Letters to the Editor

Sentinel-News (Lancaster, KY)
By Staff

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Legal watchdog tells Sarasota school to bench ‘baseball chaplain’

Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, FL)
By Stephany Matat

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FFRF to protest at Moroccan Consulate on Sunday, March 8, to free atheist feminist 

The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be joining an international action on Sunday, March 8, to demand the release of a prisoner of conscience being held in a Moroccan prison.

The state/church watchdog is holding a protest at the Moroccan Consulate, 1601 21st St. NW, Washington, D.C., to spotlight the imprisonment of feminist and freethinker Ibtissame “Betty” Lachgar. Other protests will be held around the world, such as one in London at the Moroccan Embassy there.

Lachgar, a Moroccan clinical psychologist, atheist, feminist and longtime human rights campaigner, was found guilty last fall of wearing a T-shirt that “insulted Islam” and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. She is being treated inhumanely, even being denied a mattress and a pillow. Making her release urgent is the fact that Lachgar is a bone cancer survivor who was scheduled at the time of her arrest last August to have surgery on a failing prosthesis in her left arm. She’s been warned that without that surgery, she risks amputation of her arm.

Lachgar never wore the T-shirt in question on Moroccan soil, but a photograph on social media spurred her arrest. She put on the T-shirt, saying “Allah is lesbian,” in London in 2022 to protest the execution of two lesbians by the Iranian government.

“What better time than a Sunday to protest blasphemy laws?” asks FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “And what better date to take a stand to help a feminist than on March 8 — International Women’s Day?”

Gaylor and FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, based in Wisconsin, and FFRF’s D.C.-based Governmental Affairs Director Mark Dann, will attend the protest and have invited area FFRF members to join them. To dramatize Lachgar’s medical situation, protesters are encouraged to wear a white sling on their left arm with FREEBETTY.ORG in red or black lettering or to display white paper doves as symbols of freedom.

FFRF is part of the Free Betty Coalition, which includes 150 organizations around the world. Internationally renowned groups, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have taken up Lachgar’s cause. A petition demanding her release has now surpassed 380,000 signatures.

Lachgar has been named FFRF’s 2026 Avijit Roy Courage Awardee, and its advocacy arm, FFRF Action Fund, has released an action alert to place pressure on the U.S. Embassy in Morocco to advocate on Lachgar’s behalf.

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.

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Supreme Court uses shadow docket to empower religious privilege

A new U.S. Supreme Court order siding with religious parents challenging California’s transgender student privacy policies signals an alarming expansion of religious privilege at the expense of LGBTQ+ students and public school protections.

In an emergency order issued earlier this week in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the court’s conservative majority vacated a lower court stay that had allowed California to enforce policies protecting transgender students from being forcibly “outed” to parents by public school employees without student consent. The order applies to the specific Christian parents challenging the policies and blocks the enforcement of protections for transgender students while the case continues in the lower courts. The ruling came through the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,” meaning the justices intervened on an emergency basis without full briefing, oral arguments or a final decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“This is another troubling example of the Supreme Court rushing to privilege religious objections while bypassing the normal judicial process,” says the Freedom From Religion Foundation Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle J. Steinberg. “The court is signaling that religious beliefs about gender identity may be used to override policies designed to protect vulnerable students.”

California’s policy generally allows students to control when and how their gender identity is disclosed, recognizing that involuntary disclosure can expose LGBTQ+ students to rejection, harassment or abuse. The state argues that forcing schools to disclose confidential information about gender identity could cause irreversible harm.
But the Supreme Court’s majority said the parents bringing the challenge, who cite religious beliefs about sex and gender, were likely to succeed in their claims that the policies burden their religious rights and interfere with their authority to direct their children’s upbringing.

Justice Elena Kagan, joined by the court’s other two liberal justices, sharply criticized the majority’s decision to intervene so early in the litigation. “The court is impatient: It already knows what it thinks, and insists on getting everything over quickly,” Kagan wrote in dissent, warning that the justices were effectively prejudging a complex constitutional dispute without the benefit of full consideration.

The order builds on the court’s recent decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which elevated religious objections in public-school contexts involving LGBTQ+-related materials. The new ruling suggests the court may continue expanding religious exemptions in cases targeting LGBTQ+ rights in education.

“The Constitution does not give parents a religious veto over school policies meant to protect students,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Public schools must serve all students, including youth who may not feel safe disclosing their identity at home.”

FFRF emphasizes that public schools have a responsibility to provide a safe learning environment for all students and to avoid privileging religious beliefs in ways that harm vulnerable populations.

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.

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What is the FFRF Action Fund?

The executive board of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a 501(c)(3) incorporated as a national group in 1978, established FFRF Action Fund as its legislative, advocacy affiliate in 2022. FFRF Action Fund works as a 501(c)(4) affiliate.

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Freethought Radio – March 5, 2026

Moroccan feminist/activist/freethinker Ibtissame (“Betty”) Lachgar is in prison for wearing a T-shirt that insulted Islam. Hear about her harrowing story and about how you can help to free her.

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FFRF praises Rhode Island AG for clergy abuse investigation

The Freedom From Religion Foundation commends Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha for releasing a long-awaited report detailing decades of clergy sexual abuse and for taking steps to hold the perpetrators accountable.

The 284-page report, made public on Wednesday, March 4, found that at least 75 clergy within the Catholic Diocese of Providence sexually abused more than 300 children in Rhode Island for more than 75 years. Investigators emphasized that the true number of victims is likely much higher and documented how church officials repeatedly transferred accused priests and shielded them from law enforcement rather than protecting children.

The report described diocesan records as “damning,” since they include evidence of sending accused priests on retreats and “sabbaticals” rather than protecting abused children. The report also details how the diocese failed to report suspected abuse, instead allowing accused priests “to remain in ministry, where they continued to have access to and frequently did abuse more children.” The state’s investigation also outlines reforms to improve investigations and remove barriers that prevent victims from seeking justice.

The report represents an important step toward transparency and accountability for survivors. FFRF and other victim advocacy groups for years have called on state attorneys general and the U.S. attorney general to launch similar investigations, as some nations and states have done. Pennsylvania led the way after an investigation there resulted in a sweeping grand jury report in 2018. Several states inaugurated investigations at the time.

The investigation followed a multiyear probe by the attorney general’s office and relied on decades of church records obtained through an agreement with the diocese. The report documents widespread abuse and systemic failures by church leadership to report allegations or remove abusers from ministry. FFRF notes that public reports like Rhode Island’s are critical to exposing the full scope of clergy abuse and ensuring that survivors are heard.

“Sunlight is essential,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor, who wrote the first nonfiction exposé on clergy abuse of children, published by FFRF in 1988, and who inaugurated the standing “Black Collar Crime” section of FFRF’s newspaper tracking sexual abuse by members of the clergy before the phenomenon was widely tracked.

“It’s not just the heinous betrayal of trust and lifelong harm to victims,” Gaylor adds, “but the decades of systematic cover-ups. It’s way past time for congregation members to withdraw support and respect from an institution that has harbored molesters.”

FFRF will be giving its “Clarence Darrow Award” this year to Peter Isley, co-founder of  Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who will accept it at its national convention in October in Milwaukee. FFRF urges other states that have not yet done so to follow Rhode Island’s example and applauds it for confronting this painful history and working toward accountability.

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 in Rhode Island, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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In Kentucky, a fifth bill that seeks to protect evolution education

National Center for Science Education
By Staff

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FFRF’s ‘Secular Spotlight’ looks at global authoritarianism’s faith connection

The latest episode of “Secular Spotlight” welcomes a bishop to discuss the rising authoritarian threat around the world — and its connection to fundamentalist ideology.

FFRF Director of Communications Amitabh Pal and Governmental Affairs Director Mark Dann speak with Bishop Joseph Tolton, founder and president of Interconnected Justice, about the global racial dynamics shaping politics in the United States and across Africa. Tolton argues that anti-Blackness, authoritarianism and extremist religious ideology are intertwined forces influencing elections, LGBTQ-plus rights, resource extraction and democratic backsliding.

“It is very clear that in both the American political context and, broadly speaking, the pan-African political context there is a malignant cancer on the terrain of both of those environments and contexts — and that cancer is an extremist form of Christianity seeking to undermine America’s democracy while simultaneously undermining the democratic order of African nations,” Tolton observes. 

You can catch the latest episode of “Secular Spotlight” on FFRF’s YouTube channel, as well as by watching on your smart TV after downloading FFRF’s free app, Freethought TV, which also highlights FFRF’s other video programming. Previous episodes include a reflection on the Minnesota ICE crisis featuring Minnesota state Rep. Andy Smith, as well as a deep dive into the 2026 National Prayer Breakfast. See our full playlist for more videos!

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 more than 41,000 dues-paying members, FFRF is the largest freethought association in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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Freedom from Religion Foundation asks Elmwood to stop LifeWise Academy use of school property for religion classes

BG Independent News
By Jan McLaughlin

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