama will have to redraw its map to include another Black majority district — and Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act survives.
This ruling came as a pleasant surprise from the John Roberts-headed court, which has voted to dismantle the Voting Rights Act in past cases. Instead, the court followed its longstanding precedent and the plain language of Section 2 to uphold a lower court’s finding that the Alabama map clearly violated the act.
Alabama is also where, in 2021, FFRF won a lawsuit on behalf of nonreligious citizens who objected to a religious test imposition in order to register to vote.
A vibrant, fully enfranchised electorate is the best guarantee to protect our secular Constitution and secular government, FFRF stresses. A diverse electorate ensures that no sect or group can take charge of the government to privilege itself.
“White Christian nationalism has benefited for decades from undemocratic structures in our republic,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 40,000 members and several chapters across the country. Our purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
