FFRF blasts Religious Liberty Commission’s sweeping attack on state/church separation
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has submitted an official public comment strongly opposing the draft report issued by the federal Religious Liberty Commission, warning that its recommendations would undermine one of the Constitution’s most fundamental protections against uniting religion and government.
“The commission has turned the idea of religious liberty on its head,” says FFRF Co-President Dan Barker. “Instead of protecting every American’s freedom of conscience, it repeatedly treats religious liberty as a license for the government to privilege believers and promote religion. That’s not what the First Amendment says, and it’s not what our founders intended.”
In its extensive comment, FFRF argues that the commission’s report is not an objective examination of religious liberty but rather an advocacy document promoting a narrow ideological agenda that mischaracterizes the Establishment Clause while minimizing the constitutional rights of religious minorities and the growing number of nonreligious Americans.
“[The commission’s report] rests on a false premise: that the constitutional separation between religion and government is somehow hostile to religion,” says FFRF in its formal comment. “The opposite is true. The Establishment Clause protects religious liberty by ensuring that the government neither favors nor disfavors religion. This principle has safeguarded both believers and nonbelievers throughout our nation’s history and has helped foster one of the most religiously diverse societies in the world.”
FFRF’s comment challenges the report’s repeated dismissal of longstanding constitutional principles separating church and state. The state/church watchdog notes that the Framers deliberately sought to keep government out of religion, citing James Madison’s warnings that government involvement corrupts religion and Thomas Jefferson’s famous description of the First Amendment as building a “wall of separation between church and state.”
The comment also criticizes the commission for conflating private religious exercise — which enjoys robust constitutional protection — with government-sponsored religious activity. While individuals and public officials retain the right to practice their religion, FFRF emphasizes that government entities may not use official authority to promote religion or coerce participation in religious exercises.
Among the commission’s recommendations that FFRF opposes are proposals to:
- Encourage the Department of Justice to reinterpret the Establishment Clause in favor of government promotion of religion.
- Create new federal “religious liberty” task forces, hotlines and reporting systems designed to advance preferred religious claims.
- Weaken restrictions on partisan political activity by tax-exempt churches through repeal of the Johnson Amendment.
- Expand government promotion of religion in public institutions.
- Encourage judicial appointments based on a particular ideological vision of religious liberty.
- Create new government awards recognizing a narrow conception of “religious liberty.”
FFRF also warns that the commission largely ignores the constitutional rights of atheists, agnostics, humanists, religious minorities and Americans who simply wish to be free from government-sponsored religion.
“Religious liberty belongs equally to every American, including those who practice no religion at all,” FFRF writes. “A government that favors Christianity necessarily diminishes the equal citizenship of everyone else.”
The organization stresses that genuine religious liberty does not require government support of religion but government restraint.
“Americans remain free to pray or not pray, attend religious services or abstain, preach, evangelize, criticize religion, change beliefs, or reject religion altogether precisely because the Constitution prohibits government from taking sides in matters of faith,” the comment states.
FFRF concludes that the commission should substantially revise or withdraw portions of its draft report that seek to redefine the Establishment Clause or privilege particular religious beliefs through governmental action.
“The Religious Liberty Commission is asking the public to comment, and we hope Americans will do exactly that,” Barker says. “If you believe the government should not be in the business of promoting religion or privileging one faith over another, now is the time to speak up. Religious liberty belongs to all of us.”
The commission has opened its draft report for public comment through Monday, July 12, 2026. Comments may be submitted by email to RLC@usdoj.gov using the subject line: PUBLIC COMMENT – [TOPIC OR CHAPTER NUMBER] – [NAME]
The Department of Justice notes that all comments are public records. Commenters should avoid including personally identifiable information, such as home addresses, in their submissions.
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 ends teacher-led religious club, missionary assembly in Pa. school district
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Photo by Arpit Rastogi on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has persuaded the West Chester Area School District, located in Exton, Pa., to stop a teacher from leading a religious club and pressuring students to advance an explicitly Christian religious organization.
FFRF learned that a social studies teacher was leading a religious club for students in his classroom every Thursday morning at J.R. Fuggett Middle School before homeroom. During those gatherings, Nefos preached Christianity to attending students.
Additionally, on Jan. 23, during class time, the teacher ran a mandatory “assembly” for all sixth-grade students, in which he promoted Pamoza International, a Christian missionary organization, under the pretext of the “Africa” curricular unit. Pamoza International states that its mission is to “share the Gospel,” with its first listed initiative being “character through Christian outreach,” which it does by facilitating bible study groups and prayer. Reportedly, the teacher encouraged all students to donate and help raise money for the organization during the assembly. Additionally, it was reported that all sixth-grade social studies students were required to attend the assembly instead of class and were not given the opportunity to opt out.
FFRF stood up to defend students’ rights and ensured that the district corrected this violation.
“Public school teachers may not take advantage of their positions to gather students in order to promote an evangelizing religious organization,” FFRF Staff Attorney Madeline Ziegler wrote to the district.
Both the religious club before homeroom and the assembly were in violation of the First Amendment. Under the Equal Access Act, a federal law governing student clubs, school personnel may not lawfully initiate or run religious student groups. They must be initiated and run by students, which was not the case in this situation. Additionally, religious employees and organizations may not treat schools as a recruiting ground for their religious mission. It demonstrates an unlawful preference not only for religion over nonreligion, but in this case also Christianity over all other faiths. Thirty-eight percent of Americans are non-Christian, including almost 30 percent who are nonreligious. By allowing a teacher to lead a religious club and host religious assemblies, the district marginalized these nonreligious and non-Christian students.
FFRF’s work paid off, and corrective action was taken.
The district’s legal representative, Amanda J. Sundquist, confirmed that an investigation took place after FFRF’s letter was received.
“Appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that any student club activities are both student-initiated and student-led, and that any staff involvement aligns with applicable legal requirements,” Sundquist wrote. “In addition, guidance has been provided to building leadership to reinforce expectations regarding instructional practices and assemblies, including the importance of maintaining institutional neutrality with respect to religion and ensuring that any faculty presentations or activities during the school day are secular in purpose and consistent with curriculum standards.” Sundquist also confirmed that the district implemented additional administrative oversight and staff communication to ensure that further violations would not occur.
FFRF is pleased to see an outcome that prioritizes students over religious indoctrination.
“Our public schools exist to educate, not to indoctrinate in religion. All students, religious and nonreligious, must feel welcome and deserve to learn in an environment free from proselytizing,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We appreciate that the school district is now standing up for the rights of a captive audience of children.”
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 1,200 members in Pennsylvania, 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: Trump keeps cashing in with $1.5 million earnings from bible licensing
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Newly released financial disclosures show President Donald Trump has earned more than $1.5 million licensing his name to the “God Bless the USA Bible,” prompting renewed criticism from The Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Trump’s latest financial disclosure, covering calendar year 2025, reports he earned an additional $208,486 from the licensed bible, on top of the $1,306,035 he disclosed earning the previous year, bringing his total reported earnings from the product to $1,514,521.
The expensive bible packages, which feature the “King James Bible” along with the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, Pledge of Allegiance and Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” blend scripture, patriotic documents and political branding into a single commercial product.
“As all things are with Trump, this has always been about money,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Trump wraps himself in Christianity, wraps the Constitution inside a bible, and is persuading supporters to finance his political brand while enriching himself to the tune of more than $1.5 million. It is a stunning example of political pandering and exploiting religious faith for personal profit.”
Trump first promoted the bible during the 2024 Easter season, declaring that “every American needs a bible in their home” while urging supporters to purchase what was advertised as “the only bible endorsed by President Trump.” The bible has since spawned multiple $99 premium editions, including “Presidential,” “America 250” and “Inauguration Day” versions.
Trump has famously struggled to discuss even the most basic aspects of the bible, declining on multiple occasions to identify a favorite verse or even express a preference between the Old and New Testaments. Yet he has earned more than $1.5 million licensing his name to an overpriced bible manufactured in China.
The bible itself has long drawn criticism not only from constitutional advocates but also from progressive Christian leaders who warn that combining scripture with patriotic documents promotes Christian nationalism by conflating devotion to God with allegiance to a political movement.
“Religion should never be a marketing strategy,” Gaylor adds. “Nor should the office of the presidency become a platform for selling religious merchandise. Americans deserve leaders who respect both religion and government enough to keep them separate — not presidents who see faith as another licensing opportunity.”
Trump’s bible enterprise demonstrates how easily religious symbolism can be weaponized to enrich politicians while undermining the constitutional principle of state/church separation that protects believers and nonbelievers alike. The Freedom From Religion Foundation continues to oppose the growing effort by Christian nationalists to blur the constitutional separation between religion and government for political and financial gain.
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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A Catholic hospital was sold. Reproductive care returned immediately.
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A secular non-profit group took over a Catholic hospital chain in southwest Michigan a year ago, and the result is that patients can finally get the reproductive services they were previously denied.
It’s amazing what can happen when the Catholic Church doesn’t dictate health care.
In April of 2025, the Ascension health care system announced it would be selling off four hospitals in the Kalamazoo region, along with dozens of outpatient clinics, to Beacon Health System, an Indiana-based non-profit. The sale was finalized that July.
What made the sale stand out is that these things usually happen the other way around. According to the health advocacy group Community Catalyst, as of 2020, the 10 largest Catholic health care systems now “own or control 394 short-term acute care hospitals.” Four of the 10 largest health care systems in the country are affiliated with the Catholic Church. More than 30% of births in the U.S. now happen in a Catholic hospital.
And that’s been a major problem because Catholic hospitals play by different rules, not dictated by what’s best for patients.
Their directives don’t come from medical professionals, but rather the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. And since anything involving contraception is forbidden in the faith, even a normal procedure like tubal ligation isn’t permitted. This rule applies even if future pregnancies would put the woman’s life in danger.
By and large, and with very few exceptions, the USCCB does not allow Catholic hospitals to perform any procedures that violate Catholic doctrine. Hospitals that violate those rules risk getting shut down. Even if the doctors and nurses who work there know that a procedure is necessary for the health of the patient, their expertise takes a backseat to the whims of religious leaders.
A lot of people know that Catholic hospitals won’t perform abortions, but fewer know how radical that policy is. Even if you set aside elective abortions, patients who have ectopic pregnancies (and whose lives are at risk) would be in danger if they went to a Catholic institution.
A normal hospital could give that patient a drug to induce an abortion… or just remove that fertilized egg through surgery. Not Catholic hospitals, though. They might make doctors remove a woman’s entire fallopian tube to prevent something fatal, reducing her ability to get pregnant in the future, even though it’s medically unnecessary, because that’s what their faith dictates.
What if a woman has a miscarriage? That’s already emotionally draining, but Catholic hospitals make things worse. Normal hospitals might induce an abortion to make sure the embryonic tissue is removed from a woman’s body to prevent infection. Not Catholic hospitals. They require doctors to wait until a woman is infected before providing treatment.
What about contraception? Catholic hospitals won’t dispense it. If a victim of sexual assault needs birth control immediately, and a Catholic hospital happens to be the one nearby, it may not help her. If there’s any chance the victim is already pregnant when the hospital sees her, that help is even less likely.
Catholic hospitals also won’t perform vasectomies on men because those would interfere with natural pregnancies in the future.
Nor will they help women who want to get pregnant by using a sperm donor.
They also won’t help couples use a surrogate mother to give birth to their biological child because that would also be seen as “gravely immoral.”
Catholic hospitals are equally awful at the other end of life. What if you’re an elderly person who is dying of a terminal disease, constantly in pain, and eager to end life on your own terms, peacefully, while you are able to make those kinds of decisions? Even in states where euthanasia, or death with dignity, is legal, too damn bad. You will just have to suffer. They will not assist you in those cases.
Catholic hospitals will also not help you if you’re a transgender person who wants (or needs) hormone treatment, or a hysterectomy, or a mastectomy.
In short, Catholic hospitals have an obligation to the Catholic Church, not their patients. The people they hurt the most tend to be low-income people, women, and LGBTQ individuals—people who may not be able to decide in advance which hospital they want to go to due to emergencies, or a lack of insurance, or because they simply don’t know about these restrictions in advance. Even if they have insurance, it’s possible their policies require them to go to a Catholic hospital, where their options are severely limited.
So what happened after Beacon took over Ascension in southwest Michigan?
Just look at this headline from MLive.
A major change at Beacon Health has been the addition of reproductive health services that were not offered previously by Ascension Borgess prior to the transition.
…
Starting July 1, 2025 — the day Beacon acquired the four Kalamazoo-area hospitals — Beacon began offering tubal ligations and a wider variety of intrauterine devices and birth control products, per a Beacon spokesperson.
A group of urologists will also soon be joining Beacon Kalamazoo and perform vasectomies.
“Beacon Health System welcomes and supports all individuals who follow our region’s wide breadth of belief systems, spiritual and faith traditions,” said Dr. Mark Noffsinger, Beacon Kalamazoo chief medical officer.
This is what happens when doctors come before dogma.
The hospitals themselves won’t provide elective abortions, which is not unusual for places like this, but they will direct patients to places that can handle those procedures. (The article notes that, “According to the Guttmacher Institute, only 4% of abortions in the U.S. are performed in hospitals.”)
Who knew that all you had to do to improve patient care was provide patient care? It says a lot that Catholic oversight left this hospital system and everything significantly improved. The buildings didn’t change and the staffers didn’t suddenly become more qualified, but medical care no longer required a bishop to get between a doctor and a patient.
That’s the big lesson here. Catholic hospitals don’t provide better health care because they’re religious. They provide less health care because they’re religious. Evidence-based medicine goes out the window and replaced by religious whims.
That’s not to say the American health care system is working. It’s not. It’s fundamentally broken. We shouldn’t be having any discussions about what care people can get because everything should be available to everyone who needs it. But within the broken system we have, this is still good news. Patients deserve treatment based on science, medical expertise, and their own informed choices.
If anything, this story raises a much bigger question: Why are so many communities dependent on hospitals that refuse to provide legal, medically appropriate care in the first place? Americans shouldn’t have to hope a secular non-profit buys out their local Catholic hospital just to receive standard reproductive care. Stories like this one shouldn’t be anomalies. They should be the norm.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
