Reason is celebrating Winter Solstice in a small Michigan town.
The Reason Station, staffed and organized by Freedom From Religion Foundation activist Douglas Marshall, has been observing Solstice in the Warren, Mich., City Hall for the fourth season running. This commemoration is the result of a prolonged court battle.
In December 2011, FFRF and Marshall sued the city of Warren for refusing to allow FFRF to place a Winter Solstice sign alongside a religious nativity scene in the atrium of the City Hall. Warren Mayor James Fouts said at the time he would not “sanction the desecration of religion” in City Hall.
While the 2011 lawsuit was dismissed, a 2014 lawsuit filed on Marshall’s behalf by FFRF, the ACLU of Michigan and Americans United was successful. It led to a federal judge ordering the city to allow Marshall equal access to set up a “Reason Station” in the atrium to counter a Prayer Station there.
The Reason Station, staffed by Marshall and other volunteers, offers information and opportunities for discussion from a nonreligious perspective. The centerpiece this month, fittingly, is a “May Reason Prevail” sign, which has wording by FFRF principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor. The sign reads:
At this season of the Winter Solstice
may reason prevail.
There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell.
There is only our natural world.
Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.
In addition, there’s an abundance of freethought literature available at the station.
Marshall received a Freethinker of the Year Award in 2015 from FFRF for his courageous stance.
“We are pleased that a secular celebration of the season has been given space, even if grudgingly, in Warren,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We urge the good folks of Michigan to come by and take a look at the freethought offerings.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national state/church watchdog with approximately 32,000 nonreligious members all over the country, including more than 700 in Michigan.
