Okla. plaintiffs urge federal court to uphold rejection of religious public charter school
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
A group of seven Oklahoma taxpayers today urged a federal court to uphold the state’s rejection of an attempt to open the nation’s first religious public charter school. The intervenors are represented by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Education Law Center.
At a hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, attorneys for this group of taxpayers — which includes families with children attending public schools, teachers and clergy — argued that allowing the National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation to operate a religious public charter school would be a clear violation of state and federal law that defines charter schools as public schools that must be secular and open to all students. Ben Gamla is seeking a preliminary injunction that would allow it to open while its lawsuit, National Ben Gamla Jewish Charter School Foundation Inc. v. Shellem, proceeds. The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board rejected the school’s application, which made clear that Jewish religious teachings would be integrated into “every dimension of … life” at the school, including classroom instruction and other activities. Charter schools, like all public schools, cannot lawfully indoctrinate religion or discriminate.
The Oklahoma taxpayers who were granted intervenor status to participate in the lawsuit oppose Ben Gamla’s effort to force Oklahoma to authorize and fund an unconstitutional religious public charter school. They object to their tax dollars funding a public charter school that will indoctrinate students into a particular religion. The intervenors also object to public funds being diverted from their nonreligious and inclusive public schools – which already face serious resource limitations – to a religious school that plans to discriminate based on religion.
Americans United attorneys Alex J. Luchenitser, associate vice president and associate legal director, and Luke Anderson, constitutional litigation fellow, argued on their behalf during today’s hearing. In addition to opposing Ben Gamla’s request for a preliminary injunction, the attorneys argued against a request by Ben Gamla to block the intervenors from obtaining documents and other information about the school’s planned operations. The attorneys representing the intervenors also include Nancy A. Noet and Samuel T. Grover of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; Brent Rowland and Morgan Bandy of the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice; Dan Mach and Heather L. Weaver of the ACLU; and Jessica Levin, Wendy Lecker, Patrick Cremin and Katrina Reichert of the Education Law Center.
“The federal court should rule according to constitutional principles,” says Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “A religious public charter school has no place in our secular public education system.”
“We urge the court to protect all Oklahomans’ religious freedom and affirm that this religious public charter school violates Oklahoma law and the U.S. Constitution,” says Americans United President and CEO Rachel Laser. “Oklahoma public school families, Jewish leaders, and taxpayers have spoken – they want their public schools to remain open to all beliefs.”
“Oklahoma has been down this road. Our courts said charter schools are public schools, and public schools don’t teach religion — that’s still the law here, and it doesn’t change because a different faith is asking this time. Our clients want that principle applied evenly, which is the only way it protects anyone,” says Brent Rowland, executive director, Oklahoma Appleseed.
“We’re urging the court to reaffirm the time-honored, core legal principle that public schools can’t be religious and religious schools can’t be public schools,” says Daniel Mach, director of the ACLU Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief. “That foundational idea has been crucial to protect both religious liberty and public education for so long, and there’s simply no reason to abandon it now.”
“It should be beyond question that every part of our public education system must be open and welcoming to all students,” says Robert Kim, executive director of Education Law Center. “Our clients are standing up for the values that define not just our public schools but our democracy as well.”
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.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is a religious freedom advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1947, AU educates Americans about the importance of church-state separation in safeguarding religious freedom. Learn more at www.au.org.
The Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law and Justice is a 501(c)3 public interest law firm that fights for the rights and opportunities of every Oklahoman.
Education Law Center (ELC) pursues justice and equity for public school students by enforcing their right to a high-quality education in safe, equitable, non-discriminatory, integrated, and well-funded learning environments. ELC seeks to support and improve public schools as the center of communities and the foundation of a multicultural and multiracial democratic society. Visit edlawcenter.org.
For more than 100 years, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has worked in courts, legislatures, and communities to protect the constitutional rights of all people. With a nationwide network of offices and millions of members and supporters, the ACLU takes on the toughest civil liberties fights in pursuit of liberty and justice for all.
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FFRF takes Rep. Alford to task for calling church/state separation a ‘lie from Satan’
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is enlightening Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo., after his shocking claim that the all-American principle of separation between church and state is a “lie from Satan.”
Alford, who represents Missouri’s 4th Congressional District, hosted Southern Baptist pastor and Christian nationalist activist Malachi O’Brien on a July 17 episode of “Getting Comfortable with Mark Alford.” Alford introduced the episode’s central subject as “the separation of church and state — or the myth of that.”
Alford complained that when he posts bible verses on social media, “demonic forces come out of nowhere” to criticize him because he is a member of Congress. He then asked O’Brien: “How did we buy into this lie from Satan that the church and the state have no mixture at all?” Alford portrayed President Trump as a divinely protected leader and joined O’Brien in characterizing the Trump administration’s privileging of Christianity as a national revival. He assented to various declarations by O’Brien, such as that “Christians should run their own country.”
FFRF is calling on the member of Congress to retract the historical and constitutional misinformation he spread on his podcast.
“The separation of church and state is neither a myth nor a ‘satanic’ lie,” FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker have written Alford in response. “It is a foundational American principle embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”
President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 famously coined a metaphor explaining the meaning of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, by saying it erects “a wall of separation between church and state.” The fact that the phrase does not appear verbatim in the U.S. Constitution does not negate the principle it explains, FFRF notes.
Alford and O’Brien also repeated the familiar falsehood that the Constitution protects “freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.” On behalf of an organization whose very name is “Freedom From Religion,” the FFRF co-presidents explain that religious freedom necessarily includes the right to freedom from religion in government.
“Your oath of office was to protect and defend the Constitution, not the bible,” FFRF reminds the U.S. representative. “You were not elected to be a pastor. Missouri’s 4th Congressional District is not your congregation.”
FFRF maintains that Americans should be disturbed that a sitting member of Congress is using his public platform to vilifying a foundational constitutional principle and encouraging Christians to seize the machinery of government — the very epitome of Christian nationalist ideology.
“The separation of church and state is not hostile to religion,” FFRF’s letter concludes. “As a member of Congress, your duty is to defend that wonderful American principle, not demonize it.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members nationwide, including nearly 500 members in Missouri. FFRF’s purposes are to defend the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
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Kansas City Star runs FFRF attorney’s op-ed on recent constitutional win
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence has written an op-ed for the Kansas City Star highlighting a recent notable Freedom From Religion Foundation victory regarding a Christian flag.
“The fire department of the city of Diamond, Mo., was flying the Christian flag outside its station. The Christian flag represents Christianity and Christianity only, and the flag has become heavily associated with white Christian nationalism, as the Freedom From Religion Foundation (the group I work for) has pointed out,” Lawrence writes. “We sent a letter to the Diamond Fire Department requesting that it remove the flag in order to comply with the First Amendment. A public fire department has no reason to show official support for a religion, especially given that the department is tasked with serving the entire community — regardless of people’s faith or lack thereof.”
Lawrence continues the op-ed by emphasizing the importance of FFRF’s mission, and the dangers of a government entity promoting religion:
The government has no business throwing its support behind a religion. Yet, every year, we receive complaints from community members across the country because their local governments feel the need to display support for the preferred religion of their government officials.
There are numerous reasons why government entities should think twice before putting up religious displays. When the government promotes religion, it alienates community members who adhere to a different faith as well as those who are nonreligious. Flying the Christian flag on department property needlessly excludes those among the 38 percent of Missourians who are non-Christians, including the one in three who are religiously unaffiliated. Public services such as fire departments are meant to protect and serve the entire community, not just people who have a certain religion. Religious displays on government property like the city of Diamond Fire Department’s also invite legal scrutiny and potentially litigation.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Shurtleff v. city of Boston that the city violated the First Amendment in denying a group’s request to fly the Christian flag because when it adopted its flag policy allowing outside groups to fly their flags, the city created a “public forum.” But the Diamond Fire Department’s display differed from Boston’s in a significant way. Since the flags flown outside the station are apparently controlled and selected by the department, this means the flags are government speech in a government forum and the Diamond Fire Department can’t constitutionally use its speech and power to voice official approval for religion. By displaying the Christian flag on its property, the fire department clearly showed support for Christianity — and only Christianity — in violation of the First Amendment.
Lawrence finishes by reminding readers of the government’s constitutional duty: “We hope that the removal of the Christian flag allows the city of Diamond Fire Department to instead concentrate on fighting fires and protecting its community members — irrespective of which religion, if any, they believe in.”
You can read the full op-ed here.
This column is part of FFRF’s initiative to engage with pertinent national and state issues and spread the messages of freethought and nontheism 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 about 41,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in Missouri, 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 prompts removal of religious displays from Michigan classroom
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded Michigan’s Zeeland Public Schools to remove numerous religious displays from an elementary school classroom.
A concerned community member informed the state/church watchdog that a Spanish immersion teacher at Lincoln Elementary School had displayed several religious messages and religious books. The displays included bible verses in Spanish, the Ten Commandments, Christian books, a cross-decorated box and multiple bibles available to students. It was unclear whether these materials were also being used in lessons or highlighted during independent reading time.
FFRF stood up for student rights, demanding that the district investigate the situation immediately.
“The district has an obligation under the law to ensure its teachers are not violating the rights of its students by proselytizing or using their position to push their personal religious beliefs,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Charlotte R. Gude wrote to Superintendent Rod Hetherton.
FFRF reminded the district that parents — not public school teachers — have the constitutional right to direct their children’s exposure to religion, if any. Displaying Christian Scripture and iconography in a public school classroom conveys official favoritism toward religion and Christianity specifically, and may coerce students into engaging with religious messages they cannot reasonably avoid.
Following FFRF’s letter, Superintendent Hetherton confirmed in an email that the displays had been properly dealt with.
“The principal had a conversation with the teacher. The principal formalized the conversation in writing,” Hetherton wrote. “The teacher removed the religious artifacts from the classroom.”
FFRF is pleased to see positive action to remedy a serious constitutional violation of the rights of conscience of a captive audience of elementary-school aged children.
“The language of instruction may be in Spanish, but the constitutional principle remains the same,” FFRF Co-President Dan Barker says. “Parents entrust public schools to educate their children, not to promote religious doctrine through classroom décor. Whether a bible verse reads ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ or ‘El Señor es mi pastor,’ the Constitution requires public schools to remain neutral on matters of religion. Students deserve classrooms devoted to education, not religious proselytization.”
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 over 41,000 members across the country, including more than 1,100 members in Michigan, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF prompts removal of religious displays from Michigan classroom appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Three Texas moms cite “religious freedom” to strike down state’s Ten Commandments law
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Three Houston moms are the latest to sue the state of Texas over a law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments—King James’ Version only—in every classroom.
You may recall that Texas passed a bill in 2025, appropriately titled SB 10, despite widespread opposition. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico was among those who highlighted the hypocrisy of the people voting for the bill as well as the possible backlash this bill might receive.
Like so many other iterations of these bills, this one said every classroom would have to display a durable or framed 16” x 20” poster of the Ten Commandments. They could be privately donated or bought “using district funds.” All of the posters would have to read as follows:
The Ten Commandments
I AM the LORD thy God.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven images.
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.
The law also included a provision requiring the attorney general of the state to defend districts that get sued over this. If they were to lose the case, the state would then be “liable for the expenses, costs, judgments, or settlements of the claims arising out of the representation.” Which is to say if this ended up backfiring on Christian Nationalists, don’t worry, because taxpayers would foot the bill for their ignorance.
According to their lawsuit, the mothers are now demanding that the displays already up in their districts be taken down and no further posters go up as the school year begins—to that end, they want the courts to step in before mid-August.
Emily Roth, one of the plaintiffs, said in a Friday morning press release that the Ten Commandments poster purposefully ignores religious differences in the classroom and will make students feel like they do not belong.
“It teaches students, and their teachers, that exclusion is acceptable, maybe even preferred. That is not a lesson I want my children learning from the state of Texas,” she said.
What makes this lawsuit unique is that this isn’t a federal case. They’re using the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act to make their argument. That law, passed in 1999, says the government can’t substantially burden someone’s free exercise of religion. They’re also citing the more recently passed “Parental Rights Amendment,” which gives parents the right to control their kids’ upbringing.
They say the Commandments literally conflict with their beliefs that it’s okay to believe in multiple gods (Hinduism) or no gods (Jainism) and will pressure their kids to “join the apparent Christian majority promoted by the State.”
You may recall another lawsuit already attempted to stop this intrusion of Christianity into the schools. Last summer, over a dozen families sued individual school districts for forcing religion upon their children—and they were successful for a time. A federal judge ordered those districts to take down their posters… before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision earlier this year. That meant, for now, the posters could go up in any district that receives them as donations or spends its own money on them.
The new lawsuit is an attempt to get around that decision by citing state-level laws.
The three mothers suing in Houston are Roth, Audrey Rosa Nath and Sanjam Kaur Sohal.
Roth is raising her children without religion; Nath is raising her children across a variety of religious traditions found in her family, including Jainism, Hinduism, Judaism, and Quakerism; Sohal is Sikh, according to the press release.
[Meagan] Hassan, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said that despite the women’s different religious beliefs they all want the same thing: “for their children to attend school without being compelled to display a message that conflicts with their faith.”
At some point, the Texas courts are going to have to figure out if religious freedom only applies to Christians or everyone else. Laws that were written to benefit conservative Christians are now being used to wipe away attempts by the same group to enforce their views upon children. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
The fact is that by mandating the Ten Commandments in every classroom, the state is effectively telling kids which religion counts—and which ones don’t. They’re sending a message that kids from non-Christian families (or the “wrong” kind of Christian ones) are second-class citizens.
This shouldn’t be a complicated case, either. Texas Republicans passed an illegal law, made up details about American history to defend their position, and practically bragged about their true intentions along the way. Any judge should be able to admit all that while striking down this law before any school has to decide how best to promote Christianity in the classrooms.
(Portions of this article were published earlier because Christian Nationalists are using the same broken playbook as always)
