Students: Know your rights
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
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New episode of ‘Secular Spotlight’ combines humor and politics with special guest
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s latest episode of its “Secular Spotlight” YouTube show features online personality Elizabeth Booker Houston discussing the many facets of her work.
Houston joins FFRF Governmental Affairs Director Mark Dann and Multimedia Producer Leo Costello to explain how she uses humor to make complex legal and political issues accessible to millions. She discusses the prosecution of Rep. LaMonica McIver, who is facing bogus charges for assaulting a federal officer, her career at the Food and Drug Administration and the White House’s push for expanded executive power.
“You know, the profession is gatekept so that old white men can charge $300 an hour for the information, but the law affects everybody,” Houston says. “Only 4 percent or 5 percent of lawyers are black, you know, even fewer black women. And really just trying to make sure the information is accessible and understandable to my community specifically — that’s always at the top of my mind.”
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 previous episodes include Secular Student Alliance Executive Director Kevin Bolling discussing the positive impact nonreligious students can have on their schools, and the story of former Evangelical Pastor Timmy Gibson’s journey to atheism. 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 40,000 members across the country, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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EEOC must protect religious freedom — not Christian privilege
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for implementing the Trump administration’s “anti-Christian bias” narrative.
The EEOC has touted its religious liberty enforcement, highlighting more than $63 million recovered on behalf of workers in religious discrimination matters since January 2025 and a record $48 million in fiscal year 2025. While protecting employees from genuine religious discrimination is a legitimate function of the EEOC, Title VII protects workers of all or no religions, and requires reasonable accommodations for sincerely held religious practices when appropriate. But the EEOC’s own account makes clear that its current leadership is doing something more troubling: tying that legitimate mission to the administration’s political campaign against supposed widespread “anti-Christian bias.”
Revealingly, EEOC Chair Andrea R. Lucas also sits on President Trump’s Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. The EEOC says it worked closely with the Justice Department on the task force’s April report alleging, absurdly, that the Biden administration engaged in anti-Christian discrimination throughout the federal government.
In March, the EEOC announced that a “leading global technology company” is paying $15 million to settle claims that it illegally refused to grant workers, described as “largely Christian,” medical and religious exemptions to Covid vaccine mandates. The EEOC has been in the news otherwise, too, with the New York Times recently suing over records requests. Among the documents requested was correspondence with groups such as the Heritage Foundation, America First Legal and Trump administration pooh-bah Stephen Miller.
The administration’s emphasis on Christianity is particularly inappropriate because federal civil rights law does not create a special category of protection for Christians. Religious protections apply equally regardless of whether an employee is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist or holds another religious or nonreligious viewpoint.
One particularly revealing case involves The Rock Snowpark, a Wisconsin ski area that the EEOC sued on behalf of a Christian employee. He was fired following a dispute over posts on his personal social media account, but the resort claims the decision was based on “performance issues and policy violations.”
Notably, the EEOC does not disclose the content of those posts. Instead, it describes them simply as containing “Bible verses and religious content” while its complaint acknowledges that the employer specifically raised concerns that some of the posts were discriminatory toward gay people. Without revealing the content at the center of the dispute, the EEOC portrays the case as an employer punishing a worker for expressing his Christian faith.
FFRF has repeatedly warned that the administration’s “anti-Christian bias” initiative turns the constitutional principle of religious freedom on its head. The First Amendment demands governmental neutrality toward religion. It does not authorize the federal government to elevate Christianity, treat Christians as a favored class or deploy federal agencies to reinforce a political narrative that Christianity is under siege.
The EEOC should remember that its obligation extends to the growing number of Americans, some three in 10, who are not religious. Title VII’s prohibition against religious discrimination protects atheists and other nonbelievers, including their right not to participate in religious practices or have religion imposed upon them in the workplace.
“Real religious freedom requires a government that neither favors nor disfavors religion,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The moment an agency starts viewing its civil rights mission through the lens of combating ‘anti-Christian bias,’ equal protection becomes preferential treatment. The EEOC needs to be reminded it is not an arm of a White House campaign to falsely portray the nation’s dominant religion as uniquely persecuted.”
The EEOC needs to return its focus to what the law actually requires: protecting all workers from unlawful discrimination and enforcing religious accommodation requirements neutrally — rather than helping manufacture a privileged status for the majority faith.
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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Lawsuit says Christian school in Denver tried to “squash” a 13-year-old’s assault allegation
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A Denver church has been sued for allegedly failing to prevent a 13-year-old girl from getting sexually assaulted by the school’s music director—and then failing to take the matter seriously enough after that abuse came to light.
The troubling situation arose at St. John’s Lutheran Church and School in 2022 when the victim’s family says she was assaulted by the school’s interim music director Diego Marroquin. According to the lawsuit, the school never even ran a proper background check on the 34-year-old, because if they did, they would have known that he didn’t have legal authorization to work in the country. And yet he was allowed to work with children unsupervised.
It gets worse.
The girl became pregnant after the incident, secretly acquiring abortion pills to prevent further consequences. She told two of her friends what happened the following day. And Marroquin apparently stayed in touch with her over the summer, leaving voicemails that allude to their “relationship.” Those messages are referenced in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit also says the Plaintiff wasn’t the only student who was subject to his disturbing actions:
The lawsuit alleges Marroquin engaged in inappropriate behavior with two other students, including showing underage girls sexually explicit photographs and videos, including videos of himself having sex.
One student, according to the lawsuit, was allegedly shown sexual text messages, photographs of women, naked images and videos of Marroquin having sex with a former girlfriend. The lawsuit also alleges he showed the student a photograph of a naked girl he said was 15.
Another student allegedly was taken to a restaurant after band practice and shown pornographic videos, including a video of Marroquin having sex. The lawsuit alleges Marroquin also showed the student text messages with a 14-year-old girl that included topless photographs.
Those girls didn’t come forward with their stories, though. They said Marroquin was well-liked among the students and “no one believed [the 13-year-old girl] when she reported her rape.” Therefore, they didn’t think anyone would believe their stories either.
In the case of the assault victim, when her parents discovered what had happened a few months later, they went directly to school officials. Jessica and Aaron Vandam had a meeting in which those officials said their daughter was lying, that this was all gossip, that she needed to ask for forgiveness, and that she should recant her allegations. The girl acquiesced under that pressure, and the church’s pastor, Andrew Farhat, didn’t follow-up, the lawsuit says, with any meaningful investigation.
Farhat also urged the Vandams not to take this matter to local law enforcement:
“Nothing bad happened,” Farhat said in one of the messages. “I knew it was a lie so I wanted to squash it right away so that no one would think that the police need to be involved. Now we’re protecting victims of slander, don’t want that at our school.”
The proverbial last straw, however, was the fact that Marroquin kept working at the school even after these allegations came to light. At that point, the Vandams knew school officials weren’t going to do the right thing on their own, so they went to police.
An arrest warrant was soon issued against Marroquin, who had fled Colorado. He was eventually found and arrested in Texas—after the Vandams, who had been tracking him on social media, saw him playing guitar during a livestream at his brother’s church. It soon led to a criminal charge of “sexual assault on a child under the age of 15 by a person in a position of trust.”
Unfortunately, the criminal charge didn’t stick. In 2025, Marroquin struck a plea deal that led to prosecutors dropping the sexual assault charge in return for Marroquin pleading guilty to a lesser felony charge. He was sentenced to “four years of sex-offender intensive supervised probation.” After that, he was deported to Guatemala, where he’s a citizen.
But even if the case against him is effectively over, it doesn’t absolve the people who allowed him to be near children and who subsequently tried to squash the case against him.
The lawsuit, which I have not seen but which has been reported on extensively by Brian Maass of CBS Colorado, includes damning details about what school officials allegedly knew:
The complaint says church officials knew Marroquin was communicating inappropriately with underage girls.
It alleges church pastor Andrew Farhat specifically warned Marroquin not to text minors but failed to monitor whether he followed that instruction.
There are also details suggesting church leaders knew this could be a potential problem for them—to the point where they literally transferred property so that, if they got sued, church assets couldn’t be seized. After all, it turns out, they didn’t have sexual-assault liability insurance, so anyone suing them could go after everything they had.
According to the lawsuit, April 2025 minutes said placing the property in a separate LLC was worth considering because of the church’s fiduciary obligation to protect itself and because “it’s a deterrent to lawsuits.”
In May 2025, the board allegedly decided to move forward.
…
The lawsuit says the properties had a combined appraised value of approximately $29.3 million and were transferred for $10.
The plaintiffs allege the transfer was designed to protect church assets from potential litigation.
The lawsuit says this transfer was fraudulent. It was, they say, just an attempt to stop or delay the Vandams from suing the church.
On Saturday, the church sent a letter to member families saying the allegations in the lawsuit were untrue, specifically the parts where Farhat said the victim was lying or didn’t take the alleged abuse seriously. They said staffers followed all mandatory reporting laws and took immediate action when they learned what may have happened. But they didn’t go into more detail than that, and they didn’t even bother addressing the property transfer.
According to the Denver Post, the family is trying to move on despite everything they’ve been through. (The family’s name is spelled two different ways in the two major news articles about this issue.)
The Van Dams’ daughter, who is now 17, hasn’t been able to attend school in person since the attack, and she struggles to trust friends and adults. The family moved out of Colorado and finds it difficult to attend church and maintain their faith.
If these allegations turn out to be true, think about what that means. Church officials didn’t just fail this girl. They put all their students in danger by allowing an alleged predator to continue working with kids. It’s never a good sign when a pastor’s first instinct is to shut down allegations instead of assuming the worst and proceeding accordingly. It’s clear what their priorities really are.
The alleged property transfer makes that moral failing look even worse. Church leaders did everything in their power to move nearly $30 million in assets—but they didn’t even go to local law enforcement with the assault claims. They treated a teenage girl as a bigger threat to the church’s well-being than the alleged predator they hired.
Thank goodness the parents knew better than to trust church leaders. They knew they couldn’t rely on Farhat to take this matter seriously, so they went to the police. When Marroquin fled, they knew school officials weren’t spending any time tracking him, so they did it themselves. And now, through this lawsuit, they’re demanding accountability because the church has proven incapable of policing itself. What does that tell you about their supposed moral high ground?
