Drama For Women’s Health, With Subtitles
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
WORT 89.9 (Madison, WI)
By Staff
FFRF Communications Director Amitabh Pal spotlighted on his global affairs community radio show a Pakistan hospital that is doing remarkable work to remedy deep-seated equities in women’s health in that country – most often caused due to religion.
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FFRF’s Gaylor testifies in Congress to support a Thomas Paine memorial
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
A House subcommittee heard testimony earlier today from FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor in support of a bill to finally erect a memorial to Thomas Paine in Washington, D.C.
Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., have co-sponsored HR 9600, the Common Sense 250 Act of 2026, to place the memorial in a location reserved for commemorative works of preeminent historical and lasting significance to the United States. In her capacity as a founding member and secretary of the Thomas Paine Memorial Association, Gaylor testified before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Federal Lands that Paine not only meets that criterion but asked, “Is there anyone who better meets that definition? Without Paine, there would be no United States of America — he named our very country.”
Gaylor’s testimony traced Paine’s role in the nation’s founding to soon after his arrival from England at Benjamin Franklin’s invitation in 1774. “Common Sense,” published 250 years ago this January, sold an estimated 500,000 copies when the 13 colonies held 2.5 million people. Paine relinquished the copyright and gave the proceeds to the Continental Army, then enlisted as a private in 1776 and marched with George Washington through that first winter campaign. The experience produced the first of the “Crisis Papers” (“These are the times that try men’s souls”) in 1776, which Washington ordered read aloud to soldiers to keep up morale.
“Is there a better or more meaningful way for Congress to commemorate our nation’s 250th anniversary than by ensuring this honor for the Revolution’s principal champion for independence?” Gaylor asked the subcommittee. “This memorial will honor our founding heritage and be an enduring monument to patriotism and our nation’s ideals.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, co-chair of the Congressional Freethought Caucus and ranking Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee, commended Gaylor on her testimony.
“Ms. Gaylor, you did a great job of reminding us just what a towering figure Thomas Paine was to the American Revolution and to the founding of our country,” he said.
Bill co-sponsor Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., spoke passionately about the Revolutionary War hero.
“You know, Napoleon said that a statue of gold should be erected to Tom Paine in every country of the world because he was the original champion of freedom and democratic self-government,” Raskin stated. “I would just urge the committee to codify the recommendation of the commission so we can move this quickly.”
Demonstrating the bipartisan nature of the proceedings, a GOP member of Congress joined in the praise.
“I have a Thomas Paine quote hanging on my wall, and I really appreciate the work you’re doing to memorialize someone who was so important to our founding on the 250th anniversary of our founding,” Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, remarked.
Congress in late 2022 already granted the Thomas Paine Memorial Association permission to erect the memorial. Once Congress approves the Common Sense 250 Act of 2026 to situate it in Area 1, the project goes before the Arts Commission to approve the design concept and then earnest fundraising can begin. No federal funds will be expended to build the monument. Renowned sculptor Zenos Frudakis is commissioned to sculpt the memorial.
Two and a half centuries after “Common Sense” made the case for independence, the capital Paine helped bring into being still has no concrete tribute to him. HR 9600 would rectify that omission and finally grant this Founder his due — a fitting conclusion for America’s 250th birthday.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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FFRF op-ed in Alabama newspaper critiques religion in Auburn baseball program
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
An Alabama newspaper has published a Freedom From Religion Foundation op-ed examining the unwarranted role of religion in Auburn University’s baseball program.
“I grew up in a small Oklahoma town, was raised in a Christian family and attended public school. Our head football coach led pregame prayers — and Christianity was woven into our locker room, practices, games and team meals,” Regional Government Affairs Manager Mickey Dollens begin his piece in the Florence (Ala.) TimesDaily. “No one ever objected, and I never even thought twice about it.”
As the column continues, Dollens relays the tale of a teammate having to masquerade a Christian identity in an attempt to earn a football scholarship:
Later in college, a teammate told me something that changed my perspective. He was a walk-on trying to earn a scholarship on the football team. Though he had been raised and believed in a different faith, he pretended to be Christian because he wanted our head coach and fellow teammates to accept him.
One time, our coach called on him to lead the team in prayer before our pre-game meal. He stood, bowed his head and prayed to Jesus. In that moment, he abandoned his own deeply held beliefs to perform a Christian prayer.
He eventually earned a football scholarship. But I have never forgotten the religious sacrifice he felt pressured to make to get it. He wasn’t proud of pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He believed it was the price he had to pay to remain in the coach’s good graces and to prove he was “all in” on team unity.
That teammate is the person I think about when I see Auburn University baseball players, coaches and staff wearing team pullovers with a large Christian cross and the words “Jesus Won” across the chest.
If individual Auburn players had independently purchased and worn those shirts as a personal expression of faith, I would defend their right to do so. But that is not the story.
“Religious freedom is easy to celebrate when the majority has the microphone,” Dollens writes in the conclusion. “Its true measure is whether the quiet player who believes differently can say no and still be treated as a full member of the team. Auburn baseball can build unity without building a ministry. Its coaches should prepare players to compete, not pressure them to conform.”
The full op-ed can be read here (a subscription to the TimesDaily is required).
This column is part of FFRF’s initiative to engage with pertinent national and state issues and spread the messages of secularism and freethought to a broader audience.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With more than 40,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in Alabama, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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FFRF castigates Vance’s alarming ‘end times’ rhetoric
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is expressing its concern over Vice President JD Vance’s recent disturbingly apocalyptic remarks.
During a lengthy interview with evangelical podcaster Bryce Crawford released Monday, Vance was asked about his religious beliefs and whether humanity could be approaching the Christian apocalypse. “Do I think that we’re in the end times? I don’t know,” Vance replied. He added that there are “things about the world that make me feel like I’d be not shocked if the Antichrist was walking among us.”
But Vance’s comments went beyond speculation about biblical prophecy. The vice president said Christians are “commanded to try to, as much as possible, try to make the world the kind of world that God wants it to be.” Vance then described his own priorities in explicitly religious terms: “I’m trying to focus on doing as much of God’s work as possible right now. And if that leads to the end times, OK.”
Those are chilling words coming from the vice president of the United States.
Vance is, of course, free to hold whatever religious beliefs he chooses. But when one of the most powerful public officials in the world speaks of his work in terms of carrying out God’s will, while expressing apparent indifference to whether that work helps usher in an apocalypse he believes may actually occur, Americans have every reason to be alarmed.
“The vice president’s constitutional duty is to the American people, not to his interpretation of God’s plan,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Our leaders control nuclear weapons, conduct foreign policy and make decisions affecting hundreds of millions of lives. Americans deserve to know that those decisions are being made based on evidence, reason and the public interest — not a desire to advance a supposed divine plan toward Armageddon.”
Vance’s remarks are particularly unsettling because they do not exist in isolation. He has repeatedly blurred the line between personal religious conviction and public duty. Just last year, Vance declared that he makes “no apologies” for promoting Christian values through government and accused those who believe the Constitution requires separation of church and state of “lying.” He went even further, arguing that the Supreme Court made a “terrible mistake” by enforcing this foundational constitutional safeguard.
The vice president’s latest comments demonstrate why the separation between religion and government is not an abstract constitutional concern. It is a vital safeguard against public officials wielding enormous secular power according to what they believe a deity commands.
History provides ample warning of what can happen when political leaders become convinced that they are instruments of divine will. Democratic government requires officials to justify their actions with reasons that citizens of every religious or nonreligious perspective can scrutinize and debate, not assertions about invisible spiritual forces, divine commands or biblical prophecy.
The Constitution contains no mandate for government officials to carry out “God’s work.” Quite the opposite: The word “God” (or any synonym for it) does not appear in our entirely secular federal Constitution, which prohibits religious tests for public office and, through the First Amendment, bars the government from establishing religion.
FFRF reminds Vance that he has taken an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States.” He did not swear an oath to advance Christianity, fulfill biblical prophecy or prepare the world for the “Second Coming.”
The enormous influence of the vice presidency must be exercised on behalf of the American people and within the constraints of the Constitution, not in service of one official’s understanding of God’s will.
Government officials are entitled to their private faith. They are not entitled to transform public office into an instrument for doing what they imagine to be “God’s work” — especially when they suggest they are perfectly comfortable if that work helps bring about the end of the world.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters relating to nontheism. With about 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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