Michigan school district bars missionaries, Gideons after FFRF complaint
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Photo by Ashutosh Gupta on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded Michigan’s Fremont Public Schools to end two unconstitutional religious practices after learning that Christian missionaries were recruiting students during lunch and that Gideons International planned to distribute bibles on campus.
A concerned parent reported that, over the last few months, NET Ministries missionaries had been coming to Fremont Middle School twice a week during the lunch hour to talk to students about Christianity. One of the missionaries reportedly told their child that the missionaries were there “to talk about anything you want to talk about, and of course spread the word of God.” The NET (National Evangelization Teams) Ministries website says that Discipleship Teams are the missionaries who “attend school lunches” and that they “focus on evangelistic outreach.” The parent explained that this made their child and other students feel “uncomfortable” and “othered” by the obvious presence of a proselytizing group during the school day.
Additionally, the parent reported that Gideons International sent permission slips home with students to distribute bibles the following week at school. The parent also reported that fliers advertising the on-campus bible distribution were posted around the school.
“The district cannot offer religious organizations unique access to its schools in order to proselytize, recruit, or distribute religious materials to students,” FFRF Patrick O’Reiley Legal Fellow Charlotte R. Gude wrote to the district.
FFRF noted that granting outside religious organizations special access to students during the school day constitutes unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. Such practices also marginalize students who are nonreligious or members of minority faiths. Research shows that 38 percent of Americans are non-Christian and that 43 percent of Generation Z are nonreligious.
Following FFRF’s letter, Superintendent Brad Reyburn confirmed that both religious groups would no longer be permitted on campus.
“The Gideons did not end up passing out any bibles in the district and will not be allowed to return to Fremont Middle School. This was the first time that they were ever allowed in the district and it won’t happen again,” Reyburn confirmed via email. “The group that came to the lunches was not presented to the administration as this kind of group. They also will not be back to Fremont Middle School.”
FFRF applauds the district’s prompt action to protect students’ religious freedom.
“Public schools exist to educate, not to provide outside ministries with a captive audience for evangelism,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The district made the right decision by ending these unconstitutional practices. Students deserve to go through the school day free from religious recruitment and coercion.”
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, including over 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.
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FFRF stops coach from assigning Christian journaling, punishing students who refused
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded a California school district to end a practice in which a high school basketball coach required players to complete Christian journal assignments or face extra conditioning during practice.
A concerned parent reported that the Enterprise High School basketball coach in the Shasta Union High School District was forcing students to complete daily affirmations and prayers in faith-based journals during the 2026 basketball season. The journals featured a Latin cross on the cover and were titled “The Empowered Christian Athlete Journal.”
According to the parent, the coach would punish student-athletes by forcing them to run additional laps during practice if they did not complete their Christian journal assignments. In numerous text messages, the coach reminded students that they must complete the religious assignments or else face punishment, such as “running double.” The parent further explained that they were “very angered and disappointed … that a Christian based journal would be pushed at a public school” and that their “child would be disciplined for not participating” in the religious journal activities. They explained that they are not a religious family, and pointed out that the faith-based journal assignments crossed the constitutional line.
“When coaches direct students to complete Christian journal assignments or else face punishment at practice, student-athletes will no doubt feel that completing the religious journaling is essential to avoiding punishment, pleasing their coach, and being viewed as a team player,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the district.
FFRF noted to the district that public school coaches may not use their authority to coerce students into participating in religious activities or completing faith-based assignments. The coach clearly violated the First Amendment rights of student-athletes. Additionally, religious team assignments needlessly marginalize students, such as the parent’s child, who are nonreligious or members of minority faiths. Forty-two percent of adult Californians are non-Christians, and 33 percent are nonreligious. Statistically, nearly half of Americans born after 1996 are nonreligious.
Following FFRF’s complaint, the district investigated the allegations.
“Upon completion of the investigation, we informed the coach that the use of the journal in this context should not continue moving forward,” Associate Superintendent of Human Resources Jason Rubin wrote. “In addition, the district will provide training and guidance to staff to ensure a clear understanding of expectations and to help prevent similar situations from occurring in the future.”
FFRF welcomes the district’s prompt corrective action and will continue working to ensure that public school students are free from religious coercion.
“This is one of the more egregious misuses of authority we have recently seen by a public school coach,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Coaches wield enormous influence over young athletes, and that authority cannot be used to pressure students into participating in religious exercises. Public school athletics should build teamwork and character, not serve as a vehicle for religious indoctrination.”
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, including over 5,000 members and two chapters in California, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF stops coach from assigning Christian journaling, punishing students who refused appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Pastor files discrimination lawsuit after losing library job over pronouns
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A Christian pastor who worked at a public library in Louisiana just filed a federal lawsuit insisting he was wrongfully fired after being an asshole to one of his colleagues by refusing to address them respectfully.
Or, as Liberty Counsel puts it, he was “unlawfully fired” for “refusing to lie and use false gender pronouns.”
I first wrote about technician Luke Ash, who worked at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library, last year, but there’s now been a major update in his story.
The way he explains what happened, he was having a conversation with a co-worker last July about a new employee, whom he referred to using the pronoun “she.” Ash was told that was incorrect and the employee went by “he.”
That was unacceptable to Ash, because apparently he knew damn well this other person was a “biological and chromosomal female.” (How did he know that? No one knows.) “I refused to use those preferred pronouns,” he said.
The next day, he was reprimanded by his boss, maintained that he wouldn’t change his actions, and was subsequently fired for violating the library’s Inclusivity Policy, which says “all employees are welcomed, accepted and respected, regardless of… gender identity or expression,” and that means addressing colleagues using their “chosen name and pronouns.”
There’s an easier way to describe what happened to Ash, though: He was disrespecting one of his co-workers, then got fired after insisting he wouldn’t stop belittling them. He was warned about the consequences, didn’t give a damn about them, then lost his job. The library said it was “not working out for the work culture.”
It’s exactly what he deserved.
But that’s not how Christians have been spinning this.
Like bigoted bakers and florists before him, Ash insists he was punished because of his sincerely held religious beliefs… as if being a perpetual dick at work is one of Jesus’ most important demands.
And now Ash has filed a federal lawsuit insisting his religious rights were violated.
Liberty Counsel is seeking a permanent injunction that declares the library’s “Inclusivity Policy” is unconstitutional for violating his constitutional rights of free speech, religious exercise, equal protection, the Louisiana Preservation of Religious Freedom Act, as well as his religious protections under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The lawsuit also requests that the court order the library to reinstate Pastor Ash to his prior position, restore his benefits, and award backpay, damages, and attorney’s fees and costs.
The argument here is that asking people at a government institution to treat their colleagues with dignity and respect is too heavy a burden for conservative Christians, and that they’re substantially burdening his faith by telling him to use the correct pronoun.
Which is to say: No matter how hard he tries to pretend to be a victim, he’s the bully. He could, at the very least, just admit his religious convictions require him to treat certain people like shit instead of hiding behind his cloak of faith. He wasn’t fired because of his beliefs; he was fired because he was—and promised to keep being—a horrible colleague.
Ash actually had two jobs. In addition to his library gig, which he only had for six months, he’s the pastor of Stevendale Baptist Church, a job he held for an even shorter period of time when the library incident occurred. (The church’s website says he began preaching there in March of 2025.)
As soon as he got fired from the library, he immediately ran to his conservative buddies like he was a football coach from Bremerton eager to make this story all about how he was persecuted.
Sadly, that worked. He rapidly become a cause célèbre for conservatives.
Attorney General Liz Murrill chimed in, saying Louisiana “prohibits discrimination based on religion in the workplace.” Which was a ridiculous thing to say. He wasn’t fired because of his faith; he was fired because of his actions. It’s the same reason a Christian hate-preacher in Oklahoma, as far as I can tell, has not been fired from his government job yet! When he’s on the clock, he’s on his best behavior! Plus, you have to assume there are Christians who work in that library who still have their jobs because they don’t go around looking for ways to demonize their colleagues.
Governor Jeff Landry added at the time that “Louisianans should never lose their job because they refuse to lie!” Which should be welcome advice for everyone at that library who wants to tell Luke Ash he’s an ash-hole.
Other right-wing trolls eventually jumped on the same bandwagon, pretending the library violated some kind of religious freedom law that exists only in their broken brains. The American Spectator, for example, argued this wasn’t about Ash’s lack of basic decency at all: “Basic decency would be for the trans individual to respect Luke Ash’s recognition that she is a woman and not a man.”
Hate-preacher Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argued that the library offers grace to patrons but not to bigots:
It is somewhat ironic that the library has a policy not to fine patrons who do not return books on time or return them at all, yet they fire employees who refuse to engage in forced speech, and play along with a lie.
During our interview, Luke described how the library selectively restricts access to books they disagree with, while accusing others of “banning” books.
“They think it’s a sin to ban books,” he said, “but they in effect ban them by not buying them, or making them hard to find. If you can pretend a book doesn’t exist, that’s even more effective.”
(Libraries have publicly stated policies for how they acquire books. Self-published dreck written by hate-preachers, for example, may not end up on the shelves. But a bestseller that has reviews published in major outlets will be. That’s not censorship. And books in libraries are not hard to find if you know what you’re looking for, something a library employee would know.)
Given how quickly this story rocketed through conservative Christian circles last year, it seemed almost tailor-made for this situation. I’ll admit even I put on my tinfoil hat when I heard this one because Why did Ash even want a job at a public library? When the sort of people who believe there’s only one book that matters, and who also celebrate the mass layoffs of government employees, purposely get a job at a public library, it was easy to believe Ash only applied to work there so that he could eventually sue the library over its policies.
As soon as he was fired, he immediately sat for an interview with Perkins, a fellow Louisianan with a massive megaphone. Within days, conservative pastors across the area wrote a letter to the library’s board demanding they gave Ash his job back and “change all DEI-directed policies that led to his termination.”
Perkins, by the way, invited Ash to attend a prayer event, which led to this wild picture of people putting their hands on him as if he had just suffered some kind of personal tragedy. No wonder the guy has a martyr complex.
But even if that was all coincidental, the bottom line is that Ash broke the rules and deserved to be fired from a job he clearly didn’t even want (given the way he speaks about the library).
While a more sympathetic “victim” would say he at least wants the library to succeed despite the way he was treated, Ash literally emailed the mayor of East Baton Rouge, Sid Edwards, to say he should consider defunding the library system.
Maybe that was his goal all along.
When all this happened last year, Christians like hate-evangelist Franklin Graham urged Ash to file a lawsuit, while a top Department of Justice official implied this was all a travesty.
Ash and his lawyers have now followed through. Hopefully a judge can set him straight because the Bible sure as hell isn’t doing it.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
