Air Force Academy Prepares Ideological Overhaul, With Erika Kirk Bringing “Bold Christian Faith”
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Intercept
By Austin Campbell
The post Air Force Academy Prepares Ideological Overhaul, With Erika Kirk Bringing “Bold Christian Faith” appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Creationism Attempt at Charter School Illustrates Broader Antagonism Toward Science
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Colorado Times Recorder
By Ari Armstrong
The post Creationism Attempt at Charter School Illustrates Broader Antagonism Toward Science appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Judge Blocks 10 Commandments from Being Posted in Arkansas School District
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Crosswalk
By Elizabeth Delaney
The post Judge Blocks 10 Commandments from Being Posted in Arkansas School District appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
April 19, 2026 – Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle Steinberg to Present at Minnesota Atheists Public Meeting (St. Paul, MN)
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Kyle Steinberg, Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow at the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), will present at the Minnesota Atheists April meeting on Sunday, April 19, 2026, at the Merriam Park Library in St. Paul.
Steinberg’s presentation will focus on current trends in state/church litigation and how FFRF is actively responding to them. The talk will highlight ongoing legal challenges involving religious charter schools, legislative efforts to place the Ten Commandments in public schools, and FFRF’s increasing work in state courts.
The meeting will be held in a hybrid format, both in person and via Zoom, and is free and open to the public. The library will open at 1:00 p.m. for social time, followed by a brief business meeting from 1:30–1:50 p.m. The public presentation will begin at 2:00 p.m. and conclude at 3:30 p.m.
The in-person event will take place at the Merriam Park Library, located at 1831 Marshall Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104.
Attendees may also join via Zoom. Please use Meeting ID: 856 9893 7389 and Passcode: 166449.
Following the event, attendees are invited to gather for an optional dinner at Longfellow Grill in Minneapolis.
FFRF works nationwide to defend the constitutional principle of the separation between state and church and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
The post April 19, 2026 – Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle Steinberg to Present at Minnesota Atheists Public Meeting (St. Paul, MN) appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Registration opens for FFRF’s scintillating 49th annual convention
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion

A provocative lineup of diverse activists, authors, podcasters and state/church activists will join the Freedom From Religion Foundation for its 49th annual convention being held mid-October in Milwaukee.
Registration is now open. Register online at ffrf.us/con26register or by completing the form on the back page of FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today, beginning in the upcoming April issue.
The conference at the Baird Convention Center opens with “early bird” workshops, registration and a complimentary reception on Thursday afternoon, Oct. 15. The formal convention program takes place over two full days, Friday, Oct. 16–Saturday, Oct. 17, and is followed by the annual membership and state representatives meetings on Sunday morning, Oct. 18, ending by noon.
FFRF is offering a discounted room block at the Hilton Milwaukee hotel, 509 W. Wisconsin Ave., Milwaukee, of $229 plus taxes per night. Book online: ffrf.us/con26reservations or phone 800-774-1500 noting you’re with the Freedom From Religion Foundation and providing our group code “90N.”
Speakers include novelist Percival Everett, author of the powerful book “James,” which won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction and is a retelling of “Huckleberry Finn” from the point of view of the enslaved James (not “Jim”). The distinguished professor of English at USC will receive FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award, reserved for public figures who make known their dissent from religion. “James” was published in March 2024 to great critical acclaim, and Everett will sign copies after his speech. “American Fiction,” the feature film based on his novel “Erasure,” was released in 2023 and was awarded the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Jennifer Welch, an atheist who co-hosts the “I’ve Had It” podcast with over 3 million listeners a month and 150 million-plus monthly views on its YouTube Channel, will speak on “I’ve had it with Christian nationalism.” Journalist Mehdi Hasan recently described Welch as “perhaps the most influential woman in the Democratic Party right now.” Welch also co-hosts the daily news series IHIP News and is the co-author of “Life Is a Lazy Susan of Sh*t Sandwiches.” Welch will also receive FFRF’s Emperor Has No Clothes Award.
Jim Obergefell, who is an atheist and was the lead plaintiff in Obergefell vs. Hodges, the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized marriage equality, will receive FFRF’s Forward Award and statuette reserved for individuals who have moved society forward. He’ll talk about the case and sign copies of his book, “Love Wins: The Lovers and Lawyers Who Fought the Landmark Case for Marriage Equality.”
Other honorees will include two Texas teachers of integrity who quit their jobs rather than display Ten Commandments posters in their public school classrooms: Gigi Cervantes, a high school theatre teacher in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and Johnny Cotton, a band leader and teacher for 42 years in the Carthage ISD. They will receive a “First Amendment Heroine” Award and “First Amendment Hero Award,” respectively.
The Clarence Darrow Award and statuette will go to Milwaukee’s Peter Isley, a survivor of childhood sexual assault by a Roman Catholic priest and co-founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
The Henry Zumach Freedom From Fundamentalism Religion Award, now at $75,000, will go to the Secular Coalition for America’s Education Fund and be accepted by SCA Executive Director Steven Emmert. The Zumach Award has been solely endowed by a generous Wisconsin state/church activist to recognize and further “freedom from fundamentalism.”
Maya Wiley will be presented with a “Champion of Civil Rights Award” for her work directing the Leadership Conference on Human Rights and Civil Rights, and will talk about current threats to civil rights and democracy.
Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, a union with 1.8 million individuals, will be speaking and signing copies of her new book, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers.” Prior to her election as AFT president in 2008, Weingarten served for 11 years as president of the United Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 2, worked as a lawyer on Wall Street and taught history at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn. Weingarten was included in Washingtonian’s 2022 Washington’s Most Influential People. Weingarten holds degrees from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Cardozo School of Law.
Other speakers will include Drew McCoy, creator of the “Genetically Modified Skeptic” YouTube channel, with over 850,000 subscribers. Drew was raised as an Independent Fundamental Baptist, but left religion in 2016. and has been a full-time atheist content creator and activist for the past eight years.
Forrest Valkai, a popular Oklahoma-based biologist, science educator and popular content creator known as the Renegade Science Teacher, will speak, too.
FFRF is also proud to announce it will be bestowing the $5,000 Avijit Roy Courage Award, memorializing the slain Bangladeshi-American freethought author and activist, to Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar, a Moroccan freethinker, feminist and civil libertarian whose imprisonment for “insulting Islam” is endangering her health.
The conference will end with an after-dinner keynote address by the provocative Ron Reagan, known for his fearless political commentary and his independent views, as well as his generous TV commercial endorsement of FFRF — in which he describes himself as an “unabashed atheist … not afraid of burning in hell.”
FFRF will be offering “early-bird” workshops on Thursday afternoon, including the popular “Ask an Attorney” panel where FFRF legal eagles will take your questions on state/church issues and concerns, and an interactive panel to practice lobbying with FFRF Regional Governmental Affairs Manager Mickey Dollens, who’s an expert as a seated state legislator in Oklahoma, and FFRF’s other legislative team members. In addition, leaders from FFRF’s grassroots chapter program will lead a workshop providing an overview of the benefits of starting an FFRF chapter in your area. That will be followed by a complimentary late afternoon reception.
The annual conference will include the usual executive, legal and legislative reports, student essay winners or activists, a chance to mingle at book and sales tables, the NonPrayer Breakfast (with its popular “moment of bedlam”), the drawing for “clean” (pre-”In God We Trust”) currency and several optional group meals and complimentary receptions.
Find out more and sign up today at ffrf.us/con26!
The post Registration opens for FFRF’s scintillating 49th annual convention appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Speaker Johnson misrepresents separation of church and state
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is calling out House Speaker Mike Johnson for misrepresenting and denigrating the constitutional principle of separation of church and state — and for lending the prestige of his office to yet another partisan religious event.
In his remarks at the 2026 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast yesterday, Johnson contended that the “wall of separation between church and state” has been misunderstood and claimed that the Founders did not intend to keep religion from influencing government. Johnson insisted that “Jefferson clearly did not mean that wall to keep religion from influencing our government and public life. … To the contrary, the Founders wanted to protect the church and the religious practice of citizens from an encroaching state, not the other way around.” He continued, “Our Founders understood that a free society and a healthy republic depend upon religious and moral virtue [to] help prevent the abuse of power [and] make it possible to preserve our essential freedom.”
That claim is incorrect.
In reality, the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion and protects the freedom of conscience of all Americans. The famed “wall of separation,” articulated by Thomas Jefferson and repeatedly affirmed by the courts, exists to ensure that government remains neutral on matters of religion — neither favoring nor disfavoring any religious belief.
“Speaker Johnson is entitled to his personal religious beliefs,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “But he tarnishes and violates his oath of office by misusing his position to promote Christian nationalist myths and disinformation.”
The United States was not founded on the bible, Christianity or any other religion. It was founded on Enlightenment principles of individual liberty, popular sovereignty and a deliberate rejection of religious governance. The Constitution is godless by design. It bars a religious test for public office. The Founders understood the dangers of sectarian power fused with the state, which is why they adopted the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights, expressly forbidding the government from endorsing, advancing or favoring religion.
FFRF has written to Johnson numerous times to correct his revisionist history and his assertions that the Constitution was designed primarily to protect religion, not to limit its influence on government. FFRF notes that history demonstrates why this principle is essential.
It is ironic that Johnson’s message was delivered at an event celebrating Catholic participation in public life. Catholics themselves faced significant discrimination in early America, including legal restrictions on holding public office and organized political movements aimed at excluding them. At New York’s 1777 Constitutional Convention, future Chief Justice John Jay proposed barring from office anyone who believed the pope could absolve sins. New Jersey’s Constitution excluded Catholics from holding office until 1844 while North Carolina limited public office to those affirming Protestant beliefs until 1835. In Massachusetts and New Hampshire, officials were long required to renounce allegiance to any “foreign ecclesiastical power,” a clear swipe at Catholicism. These examples underscore why the separation of church and state was — and remains — essential to protecting religious minorities from government-imposed exclusion and prejudice.
The First Amendment is an essential safeguard protecting the freedom of conscience of all Americans of whatever religion or none at all — which should be promoted, not attacked, by the House speaker.
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 42,000 members, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post Speaker Johnson misrepresents separation of church and state appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Freethought Radio – March 19, 2026
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
After we cover state/church news in Colorado, Kansas, Missouri and Maryland, FFRF attorney Chris Line dissects the so-called “Religious Liberty Commission” and FFRF attorney Nancy Noet tells us about this week’s decision by an Arkansas court permanently enjoining the state from displaying the Ten Commandments in public classrooms.
The post Freethought Radio – March 19, 2026 appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
2026 Student Essay Contests
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
See below for 2026 essay contest information.
Interested in seeing the winners from the 2025 essay contests? You can find them here.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation 2026 essay contests cater to students in various ages and class ranges.
Students may only enter one FFRF contest annually and may not enter a contest if they have previously won an award in that particular contest.
Requirements: Winners may be asked to send verification of student enrollment. Students will be disqualified if they do not follow instructions, including the word limit and the deadline. Students must submit their essays via the online application and carefully review all contest rules. FFRF monitors for plagiarism. Include links or footnotes for quotes, studies cited, or significant facts relied upon. Entrants must verify that the essay is their original work and that AI was not used in the writing of the text (beyond grammar and spellcheck).
Judges: Would you like to be a volunteer judge for our essay contest submissions? You can find the application form here.
-
- David Hudak Memorial black, indigenous and persons of color student essay competition – opens March 24, 2026
- William Schulz high school essay contest – opens March 24, 2026
- Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial essay contest for ongoing college students – opens March 24, 2026
- Cornelius Vander Broek graduate/older student essay competition – opens March 24, 2026
- Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial essay competition for law students – Closed
2026 David Hudak Memorial black, indigenous and persons of color student essay competition
ELIGIBILITY: Open only to individuals ages 17-21, who will be attending or are currently enrolled in a North American college or university in fall 2026, and whose parent(s) or legal guardian(s) have not completed an associate’s (2-year) or bachelor’s degree (4-year) from an accredited college or university. If you will be graduating from college in the spring or summer 2026, you remain eligible to enter this contest.
TOPIC: Why white supremacy goes hand-in-hand with Christian nationalism.
PROMPT: Write an essay about the inherent white racism in Christian nationalism. You may wish to write about it from a historic or a political perspective, but please be sure to include why it is a threat to our secular democracy and to you as an individual, or to your own community or ethnic or racial minorities in the United States. Include something about your own experiences with or reactions to white Christian nationalism.
Deadline: June 1, 2026
Here are the full rules and application form. Please reach out to FFRF with any questions.
2026 William Schulz high school essay contest
THIS YEAR’S TOPIC: My favorite freethought/humanist hero/ine.“The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments — of those most distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue — are complete skeptics in religion.” — John Stuart Mill
PROMPT: Studies show that nonbelievers are still at the bottom of the social ladder when it comes to social acceptance. Many Americans don’t realize how many activists or achievers they admire are not religious. To help educate them, write a personal essay about your favorite freethinker or humanist and what they did or are doing to improve or enrich our lives. It might be a nonreligious scientist, an artist or writer, a reformer — or an everyday person in your life who has made the world better and inspired you. Please briefly explain their influence or accomplishments and briefly document their nonreligious views. Tell us what they have meant to you as a humanist and nonbeliever. For quotes or citations, please document using links or footnotes.
Deadline: June 1, 2026
Here are the full rules and application form. Please reach out to FFRF with any questions.
2026 Kenneth L. Proulx Memorial essay contest for ongoing college students
THIS YEAR’S TOPIC: Why Trump is wrong that ‘you just can’t have a great country if you don’t have religion.’
PROMPT: Write a first-person essay that makes the case about why President Trump is wrong to claim that “you just can’t have a great country if you don’t have religion.” Choose one or more such quotes by Trump (citing them in your essay) and show why his claims are fallacious. You may wish to marshall evidence or history that contradicts Trump’s claims, or address how his words threaten state/church separation and religious freedom. Save room to include something about your own reaction as a nonbeliever to such pronouncements by the president. Include links or footnotes for quotes or major citations.
Deadline: June 1, 2026
Here are the full rules and application form. Please reach out to FFRF with any questions.
2026 Cornelius Vander Broek graduate/older student essay competition
ELIGIBILITY: Open to any graduate students through age 30, or to undergraduate students ages 25-30 who attend a North American college or university . You remain eligible to enter this contest if you will graduate by spring or summer of 2026. You may only enter one FFRF essay competition per year. If you are a law student, DO NOT enter the graduate competition. You are eligible to enter the Diane and Stephen Uhl Law Student contest (which is closed for 2026 and the 2027 contest will be announced in the Fall.)
TOPIC: “Why the 250-year-old United States of America is not a Christian nation.”
PROMPT: Research and write an essay documenting why the U.S. government is not based on God or Christianity. Refute the claim by President Trump and others that the 250-year-old Declaration of Independence proves that our government is based on God. Include and refute a few other timely examples of legislators, public officials or other individuals promoting the Christian nation myth. Save space to include your own thoughts on why you find “Christian nation” propaganda and disinformation dangerous to our democracy and also how you feel about this as a nonbeliever. Include links or footnotes for quotes or major citations.
Deadline: June 1, 2026
Here are the full rules and application form. Please reach out to FFRF with any questions.
2026 Diane and Stephen Uhl Memorial essay competition for law students
Prompt: In 2025 the Supreme Court extended Wisconsin v. Yoder (1972), citing it repeatedly in Mahmoud v. Taylor, where the Court sided with religious parents who objected on religious grounds to public school instruction that included books with LGBTQ themes or characters.
Deadline: CLOSED
All eligible entrants of any student essay competition will receive a digital year-long student membership in FFRF.
FFRF appreciates its members who make the effort to contact local high schools, colleges and universities to help publicize its competitions.
FFRF has offered essay competitions to college students since 1979, high school students since 1994, grad students since 2010 and one dedicated to students of color since 2016. A fifth contest, open to law students, began in 2019.
“FFRF is happy to see another generation of freethinkers raising their voices in protest against the continuing threat of Christian nationalism,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The next generation promises to have the greatest population of freethinkers yet, and FFRF is proud to lend its support to keep student advocacy alive and thriving.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With nearly 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe.
The post 2026 Student Essay Contests appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
FFRF secures trio of victories in Southern school districts
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is celebrating three recent victories protecting the constitutional separation of church and state in Florida and Georgia public schools.
In Tampa, Fla., FFRF took action against a religious assignment in the Hillsborough County Public Schools system. A parent reported that on Feb. 11, their child’s chorus teacher at Barrington Middle School required his entire sixth grade chorus class to write the following sentence 50 times during class instructional time: “God destroyed the earth by flooding seas for being evil and disobeying God’s commands.” According to the parent, the teacher gave the entire class the assignment as punishment for being disruptive during a previous class period, and the assignment was subject to classwide enforcement until everyone had finished it.
The parent explained:
This incident made me feel deeply disturbed and alarmed as a parent. I was especially troubled that the sentence students were forced to write effectively equated the authority of the teacher with God’s authority and labeled normal sixth-grade behavior as “evil.” This framing is emotionally manipulative, inappropriate and harmful for children, particularly when imposed by an authority figure in a public school setting.
“Here, [the teacher] reportedly admitted to forcing his entire sixth grade chorus class to write a religious declaration, and he did not provide his students with any context as to why or how this sentence was possibly relevant to chorus,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the school district’s legal counsel.
Thankfully, FFRF’s work paid off.
The Hillsborough County Public Schools parent informed FFRF that the principal at Barrington Middle School emailed her confirming that the assignment would be discontinued and that the teacher would not force students to write religious messages going forward.
FFRF’s work in Florida also extended to the Orange County Public Schools system in Orlando. A parent reported that a Stone Lakes Elementary School teacher had been reciting prayers every morning in front of her first grade students during the school’s “moment of silence.” The parent stated that the teacher prayed out loud, often beginning with “Dear Jesus,” and prayed for students “to avoid ‘wounds and sins.’” The teacher reportedly ended her prayers with phrases such as “In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Students were not allowed to begin speaking until she had finished her daily prayer, thereby forcing her first grade students to sit and listen to an overtly Christian prayer every morning during what was supposed to be a moment of silence.
The parent expressed concern because their child had begun asking them questions at home, such as whether they are Christian. The parents are raising their child in a nonreligious home and were disturbed by the classroom prayers. Additionally, the first grade class reportedly included at least a few students who have Muslim families as well, and the parent was concerned about how these prayers were impacting minority faith students.
“First graders cannot simply leave the classroom without risking punishment, and it is unrealistic to expect students this young to recognize that their teacher is violating their constitutional rights,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the school system’s legal counsel.
FFRF learned via an open records request that the school had taken action, providing the teacher with a written correction and verbal coaching to stop the prayers.
Finally, in Rome, Ga., FFRF was informed that the Floyd County Schools system was planning to display the Ten Commandments along with nine historical documents in all of its schools. According to the district employee who brought the news to FFRF, the campaign to display the Ten Commandments in the schools, called “the Ten Commandments Project,” was begun by a group of parents who later partnered with an organization called the Foundation for American Law and Government. Per a handout distributed at the Dec. 15, 2025, “Floyd County School District Founding Documents Presentation,” the Ten Commandments were to be displayed alongside nine actual historical documents, such as the Magna Carta. It appears that the project was intended to place copies of the Ten Commandments in schools, and the nine historical documents were later added, likely as a way to attempt to claim the Ten Commandments display was constitutional.
“No court has upheld the display of the Ten Commandments in a public school, even when the Ten Commandments were among other displays,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to the district’s legal representation.
The legal counsel for Floyd County Schools emailed FFRF with confirmation that action had been taken. “After review and consideration of your letter, Floyd County Schools has directed all school principals to remove the display of the Ten Commandments, to the extent any such school had already posted or displayed same,” I. Stewart Duggan wrote.
School districts have an obligation under the law to ensure they are not violating the rights of its students by proselytizing or using their position to push personal religious beliefs, FFRF pointed out to the school systems. Parents have the constitutional right to determine their children’s religious or nonreligious upbringing, not their children’s public school teachers or administration. Coercing students to write a religious message, forcing students to listen to an explicitly Christian prayer before being able to speak and forcing students to view a Ten Commandments display on school grounds all signal that the district favors one particular set of religious beliefs over all others. As much as 38 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent who are nonreligious. These districts’ actions needlessly marginalized and excluded students and parents who are part of those communities.
FFRF is delighted to have halted three serious constitutional violations affecting a captive audience of young students and will continue to fight to remove any and all religious intrusion in public schools, no matter its form.
“Public school districts unfortunately all too often fall prey to teachers or administrators who step outside constitutional boundaries and abuse their authority to push their personal religious beliefs on other people’s children,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “We are proud to do the work we do. Children deserve a space where they can learn and grow that must remain free from religious 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 nationwide, including thousands of members in Florida and several hundred in Georgia, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
The post FFRF secures trio of victories in Southern school districts appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission elevates religion over rights
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is expressing concern after another meeting of the Trump administration’s “Religious Liberty Commission” yesterday that was deeply troubling.
The hearing, once again inappropriately held at the private Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., focused on alleged threats to “religious liberty” in medicine, foster care and social services. In reality, it featured explicit Christian nationalist rhetoric and showcased testimony almost exclusively from partisan individuals and organizations seeking exemptions from laws that protect patients, LGBTQ+ individuals and basic public health standards.
“True religious freedom means the right to believe or disbelieve — not the right to impose personal religious views on patients, clients and vulnerable populations,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This commission is blatantly theocratic and therefore un-American, overtly seeking to redefine ‘religious liberty’ as a license to discriminate. It is advancing a dangerous agenda that threatens the rights of millions of Americans.”
The proceedings opened with a Christian prayer delivered by Rev. Franklin Graham “in the name of your son, my lord and savior … Jesus Christ,” a stark indication of the commission’s ongoing disregard for the constitutional separation between church and state and freedom of conscience.
Among those testifying was Colorado counselor Kaley Chiles, who is challenging that state’s ban on conversion therapy for minors — a law designed to protect LGBTQ+ youth from harmful and discredited practices. FFRF has filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Chiles’ claims, noting she lacks legal standing and is attempting to manufacture a hypothetical injury to advance a religious agenda. “Our courts must stop being complicit in these efforts and must, instead, bar the door to parties who sue to further only their policy preferences, not legal rights,” FFRF’s brief argues.
The commission also platformed speakers opposing vaccine mandates, gender-affirming care and reproductive rights, while portraying compliance with neutral, generally applicable laws as religious persecution. Notably absent were voices representing patients, medical ethics experts supporting evidence-based care, or individuals harmed by religious refusals in health care settings.
Commissioners themselves reinforced the body’s ideological nature. Commissioner Eric Metaxas described himself as a “proud Christian Zionist” and histrionically claimed that the commission is fighting “evil” and a “death cult.” He defamed secularists by comparing them to Nazis who “push people of faith out,” labeling them “dark forces at war with what God has done in this nation,” and lamenting that “even people of faith have become too secularized.”
Such extreme rhetoric makes clear the commission is not engaged in serious constitutional analysis, but is instead advancing a Christian nationalist worldview that scapegoats nonreligious Americans and dissenters.
“This sort of discourse should alarm anyone who values U.S. pluralism and constitutional principles,” Gaylor says. “Equating secular Americans with Nazis and labeling disagreement as ‘evil’ is not how a government body tasked with protecting religious freedom should operate.”
The hearing included direct attacks on secular Americans. One speaker claimed that without belief in God, human dignity collapses, arguing that “if you are a philosophical materialist … the child in the womb has no dignity.”
Commission Chair Dan Patrick, Texas lieutenant governor, escalated the tone, describing opposing viewpoints as “evil” and warning that “America better wake up … evil is among us.” He also alleged a “leftist movement … to destroy God and be God.”
“This is not measured policy discussion, it is ideological fearmongering, and it is threatening,” Gaylor adds. “It frames political disagreement as a religious battle.”
The meeting comes amid growing controversy surrounding the commission itself. Sameerah Munshi, an adviser to the commission, recently resigned in protest over both the administration’s foreign policy decisions and the removal of Commissioner Carrie Prejean Boller. Boller was ousted last month after questioning the definition of antisemitism and raising concerns about Israel’s actions in Gaza, prompting complaints from Patrick. Munshi’s resignation highlights internal discord and raises serious questions about the commission’s tolerance for dissent, even within its own ranks.
FFRF is additionally raising concerns about the broader context in which the commission operates, as the administration increasingly frames domestic and foreign policy in overtly religious terms, further eroding the constitutional line between religion and government. Rather than protecting religious freedom for all, the commission is advancing a narrow agenda that elevates certain religious beliefs above the rights of others, particularly in health care, where such policies can have life-altering consequences.
“The government should not be in the business of granting religious exemptions that harm others,” adds Gaylor. “Patients deserve to be on the receiving end of medical care based on science and ethics, not on the personal theology of providers.”
FFRF warns that the commission appears poised to recommend sweeping policy changes that would further entangle religion and government, including expanded “conscience protections” that could override civil rights laws and efforts to redefine what qualifies as a religious organization.
The state/church watchdog will continue to monitor the commission’s work as it heads into its capstone hearing on April 13, where it plans to address the “past, present and future of religious liberty in America.” The meeting will serve as the final step before the commission delivers its recommendations to President Trump — recommendations, based on the commission’s record so far, likely to entrench further a religious agenda in public policy.
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 Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission elevates religion over rights appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.









