Freethought Radio – June 4, 2026

Founder and President of Black Nonbelievers Mandisa Thomas tells us about the June 12–14 “Revival of Reason” in Atlanta, celebrating the lives and views of Black Americans who live without religion. We also talk about Ten Commandments monuments, FFRF victories removing religion from public schools, and public officials discussing “aliens and demons.”

The post Freethought Radio – June 4, 2026 appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

FFRF welcomes judicial check on transgender military ban

Photo by Joel Rivera-Camacho

The Freedom From Religion Foundation welcomes a federal appeals court decision calling the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops illegal for targeting service members based on their gender identity.

A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled this week that the Pentagon policy appears designed to exclude transgender Americans from military service, partially upholding a lower court order protecting currently serving transgender plaintiffs from being discharged. Unfortunately, the ruling does not allow new transgender recruits to enlist, and the decision has been temporarily stayed while the administration seeks further review.

Judge Robert Wilkins, writing for the majority, concluded that the policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender.”

FFRF previously denounced Trump’s January 2025 executive order for demeaning transgender service members and claiming that transgender identity is incompatible with an “honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle.” FFRF considers it a sop to Christian nationalists and an attack on human dignity and national security.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Christian nationalist, later issued a policy presumptively disqualifying people with gender dysphoria from service.

The ruling arrives during Pride Month, at a time when several Republican-led states are attempting to counterprogram LGBTQ+ recognition with official celebrations of the so-called “nuclear family,” “strong families” or “fidelity.” These proclamations define family through narrow religious and political terms, elevating heterosexual marriage and traditional gender roles while implicitly excluding LGBTQ+ families.

“This ruling is a welcome rebuke to a cruel policy rooted in prejudice, not military necessity,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “The government should not be in the business of declaring that transgender Americans are unfit to serve because they offend the religious or political sensibilities of Christian nationalists.

“The timing is not subtle,” Barker adds. “During a month meant to recognize the dignity and resilience of LGBTQ+ people, political leaders are using government proclamations and federal policy to tell them they are lesser citizens. That is exactly why Pride Month remains necessary and why FFRF stands firmly with the LGBTQ+ community, including the 11 percent of its membership who identify as LGBTQ+.”

Barker notes that thousands of transgender Americans serve or have served honorably in the armed forces. Qualified people in a fair and secular democracy should never be excluded from service because they are transgender, which scapegoats them, undermines equality and weakens military readiness. 

FFRF warns that this discrimination is a part of the broader Christian nationalist goal: to use government power to enforce a narrow religious vision of gender, sexuality and family and to privilege one religious worldview at the expense of everyone else. The state/church watchdog will continue working for America to live up to its ideals and be a country where every American is judged by their character and contributions, not by whether they conform to someone else’s religious beliefs.

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.

The post FFRF welcomes judicial check on transgender military ban appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Why God’s “Cosmic Experiment” Fails Basic Epistemology | The Best Of The Atheist Experience

FFRF denounces federal CHARLIE Act censorship bill

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is sounding the alarm on a federal bill that would inject ideological censorship into federally supported history and civics education programs.

HR 8705, the so-called Civics and History Advancement to Restore Learning, Integrity, and Education Act (or CHARLIE Act), would prohibit federal education funds from supporting instruction or programming deemed to promote “gender ideology” or “discriminatory equity ideology.” The acronym, of course, is a nod to slain Turning Point USA leader Charlie Kirk. The bill has passed out of the House Education and Workforce Committee by a 19–15 vote.

The bill’s author, Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, claims the CHARLIE Act would put an end to “propaganda and subtle indoctrination.” In reality, it’s a censorship bill that would chill honest teaching about race, gender, civil rights and the full complexity of American history.

“Students deserve an honest education rooted in historical facts and constitutional principles, not government-approved propaganda crafted to satisfy Christian nationalist political interests,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This bill does not protect educational integrity. It threatens it.”

HR 8705 incorporates language from President Trump’s executive orders. One of those orders rejects that gender identity can differ from sex assigned at birth and frames recognition of transgender people as “gender ideology extremism.”

The bill also adopts language targeting what the Trump administration calls “discriminatory equity ideology.” That vague language is designed to discourage or prohibit federally supported programs from discussing slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws and other longstanding inequities woven throughout American history.

Public schools have a constitutional obligation to serve all students, including religious minorities, LGBTQ+ students and the growing number of students from nonreligious families. They must not privilege one religious or political viewpoint over others. Yet the CHARLIE Act uses vague and ideologically loaded language to discourage educators from discussing the lived experiences of marginalized Americans or the continuing effects of discrimination.

The bill also reflects the rhetoric of Christian nationalist organizations that have spent years attacking secular public education, inclusive curricula and LGBTQ+ students under the banner of “parental rights” or “anti-indoctrination.” But teaching students that America includes people of many races, religions, identities and beliefs is not indoctrination; censoring that reality is.

“A genuine civics education teaches students how our constitutional system actually works,” adds Gaylor. “This includes understanding that the Constitution is a secular document, that it prohibits religious tests for public office, and that constitutional rights have been expanded over time through the efforts of Americans who fought to make the nation live up to its founding ideals.”

Politicians should not be allowed to rewrite history by threatening school funding, asserts FFRF. A democracy depends on students learning the truth, not a sanitized version of the past.

FFRF urges Congress to reject HR 8705 and instead support history and civics education that promotes critical thinking, constitutional literacy and an honest understanding of America’s successes and failures. Students deserve facts, not politically motivated censorship.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members and several chapters across the country. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

The post FFRF denounces federal CHARLIE Act censorship bill appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Red Pen Logic Called This Atheist Argument Incoherent… He Was Wrong

Christian employee sues L.A. County over a Pride flag outside the office

This newsletter is free and goes out to over 24,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can subscribe via Patreon or the Subscribe button below! You can also make one-time donations through Venmo or PayPal.

Subscribe now

A Christian employee at the Los Angeles Department of Public Works is suing the department and L.A. County because they refused to give him a religious accommodation to work from home during Pride Month, which he requested because he didn’t want to look at the “Pride Progress Flag” outside the building.

Who knew you could find a snowflake in Los Angeles in the summer?

The Senior Civil Engineer, Eric Batman (yes, that’s his real name), said in a lawsuit filed this past March that he’s been working at the Public Works department for decades and he also has very strong beliefs about gay people. He can’t stop thinking about gay people. His sincerely held religious beliefs revolve extensively around his obsession with what gay people do in the bedroom.

In 2023, the County’s Board of Supervisors passed a motion saying Pride flags would be flown at all County departments in June in honor of Pride Month, something they continued to do in the years since. And all of it bothered Batman because acknowledging the reality that LGBTQ exist and shouldn’t be ashamed of that is something his religion doesn’t allow.

So he asked his superiors if he could work from home the entire month. In 2023, they didn’t mind because his office was under construction anyway. In 2024, he made a similar request, saying that walking past the Pride flag “would negatively impact my ability perform my work and would result in a hostile work environment.”

How would it affect his ability to do his work? He didn’t say. I have no clue how looking at a flag impacts anyone’s ability to oversee the county’s “flood control and stormwater capture facilities,” as Batman does.

How would it result in a hostile work environment? No one knows. It’s not like colleagues were treating him any differently.

Batman went on to say he needed to avoid the flag in order to “not have to deal with the undue additional mental stresses associated with the image presented by the pride flag.” Because Pride Month is all about honoring the sacrifices made by conservative Christians who have to co-exist with other people.

A County official said he could always use a different entrance. And because he said he was dealing with “mental stresses,” the official sent him a brochure to help him file the paperwork so he could get “confidential professional help at no cost.” (That may have been something the official had to send him since he cited having mental health issues.) But whatever he decided to do, his accommodation wasn’t going to be approved because this was clearly an unreasonable request.

That meant he had to work in the office in June and this forced him to “violate his sincerely held religious beliefs.”

How? WHO THE HELL KNOWS. But that is what he later said in the lawsuit.

In 2025, he made another request to work from home in June. This time, he explained in detail why the flag was offensive to him.

For example, the flag has different colors on it, which everyone knows is anti-Christian.

The flag has six colored stripes which stand for various expressions of sexuality that are sinful according to my religion. Being forced to participate in the County’s celebration of sinful sexuality by working under this flag and being forced to look at it in order to come to work violates my religious beliefs.

Again, those stripes do not require anyone to do anything. It’s like seeing a menorah; if that’s not your thing, you don’t have to worry about it. It’s not like everyone who passes by the flag has to perform at least three gay acts during work hours.

He also said Muslim employees were allowed to work from home during Ramadan, therefore he should be allowed to do it to avoid a flag. He also included a long list of Bible verses so that his superiors knew he was truly delusional.

This argument was somehow not convincing to anyone. The County offered to give him a more convenient parking space in June so he could avoid the main entrance and the flag. But he rejected that option so that he could keep whining about being persecuted. In fact, he claimed he was being told to use “separate but equal” facilities.

All of this, he says, has caused irreparable harm… even though he’s continued to work at the facility with no real change.

When the lawsuit was filed in March, Batman was represented by the right-wing group Liberty Counsel (the Kim Davis people), and almost immediately, they blew everything out of proportion in order to fundraise off of this.

Like this email in which they claimed the County was “declaring [Batman’s] Christian beliefs to be a mental illness.”

The County did not say Christianity was a “mental illness.” Batman said he was struggling with “mental stresses” and the County sent him resources to deal with it, as they should have.

Liberty Counsel lied about that, because their Christian faith teaches them lying is perfectly fine if it helps you con gullible people out of their money.

Days later, perhaps realizing they were onto something, they said Batman was being told to attend a “Soviet-style ‘reeducation camp’”…

Because I hate myself and get all of Liberty Counsel’s fundraising emails, I can tell you that, since March 19, I’ve received six separate emails demanding more money so that the group can fight those Los Angeles liberals who think Christians are mentally ill. Seriously. One of the email headlines? “LA to Christians: You’re mentally ill.” (That’s not what they said.)

There’s been no further movement on this case. No response from the County yet. No judge’s ruling. Which means Liberty Counsel will keep acting like this is a pressing issue.

But let’s be clear: A flag that’s up for a month, with a message that boils down to “inclusion,” isn’t infringing upon anyone’s religious beliefs. It’s not telling Christians they’re not welcome in the building. It’s not promoting one religion over another. It’s not promoting LGBTQ people over straight, cisgender people. It’s merely acknowledging the struggles that certain people have had to deal with and reminding them they, too, are a part of this community. (Even if they’re not truly welcome as they are in Batman’s bigoted church.)

The irony is impossible to ignore here. The reason we even honor Pride Month is because LGBTQ people have spent decades being told to hide who they are in part to avoid offending religious conservatives and their sensibilities. They’ve lost jobs, been rejected by their families, been kicked out of their churches, and been targeted by politicians eager to score points by turning them into villains. Yet Batman wants a court to believe he’s the real victim because he had to walk past a rainbow-colored flag on his way to work. A flag that—let’s be honest—no one really pays that much attention to in the first place. This isn’t persecution. This is a Christian man looking for a reason to be angry.

If your faith is endangered by fabric, maybe your God’s not as powerful as you imagine.

FFRF pushes for Ga. school district to remove unconstitutional ‘prayer box’

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is demanding that a middle school in Walton County School District (Monroe, Ga.) remove a box asking for students’ prayers.

A concerned district community member informed the state/church watchdog that Youth Middle School is sponsoring an on-campus prayer box located in the school’s media center on behalf of the First Baptist Church. A sign taped to the front of the box reads: “Prayer Request. How can we pray for you? Fill out a prayer request form and place it in this box.” The prayer requisition form asks for name, prayer request and email for follow-up.

FFRF is calling for the district to immediately remove the prayer box.

“The district has a constitutional duty to remain neutral toward religion,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes. 

FFRF points out that Youth Middle School may not encourage students, staff or anyone else to pray or request prayer by sponsoring a church prayer box on school property. By giving a church access to the school to promote prayer to students, Youth Middle School — and thus the school district — needlessly marginalizes those students and community members among the 38 percent of Americans who are non-Christian, including the 43 percent of Generation Z members who are nonreligious.

FFRF will be closely monitoring the situation in order to ensure that the First Amendment rights of students are not further violated.

“A public middle school is not a church and should not be recruiting students for churches,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “A prayer box in a middle school not only violates the First Amendment, it tramples on parental control of their children’s religious practices, and is a gross invasion of student privacy.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 41,000 members across the country, including more than 600 members in Georgia. Its purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

The post FFRF pushes for Ga. school district to remove unconstitutional ‘prayer box’ appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

New episode of ‘Secular Spotlight’ examines religious released time programs

The latest episode of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s web series describes how to counter a religious group’s devouring of precious public school time.

FFRF’s Ryan Jayne, Sammy Lawrence and Mickey Dollens explore on “Secular Spotlight” a new toolkit that gives parents and community members the resources they need to push back against LifeWise Academy. This organization’s program takes public school students out of class for religious instruction, then sends them back to school to recruit others. Special guest FFRF Kentucky Chapter President John Sutton joins the discussion to explain how grassroots activists successfully stopped LifeWise from entering his community — and how others can follow their example.

“Lifewise’s motives are not about bringing kids into a program to give them, which of course it is, religious education,” Sutton explains. “Their higher motive is to recruit other kids out of the school.”

You can catch this episode of “Secular Spotlight” on FFRF’s YouTube channel, as well as by watching on your smart TV after downloading FFRF’s free app, Freethought TV, which also highlights FFRF’s other video programming. Our recent episodes include a deep dive into the rapidly expanding world of AI-generated religious content with special guest “The Antibot” Taylor Leigh and a news bite explaining a charter school victory in Colorado. Make sure you’re subscribed to FFRF’s YouTube channel for all the latest updates!

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 41,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

The post New episode of ‘Secular Spotlight’ examines religious released time programs appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Red Pen Logic Called This Atheist Argument Incoherent… He Was Wrong

A Connecticut law protects kids from abusive homeschooling parents. Republicans opposed it.

This newsletter is free and goes out to over 24,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can subscribe via Patreon or the Subscribe button below! You can also make one-time donations through Venmo or PayPal.

Subscribe now

Connecticut lawmakers recently passed a perfectly sensible bill to protect children who are homeschooled.

Naturally, Republicans are furious.

House Bill 5468 (now called Public Act No. 26-37) basically does two things: It requires all families to submit a form explaining how their kids will be educated (e.g. public school, private school, homeschooling, etc), and it says parents who want to homeschool their kids must not be “under investigation by the Department of Children and Families for an allegation of abuse or neglect.” If an adult in that home is under investigation, the approval for homeschooling will not be granted. (Students who are already being homeschooled will automatically be allowed to continue—or “grandfathered” in.)

It’s honestly the bare minimum a state should do to make sure students who are being homeschooled are in a safe environment. The same kind of background check, it must be said, also applies to public school teachers already.

That’s necessary given that there are documented situations where parents have removed their kids from public schools—and from any sort of adult oversight—only to abuse or neglect those children. (There was a disturbing case of that in Waterbury last year that inspired lawmakers to make these changes.) While most homeschooling parents have good intentions and aren’t abusive in any way, the question is whether there’s a way to protect kids in situations where they’re not in the presence of any other adults who are looking out for their best interests:

Sarah Eagan, executive director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy and the state’s former child advocate, said the issue is not homeschooling itself.

“The issue of concern in Connecticut, and what we know for a fact, is that there are families, and they’re not one-offs, that have used the pretense of homeschooling [and] the lack of any framework in our school districts to follow up, to hide their children from public view and abuse and neglect them. That is not a theory. It is not a possibility. It has happened over and over and over again,” Eagan said.

…

She referenced a report from the Office of the Child Advocate, where they did a random sample of several hundred children who were withdrawn from school under the stated purpose of homeschooling, and she said their findings proved to be concerning.

“More than 30% of those children had been chronically absent from school,” Eagan said. “About 8% of those children lived in families with multiple reports of child abuse or neglect, and most alarming, 30 of those children in the random sample were in homes where caregivers are on the central registry for child abuse or neglect.”

The fact is that once Connecticut parents say they’re homeschooling their kids, there’s no way for the government to check up on them… unless there’s a formal report of suspicion of abuse or neglect. If those kids are shielded from view, though, how would anyone know there’s reason to be concerned? This new law simply requires a background check on the parents. It doesn’t prevent abuse, but it could make sure the worst case scenarios are avoided.

So why are conservatives so upset about this? Why did every Republican vote against this bill at every stage?

Why did one right-wing commentator call it “Orwellian”? Why did a hate-group leader say it was an example of “the Left’s total disregard for the rights, responsibility, and authority that God has given to parents”? Why did one Republican lawmaker claim this bill would “destroy your way of life”? Why did the Wall Street Journal opinion page title an essay “Connecticut Goes After Homeschoolers”?

Because they see any kind of regulation on homeschooling as an attack on their religious freedom. Or their own freedom. Or the start of a slippery slope that takes away their right to miseducate their children through religious indoctrination if they so choose.

The CT Homeschool Network, which describes itself as a watchdog for homeschool freedom and privacy, called the legislation “wholly irresponsible” in a statement and argued homeschooling families are being used as “the scapegoat” for failures within DCF.

…

Sen. Rob Sampson (R) delivered a powerful closing statement: “Parents are not subjects—they are citizens—and they do not need the permission of this state government or anyone in this room to educate their own children.”

Such a broad attack on parental rights is blatantly unconstitutional. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed the primacy of parents over the state when it comes to child-rearing decisions. If the proposal becomes law, parents should challenge it in court, where it deserves to be struck down.

These are ridiculous arguments, of course, because the bill isn’t targeting homeschoolers so much as it’s giving homeschooled kids a layer of protection that’s already available to the ones who attend public school. Nor is this bill preventing parents from homeschooling their kids. Nor is it treating every homeschooling parent “as a potential threat simply because some parents do wrong.”

At public schools, teachers and social workers are mandated reporters who can see if a child comes to school bruised or tells them they’re not being fed or are being abused. It doesn’t mean kids can’t slip through the cracks but there’s at least a system in place to help those they can catch. That system disappears when kids are homeschooled without oversight.

At this point, though, it’s not surprising that the same conservatives who have turned a blind eye to the Epstein Files and Donald Trump’s involvement in that scandal aren’t interested in making sure children are safe.

Just look at how Jim Mason, the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), argued against the bill back in April:

Connecticut lawmakers are considering a bill that would subject every family to a background check by the Department of Children and Families before beginning to homeschool.

Not after evidence of abuse. Not in response to a specific concern. But as a condition of carrying out a basic responsibility of parenthood—in this case choosing the best education method for your child. In effect, the state must clear you before you may begin to teach your own child.

The problem with his logic is that, if kids are shielded from the public, no one will see any evidence of abuse. No one can raise any specific concerns. Instead of supporting basic minimal oversight that would actually make it easier for homeschooling to be defined by decent parents, groups like HSLDA want to make it easier for abusers to get away with anything they want.

You can’t say “every case of child abuse is devastating and morally urgent,” as Mason does, while opposing legislation designed to prevent that abuse.

Mason also claims this law is in response to “the rare but real examples of abuse” but unfairly applies to everyone. But that’s how laws work! Some people drive recklessly, and that’s why we have traffic laws that apply to all drivers. To the argument that the law is “treating every parent as a potential criminal rather than respecting the presumption of innocence,” yes, that’s also how laws work! When I’m driving on the highway, a cop might be pointing a radar gun in my direction. Is it because I’m breaking the law? No! It’s because all drivers must, by definition, be treated as if they’re “potential criminals”; that’s not a problem unless you’re breaking the law.

It’s not like Mason is offering any solution that would weed out abusive parents—because, ultimately, he doesn’t give a shit if kids are abused as long as there are no regulations on homeschooling whatsoever. He’s willing to sacrifice kids in exchange for no regulations.

Mason also says students in public schools have been abused, too.

If lawmakers truly believed this level of government monitoring was necessary to protect children, they would apply the same standard to every family in Connecticut, including those with children in public schools, where abuse by teachers and staff has occurred for decades. They do not, because such sweeping surveillance would rightly be viewed as an outrageous violation of parental rights and personal liberty.

That’s bullshit. The reason we know about those stories is because there’s oversight. No one’s saying public schools are perfect. A teacher can pass a background check and still be abusive. But at least those people who commit a crime are caught and prevented from teaching again. The same can’t be said of parents who hide their kids away from public view.

It doesn’t matter how many stories there are about homeschooling-gone-wrong because groups like this are hell-bent on staying off the grid as much as possible, falsely believing that any kind of government intervention is inherently evil.

This is not new. Republican lawmakers are beholden to their Christian base and lobbying groups like HSLDA which put “parents’ rights” over the well-being of children.

Keep in mind we’re not even talking about the merits (or lack thereof) of homeschooling itself. That’s irrelevant to this story, but we’ve seen a similar response on that front, too. The Christian homeschooling advocates are unbothered and unmoved by stories from formerly homeschooled kids who say they weren’t prepared for life outside their home—and that their peers from public schools were leaps and bounds ahead of them, academically and emotionally, when they met them in college.

Homeschooling can work. There are religious and secular parents who do it very well. But there’s no way to tell if it’s working unless there’s a system in place to verify it. We’ve seen religious communities fail at this time and time again. By opposing any and all forms of regulation, groups like HSLDA have allowed abusive behavior, both physical and educational, to remain hidden from public view. It’s grossly irresponsible.

Thank goodness Democrats in Connecticut were willing to do something about it, because Republicans never will.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)