Thank you, Kansans, for restoring the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s “faith” in our nation’s commitment to individual liberties. Kansas voters yesterday resoundingly rejected the anti-abortion referendum on their ballot.

Voters were put to the task to either preserve the 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that declared abortion to be a fundamental right under the state’s Bill of Rights or reverse it. If the voters agreed to overturn the constitutional amendment that protected abortion, there would have been a clear path for abortion restrictions and/or an outright ban in the state.

Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected the anti-abortion constitutional amendment, however. This is not only significant to the people of Kansas, but also to the thousands of people from other states who go to Kansas for abortion care. Even before Roe was reversed, nearly half of the abortions performed in Kansas were for people traveling from other states. And now that Oklahoma and Missouri have virtually banned all abortions, Kansas is even more of a safe haven in an abortion desert.

It is also significant because Kansas is the first state to put abortion rights to a vote after the U.S. Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in June. This major support for abortion access in a largely conservative state reveals the value of voter activation. FFRF members in Kansas were active in showing their support for abortion rights.

To no one’s surprise, the Catholic Church was a major player in promoting the anti-abortion referendum. According to Catholic News Agency, the Archdiocese of Kansas City committed $2.5 million, the Wichita Diocese gave $551,000, the Salina Diocese at least $100,000 and the Kansas Catholic Conference at least $275,000. Additional parishes spent money to pass the anti-abortion measure, including St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Leawood, which gave $100,000. According to reports, many other Catholic churches, Knights of Columbus councils and Protestant churches gave donations to imperil the right to abortion. The amendment was also supported by the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. More than 450 pastors and religious leaders signed a letter backing the campaign.

“Kansas citizens demonstrated that voters even in red states can be persuaded to support reproductive rights,” comments Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president. “Compassion, reason and our secular ideal to keep religion out of social policy have prevailed. This shows the necessity of grassroots activism.”

Sign up for action alerts so you can take steps to support abortion rights in your area.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is the largest association of freethinkers in the United States, representing more than 37,000 atheists, agnostics and other nonreligious Americans nationwide, including in Kansas. Its two primary purposes are to educate the public about nontheism and to defend the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.

In honor of one of secularism’s many talented voices, the poet Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) — whose birthday is today, Aug. 3 — the Freedom From Religion Foundation is sharing the animated music video we produced featuring his charmingly irreverent poem, “Heaven.”

FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, an accomplished piano player and songwriter, has set the poem to music and ubertalented young artist Kati Treu has captured the song with painstaking animation. Click on the embedded video above or click here to watch.

Rupert Brooke is only one of the numerous freethinkers featured in the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s online archive of famous nonbelievers, Freethought of the Day. Read more about Brooke here. You can also sign up to start your day with these short bios and featured freethinking quotes by famous or celebrated atheists, agnostics, humanists and heretics.

It’s been a hard summer for those of us who value the separation between state and church and the individual liberties this separation protects. We hope you will enjoy this secular interlude as a change of pace.

The words of the poem are embedded in the video, and also reprinted below for your enjoyment.

Heaven

By Rupert Brooke

Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud!--Death eddies near--
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.

While pronouncing as chilling the symbolism of a Christian flag flying with the flags of the United States and state of Massachusetts over Boston City Hall on Wednesday, Aug. 3, the Freedom From Religion Foundation hopes it will be only once.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on May 2 that the city of Boston had engaged in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment’s free speech clause when it refused to fly the Christian flag. Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote the majority decision, noted that there is nothing to prevent the city from changing its policy to close the flagpole as a public forum.

Under a consent judgment, even though the city had closed the flagpole forum during litigation, it apparently allowed the plaintiffs to conduct what FFRF believes is a one-time flag-raising event. FFRF is watching the situation closely and will apply to fly its own freethinking flag if Boston misguidedly resumes the forum.

FFRF notes that the same kind of flag, with a giant red cross on it, was paraded at the Jan 6, 2021, insurrection along with other symbols of Christian nationalism. Once an obscure and rare symbol, the Christian flag has been increasingly forced upon the American landscape. According to Christianity Today, the flag parallels the red, white and blue of the U.S. flag, with white representing purity and peace, blue fidelity and red “for Christ’s blood sacrifice.” There are even pledges to the Christian flag.

Boston City Hall has three 83-foot-tall flagpoles standing prominently in front of the entrance: one that flies the U.S. flag, one that flies the Massachusetts flag and a third flagpole flying the city flag. Occasionally, the city approves replacing the city flag with another flag, usually representing another country or an officially recognized event, for limited periods of time. Over 90 percent of such flag raisings were of national flags, and city employees are present for each flag-raising.

FFRF submitted an amicus brief asserting that the flagpole should “properly be considered a nonpublic forum, if it is a forum at all.” Liberty Counsel, a Christian nationalist legal outfit which now masquerades as a church so it can avoid 501(c)(3) disclosure laws, represented the plaintiffs, Hal Shurtleff and Camp Constitution. The group was apparently motivated to fly the Christian flag in response to an LGBTQ flag flown by the city during Pride Month.

The Liberty Counsel indicates the flag-raising ceremony will include Mat Staver, Liberty Counselor founder, and a variety of pastors such as William Levi from Operation Nehemiah Missions and Earl Wallace from Liberty Christian Fellowship.

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor calls it “more than distressing to see the Christian flag juxtaposed with the nation’s and state’s flags.” She asks: “How can any nonbeliever, Jew, Muslim or other non-Christian possibly feel included or comfortable at Boston City Hall on Wednesday with a Christian nationalist flag at the helm?”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with more than 37,000 members across the country, including roughly 800 members in Massachusetts. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.