FFRF denounces final approval of bible-infused Texas reading list

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is appalled at the Texas State Board of Education’s decision to move forward with a state-mandated reading list that privileges Christian Scripture.

The board has given the green light to the list in accordance with a recent legislative mandate. House Bill 1605, passed in 2023, required the creation of a K-12 reading list and directed the Texas Education Agency to develop state-owned textbooks. The board approved those textbooks, known as Bluebonnet Learning, in late 2024, and the state is currently working to correct roughly 4,200 errors in the materials. Meanwhile, Texas public schools will require the bible-infused reading list to be available to students beginning in 2030. What will this look like? Middle and high school students will be asked to read two main books each year from the approved list, along with other related poems, speeches, historical texts and biblical excerpts.

Public schools exist to educate students with diverse faith backgrounds, as well as those who adhere to no faith doctrine. Public schools are not Sunday schools, and elected officials have no business using state power to elevate one religion above all others. A required reading list that overwhelmingly favors Christian texts while excluding the writings and literary traditions of other faiths, not to mention the perspectives of millions of nonreligious Americans, sends an unmistakable message about who belongs and who does not.

The U.S. Constitution mandates government neutrality on matters of religion. Teaching about religion as history or literature can be appropriate when done objectively and without endorsement. However, compelling every student to read a curated selection of bible passages and Christian parables, while giving little or no comparable treatment to other traditions, crosses the line from education into religious promotion. Critics, including Jewish scholars and clergy, have already warned that the state’s invocation of “Judeo-Christian” values misrepresents Judaism while advancing a distinctly Christian worldview.

The board should be focusing on improving literacy, expanding access to diverse literature and ensuring students receive an appropriate, academically rigorous education. Instead, state officials are inserting themselves into religious questions that belong to families and faith communities, but not the government.

“A mandatory public school reading list should never function as a bible lesson,” says FFRF co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor. “Texas is telling millions of children that one religion deserves the government’s seal of approval, while everyone else is an afterthought. That’s government-sponsored religious favoritism — and the First Amendment strictly forbids it.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and the FFRF Action Fund will continue to oppose efforts that erode students’ and families’ constitutional rights. Religious freedom means that every student is free to practice, or not practice, religion without government pressure or favoritism. That guarantee is fundamental to both public education and American democracy.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 1,700 members and a chapter in Texas. 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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FFRF appeals court brief backs religious classroom display restrictions

The Freedom From Religion Foundation has filed a friend-of-the-court brief defending a Connecticut school district’s ability to prevent teachers from religious classroom displays.

The case before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals involving the Consolidated School District of New Britain centers around a crucifix hung on a classroom wall by middle school teacher Marisol Arroyo-Castro. The crucifix was placed in plain view of Arroyo-Castro’s students and among relevant classroom displays, such as computer operation instructions, a student daily schedule, and a poster for a social studies textbook. When the district asked her to remove the crucifix from the classroom wall and move it to a location where it would not be visible to students, Arroyo-Castro refused. After trying to work with Arroyo-Castro to find a suitable accommodation, the district issued a letter of reprimand and then a two-day suspension. The district ultimately placed Arroyo-Castro on paid administrative leave due to her insistence upon leaving the crucifix in a visible location on her classroom wall. She then filed suit in the Connecticut Federal District Court, arguing that the district’s request to remove the crucifix violated her First Amendment Free Speech and Free Exercise rights.

In her opinion denying Arroyo-Castro’s motion for a preliminary injunction against the district, Judge Sarah F. Russell of the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut applied the Supreme Court’s Garcetti test to Arroyo-Castro’s Free Speech claim. The “Garcetti test” is what courts use to determine if a government employee’s Free Speech rights are violated. Under the test, the district court said that Arroyo-Castro was not entitled to Free Speech protection because the display of the crucifix on her classroom wall was speech made as part of her official duties as a government employee.

The district court also applied the Garcetti framework to Arroyo-Castro’s Free Exercise claim.

“Ms. Castro’s Free Exercise and Free Speech claims fully overlap in the sense that the religious exercise that Ms. Castro says is infringed is necessarily communicative,” the judge wrote. “Under these circumstances, the Free Exercise Clause does not compel the district to communicate a religious message.”

FFRF’s brief argues that the district court correctly applied Garcetti’s official duties test to Arroyo-Castro’s Free Exercise challenge. The Court of Appeals shouldn’t grant government employees, including public school teachers, carte blanche to say, do or display anything they want on government property so long as it’s in the name of their religion.

“Speech does not cease to be speech simply because its topic concerns religion,” the brief reads. “To apply the ‘official duties’ test to Arroyo-Castro’s Free Speech claim and not her Free Exercise claim would allow subversion of this doctrine if — and only if — the speech in question is religious.”

Should the 2nd Circuit decline to apply Garcetti to the Free Exercise claim, FFRF points out the dangerous precedent that ruling would set: “Under such a rule, a teacher would be permitted to tell their students that Muhammad is the one true prophet or that they should fast during Ramadan, but could be fired for sharing who she thinks is the best political candidate in an upcoming election.”

“This is a straightforward case,” says FFRF Senior Litigation Counsel Sam Grover. “The school district, not Arroyo-Castro, gets to decide what messages are communicated on classroom walls. Arroyo-Castro should lose simply because she wants to promote her personal religious beliefs on government property. No teacher has that right.”

FFRF Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow Kyle Steinberg drafted FFRF’s brief and Senior Litigation Counsel Sam Grover served as Counsel of Record.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members nationwide, including nearly 500 members in Connecticut. 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.

The post FFRF appeals court brief backs religious classroom display restrictions appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Freethought Radio – June 25, 2026

We first get the lowdown on the back and forth that Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has gotten into with the Freedom From Religion Foundation regarding our objection to the Auburn University men’s baseball program being suffused with religion. Then, we listen to writer Chrissy Stroop talk about her journey from evangelical schools to leading counternarratives about the Christian right.

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Texas judge who refused to perform same-sex weddings wins $640,000 reward for her bigotry

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An anti-LGBTQ judge from Texas has been rewarded $640,000 for (1) refusing to do her job and (2) being Christian. It’s the culmination of a multi-year crusade by a conservative activist in a position of power.

Back in December of 2019, Justice of The Peace Dianne Hensley refused to marry gay couples who visited her courthouse, even though she’s a public official and not a priest. She was given a public warning by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct… which was really nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Instead of removing her from the job she refused to do, though, the Commission merely said she was “casting doubt on her capacity to act impartially” and that she could be punished in the future.

Hensley responded by suing the Commission because how dare anyone point out her Christian bigotry.

In its lawsuit, First Liberty argues, “The Commission violated the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act by investigating and punishing Judge Hensley for recusing herself from officiating at same-sex weddings, in accordance with the commands of her Christian faith.” Adding, “By investigating and punishing her for acting in accordance with the commands of her Christian faith, the State of Texas has substantially burdened the free exercise of her religion, with no compelling justification.”

No “compelling justification”?! The compelling justification was that people deserve to be treated equally under the law. A judge who offered to perform wedding ceremonies for straight couples but not gay ones had no business being a judge. Being Christian shouldn’t allow government officials to ignore the law. It wasn’t okay when Kim Davis tried the stunt, and it shouldn’t have been okay with Hensley.

And “substantially burdened”?! In no way did the Commission impede on her rights.

She was asking for $10,000 in damages because that was the money she was losing by not being allowed to perform opposite-sex weddings. (Not performing any weddings was the only legal option she had at that point.) She also requested a declaration that everyone in her position could pull the same stunt if their God commanded it.

In 2021, a judge tossed out her case on technicalities, including the fact that the commission had sovereign immunity from such lawsuits. An appeals court later affirmed that ruling. But Hensley asked the state’s highest court to take up the case, and that’s what they did in 2023.

Her lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell—better known as the former state solicitor general behind Texas’ infamous abortion “bounty” law—argued that she had every right to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation:

Mitchell further argued that state law protects people’s religious freedom unless there is a “furtherance of a compelling governmental interest.” He also said it prohibits wedding officiants from discriminating based on race, national origin or religion.

“Notably absent from that list of protected criteria that I just mentioned is any mention of discrimination on account of sex or sexual orientation,” Mitchell told justices. “It’s still permissible for wedding officiants — whether they’re judges or members of the clergy — to discriminate based on any other characteristic, as long as it’s not race, national origin or religion, when they decide which weddings they will officiate.”

Being a Christian, you see, allowed Hensley to be an anti-LGBTQ bigot, just not a racist one… even though both involve characteristics that people don’t choose for themselves.

The thing is: Hensley could have avoided this entire situation if she simply opted out of performing marriages and didn’t whine about it. No one was forcing her to perform that service. But she wanted the ability to get paid to sign marriage certificates for straight couples and not gay ones, and she believed her religion took priority over the law, even though she was working for the government. If we allow officials like her to pick and choose which rules to follow, it would throw the government into chaos. It would make a mockery out of civil rights.

As the commission’s lawyer explained, no one was punishing, or even threatening to punish, Hensley for her religious views. It was all about her actions. If a Christian judge made it clear that he didn’t want to perform any marriages because of his anti-gay bigotry, that would be just fine. Hensley, however, wanted to offer the service while excluding certain people. That was the problem.

(Side note: In an interview with The Dallas Morning News in late 2023, Hensley said she hadn’t performed any marriages in years. She also claimed, falsely, that children with opposite-sex parents fare better in life. Then there was this anecdote about her now-deceased gay (!) brother:

After he had a falling out with their parents over what she described as “economics,” Hensley said she hired a detective to track him down once a year and take a photograph as a gift for their mother. One year, he was in Paris. Another year in Japan. Then Dubai.

Creepy.)

In any case, if Hensley wanted to get ordained and perform private wedding ceremonies just for straight, white, evangelical couples, no one would be complaining. But she had no business discriminating against certain Texans when she was working for the government.

Her lawyers argued that the U.S. Supreme Court already sided with a Colorado website designer who refused to make wedding websites for gay couples (something no gay person actually asked her to do). But there was an obvious difference between a private business owner and a government official. Her own attorneys chose not to understand that difference.

The concern over what the Texas Supreme Court would do was very real. After all, if she won, what would stop other judges from using religion as an excuse to deny justice to other potential clients?

But the case never really got resolved after that.

The Texas Supreme Court avoided her religious freedom argument, then the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct dismissed its (already mild) sanctions on Hensley, then an appeals court said she could still proceed with her lawsuit… it was a hot mess with no end in sight. And while all that was happening, another bigoted Christian judge filed his own lawsuit for the same underlying reasons.

At some point, the Texas Supreme Court was going to have to make a decision.

Last year, they did just that. They issued an edict saying it was perfectly fine for judges to refuse to perform same-sex weddings if that conflicted with their personal religious beliefs. More importantly, that act of open bigotry wouldn’t be treated as evidence that those judges have any animosity against LGBTQ people.

How did they make the change? The Court altered the state’s judicial conduct code—the ethics rules for judges—by saying “It is not a violation of these canons for a judge to publicly refrain from performing a wedding ceremony based upon a sincerely held religious belief.”

Canon 4, by the way, is a set of rules dictating how judges should act in their free time so that people have no reason to doubt their impartiality in cases. It includes common sense items like how judges can join non-profit groups but not if those groups are likely to appear before the court. But now, all eight justices said, another item could be added to that list: There was no violation of the ethical rules if judges refused to perform weddings because their religion says those couples are sinning.

It wasn’t a ruling on her case. It was just a coincidental rule change… that gave Hensley everything she ever wanted. It also raised a number of other ethical questions. For example, couldn’t that same edict be used to allow judges to avoid ethical consequences if they refused to perform wedding ceremonies for mixed-race couples, or mixed-religion couples, as long as their bigotry stemmed from their faith? What about people who had sex before marriage if pre-marital abstinence was a principle of their religion?

And even if the ethical code for judges now permitted faith-based bigotry, it didn’t change the law itself. Which meant that if a gay couple went to a Texas court to get married, and a judge refused to sign off on it because of his or her faith, the gay couple could still file a lawsuit against that judge.

The entire situation left gay couples in Texas in a bind. On paper, they were free to get married if they chose to. But the state’s highest court now said judges who didn’t want to perform the ceremony and sign the necessary documents were free to do so.

It was state-sanctioned discrimination.

In any case, Hensley has already moved on to the profit stage of this particular grift.

On Friday, the District Court of Travis County announced that Hensley would receive the $10,000 in damages along with $630,000 in legal fees, paid by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. (No wonder her lawyers with First Liberty are celebrating.) Meanwhile, other similar cases are still moving through the courts because plenty of other right-wing judges also want to get rich off of their hate.

“Although the Hensley litigation has concluded, the Commission is still facing a statewide class-action lawsuit on behalf of justices of the peace who were unwilling to perform same-sex marriages and stopped performing weddings entirely to avoid disciplinary action from the Commission,” First Liberty Institute added. “The class action is seeking damages in the tens of millions of dollars for income lost by justices of the peace throughout the state.”

Yes, why won’t anyone think about the poor justices of the peace who refuse to follow the law and can’t perform their side hustle…?

Naturally, her team thanked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (now a scandal-prone candidate for U.S. Senate) for his guidance:

“Judge Hensley always adhered to the law and the legal guidance provided by the Attorney General of Texas,” said Hiram Sasser, Executive General Counsel for First Liberty Institute. “We are grateful that this case has concluded and that Judge Hensley was vindicated.”

Hensley’s “victory” here amounts to a declaration that prejudice is perfectly compatible with public service as long as you’re Christian. Instead of standing for equality under the law, people like Hensley have decided religion—and realistically, only their religion—supersedes the rules everyone else has to follow. All so that they can further discriminate against people who are already struggling to protect their rights across the state.

Hensley, by the way, filed a separate federal lawsuit last December urging the Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell. I guess she figures she’s on a roll when it comes to harming gay couples, so she may as well keep going.

(Portions of this article were published earlier)

Sen. Tuberville mistakes religious privilege for religious freedom

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., has recently bad-mouthed the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s criticism of the Auburn University baseball team coach leading players in prayer and the inclusion of crosses and the phrase “Jesus won” on team gear. FFRF Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor have released the following statement in response:

Sen. Tuberville’s comments demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of both the Constitution and FFRF’s mission. The First Amendment protects every American’s right to practice their religion — or no religion at all — free from government coercion. It does not permit public university employees to use their official positions to promote Christianity to student-athletes.

FFRF has never objected to private religious expression by Auburn players, coaches or anyone else. What we object to is a public university baseball program using its official authority to organize team prayer and promote sectarian religious messages through university-sponsored athletics. Student-athletes come from a variety of religious backgrounds — and public university officials have a duty to respect that diversity rather than use their positions to advance a particular faith. Student-athletes should never be made to feel that participation on a public university team requires conformity to a coach’s religious beliefs.

Sen. Tuberville is also mistaken when he claims the United States was founded on “freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.” The Founders deliberately rejected religious establishments and created a secular Constitution that guarantees freedom of conscience for believers and nonbelievers alike. Religious freedom necessarily includes freedom from government-imposed religion.

As for the accusation that FFRF “hates God and America,” such rhetoric is as tired as it is false. FFRF’s members include patriotic Americans from every walk of life who are dedicated to defending the constitutional principle of church-state separation. We will continue standing up for the rights of all students, including Auburn’s Christian students, to make their own religious choices free from pressure by government officials.

The issue here is not whether Auburn players may pray or otherwise express their faith. They absolutely may. The issue is whether public university employees may use their positions of authority to promote Christianity through official team activities. The Constitution’s answer is: No.

Religious freedom means every student gets to decide for themselves what to believe. It does not mean government officials get to decide for them.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America, is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members nationwide, including hundreds of members in Alabama. 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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A Christian school that tried to shame a gay student just admitted defeat

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In a stunning turn of events, a Christian high school in Tennessee has agreed to pay a former student $10,000 after denying her the chance to walk at graduation, which they did after she publicly came out as a lesbian and suggested some of her more conservative/Trump-y relatives may not take the news well.

I first wrote about Morgan Armstrong last year, but the story is so damn amazing, I’m reposting it here with relevant updates.

Morgan was a high school senior and star basketball player last year, but just before she was set to graduate, administrators told her family they needed to have a meeting.

Turns out they had seen a public post on Morgan’s Facebook page highlighting her same-sex relationship. She posted it shortly after turning 18.

Administrators had also seen a private message posted for her Snapchat friends asking them to “like” her post because she had a lot of Trump-supporting acquaintances. That message, which one student must have leaked to school officials, said: “Go like and comment on my post guys bc if no one on my socials knew i was gay then they sure as hell do now so this is a big thing tbh, also i’m kinda scared about the facebook comments bc i have some ruthless trump supporting ‘jesus’ mfs on there.”

It was clear what she meant by that. There are a lot of conservative Christian bigots who might respond to her post by telling her she’s some kind of sinner who needs Jesus. Not all Christians are bigots, obviously, but the Trump-supporting ones? Gotta watch out for them. And she had people in her life who fit that description.

I knew what she was saying. You knew what she was saying. But why did the school give a damn what she was saying?

Simple: Morgan attended Tennessee Christian Preparatory School, one of those schools where “homosexual behavior” is not allowed. But that’s not why she was in trouble, apparently. According to the adults at the school, the problem was acknowledging the open cruelty of Trump supporters. They said she violated their Social Media Policy by disparaging those bigots… because she was effectively disparaging them.

Armstrong and her father said they met with principal Kylie Machacek and head of schools Jared Tilley.

Armstrong said the school presented the family with a letter, referring to the post and the private message that they had obtained. That letter read, “Morgan posted on social media platforms, such as Instagram, a disparaging remark, reflecting the people at Tennessee Christian. The comment reflected on the institution, facility, staff, alumni and students in the most negative possible way.”

If you read a post calling out conservative Christian bigots and your first response is, “How dare she talk about us like that?”… then maybe you’re the problem.

She didn’t mention the school, or any of her teachers, or any of her classmates in any of those posts. She correctly pointed out there were assholes out there—there are!—and the school overreacted by assuming she was targeting them.

The school’s policy says students cannot post anything that’s “threatening, harassing, illegal, obscene, defamatory, slanderous, harassing, bullying, or hostile towards any individual or entity.” But she wasn’t “defamatory” or “slanderous” or even “hostile” regarding what bigots do; she described them accurately! So what was the big deal?

In any case, because of their overreaction, the school officials banned Morgan from attending graduation as well as any end-of-season athletic banquet.

They also told her they’d mail her the diploma in a month because they refused to give it to her on stage.

Then they threatened to sabotage her future by sending proof of her posts to her prospective colleges, like some kind of bizarre academic blackmail.

Morgan will not comment about the school or people associated with the school. If online slander continues, records of posts and messages will be forwarded to colleges and universities as part of a comprehensive student file.

Again, she never slandered the school or anyone in it. But if she continued, the school insisted, she wouldn’t get her diploma at all.

Her parents, who were both openly in support of their daughter, couldn’t believe it:

“I was shocked and then I went to anger,” said Monica Armstrong, Morgan’s mother.

I want to reiterate that the school didn’t comment on her relationship—even though, deep down, you just know that’s what this was all about. They focused on her (honest) admission that conservative bigots wouldn’t like it… which they took as a personal insult for some reason. Because of that interpretation, they were threatening to punish her with whatever leverage they still had.

But the school made a huge mistake.

While private Christian schools have every right to set their own ridiculous policies, the expectation is that they’re at least going to honor what both sides agreed to in writing.

That created a problem for administrators. Because even if you believe Morgan violated the school’s rules, the school’s handbook said a first-time violation for breaking their Social Media Policy was, at worst, a one-day in-school suspension. Not banning someone from attending her own graduation and refusing to hand over the diploma she earned.

By going from 0 to 60 at the first sign of pushback, the school was ignoring its own stated rules.

That’s why Morgan’s family filed a lawsuit against the Christian school. They said the letter she received “falsely” stated she was insulting people at the school.

Nothing in Morgan’s public post was vulgar, disrespectful, or slanderous, and the post does not refer to the Defendant in any respect.

They said the same thing about her private Snapchat request—she wasn’t talking about the school or the people in it. She was referring to bigots in her extended family, not good kind Christians. (And surely the folks at Tennessee Christian Preparatory School are good kind Christians, right?)

Instead, Morgan’s statement describing “some ruthless trump supporting ‘jesus’ mfs” referred to members of Morgan’s own family with whom she was connected on social media—people who, in Morgan’s view, profess but do not practice Christian principles of love, acceptance, and compassion.

This section, in my mind, is what everything boiled down to:

52. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, that Morgan actually violated the Defendant’s Social Media Policy (she did not) and was not disciplined pretextually for being gay (she was), because Morgan had never before been disciplined for violating the Defendant’s Social Media Policy, the maximum consequence that the Defendant could permissibly impose for a first-time Social Media Policy violation was “minor”—a “1 day in-school suspension.”

53. Nevertheless, in its haste to suspend Morgan for being gay, the Defendant violated its own Disciplinary Policy and summarily imposed a “Long-term suspension (more than 10 days)” instead.

54. As a result, Morgan was forbidden from attending school from that point forward, and she was not permitted to take final exams.

You have to wonder what the school thought it would accomplish by punishing one of its best students for something so harmless. Instead of giving her the sendoff she deserved, they ruined what should have been highlights of her high school experience.

The lawsuit ended with a request that, if the school lost the case, they remove the suspension from her record, allow her to take her final exams, give her the damn diploma, stop threatening her college prospects, and pay any associated legal costs. (The school said she didn’t have to take the final exams, and they wouldn’t hold it against her grade-wise. Still, if she scored well on them, it could have improved her grade point average. That’s why she really wanted a chance to show what she could do.)

At the time, the school issued a press release “firmly [rejecting] the misleading allegations outlined in a recent lawsuit supposedly filed against the school.”

The irony in all this was, by punishing Morgan over nothing, the administrators confirmed what critics of Christian schools often say: These institutions are hotbeds of bigotry. They have no love for LGBTQ students. They pressure students to suppress their emotions. They make a big deal over little things while ignoring much more serious problems.

It’s mind-boggling that any private school would rather withhold a student’s diploma for expressing genuine concern about the inevitable reactions to her relationship than just let it slide because no reasonable person would actually give a damn.

The silver lining to all this was that there was an overwhelmingly positive response on behalf of Morgan. News outlets covered the story and any neutral explanation of what happened made the school look absolutely horrible. But they brought this upon themselves. That’s the price you pay when bigotry is your biggest selling point.

Meanwhile, Morgan’s family held a small protest/celebration on the day she was supposed to be graduating with her classmates:

When I spoke to Morgan last year, I learned a lot more about her situation than the media coverage revealed.

For example, the biggest question I had was why she ended up going to a conservative Christian school in the first place. If she and her parents were relatively progressive on LGBTQ issues, what drew them there? That answer was extremely straightforward: The school offered Morgan a spot on their basketball team back in middle school along with a partial scholarship to go with it, and her family decided that was an offer they couldn’t turn down. While they are Christian, they didn’t see their values as clashing with the school’s idea of religion… until now. When it came to how she felt about Christianity, Morgan told me, “this situation definitely didn’t help.”

I also wondered why she decided to post the pictures of her and her girlfriend in the spring instead of just waiting a month or two until she was finally done with high school. Morgan said she did that on purpose. She had known for years that she’s attracted to other girls, and she’s also known her school disapproves of that, and “I didn’t want that fear to hold me down anymore.” Plus, she added, her straight friends posted pictures with their boyfriends and girlfriends all the time. So why couldn’t she?

That’s also why she filed the lawsuit. Even if the school won’t change its stance on homosexuality, she didn’t want them to target anyone else in the future like they did to her. In fact, she received so many messages and calls of support from former students at her school who are now openly LGBTQ. She wanted the “continuous cycle” of shame and hate to end.

It wasn’t all supportive, though. Morgan said her friends at school mostly blocked her on social media after this controversy went public. Maybe that’s to avoid the wrath of the school’s prying eyes, but it’s not like they contacted her privately either to let her know they were still on her side.

The irony, she said, was that many of them had known she was gay for years. It was only after this story went viral that they decided to cut their ties. Her girlfriend Sophie, however, was right there with her. (It must have been hard to watch Morgan go through all this, but the two were still as close as ever.)

When we spoke, Morgan didn’t know where she’d go to college. She figured she wouldn’t be playing basketball anywhere, but for her sake, I hoped she would end up in a place where she would be accepted and not treated as some kind of outcast.

I had mostly forgotten about this story, assuming nothing much would come of it. I figured Morgan would go to college, the school wouldn’t admit any wrongdoing, and both sides would move on.

I was wrong.

This week, her attorney Daniel A. Horwitz announced that the two sides had reached a settlement. While the two sides “disagree” on whether Morgan violated school policies, the school has retroactively rescinded her suspension. Administrators also said they never trashed Morgan to any of her prospective colleges and promise never to do so in the future.

And the school said they’d pay her $10,000. Which is essentially the amount for tuition for a single year (even though Morgan had received at least a partial scholarship).

In an interview Horwitz told me “this is as good a result as—perhaps an even better result than—the court system could have provided in a litigated judgment. Paired with the rescission of her suspension, her receipt of her diploma, and the permanent injunction involved, this was a total, spectacular win.”

Horwitz, who worked on this case pro bono, added in a press release:

… “School is a place where every student is entitled to feel welcome, accepted, and supported.”

Horwitz continued, “It is not a place where any administrator should feel comfortable disciplining or threatening kids for being gay. We were proud to represent Morgan and her family in this righteous lawsuit, and we are thrilled to have prevailed on their behalf. We hope Morgan’s bravery will inspire others to stand up for themselves the way that she did.”

I also had a chance to catch up with Morgan yesterday. She told me she was just glad everything was over since this issue had taking up a lot of space in her brain over the past year.

She’s currently attending a college online while working a full-time job, making a clean break from her high school and the area where she grew up. And she’s still with Sophie, who’s been supportive throughout this whole ordeal.

When we spoke last year, she told me she was on the fence about her Christian faith, saying “this situation definitely didn’t help.” So where was she on that now? “I’m still questioning,” she told me, adding that she was probably “leaning to the not-believing side.” When so many of your interactions with Christians are as negative as the ones she’s had, it’s hard to argue with that.

It’s also the same reason she’s not particularly close to the people she attended high school with. Many of them had blocked her on social media last year when everything went down. I figured some of them would come around after the controversy subsided… but they didn’t. Morgan said they still have her blocked and the feeling is mutual. “At first, it was a bad thing,” she said, but these days, she’s “made peace with it. What’s done is done.” (She’s building a new life in a new city, and that may be the healthiest option.)

The biggest thing she wanted to say was that she had seen chatter on social media that she did this for attention or money. But no one asks for this kind of attention, and she never wanted money from the school anyway. (Remember, it was the school that offered money as part of the settlement.) There was only one reason Morgan wanted to go through with this lawsuit, she explained: “It was about standing up for what happened. My only goal was to clear my record.”

FFRF commends MLB for rejecting baseless religious discrimination claims

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is applauding Major League Baseball for reportedly standing firm against politically motivated accusations of religious discrimination.

Several San Francisco Giants players were warned recently for writing spiteful bible verse citations on their caps during a Pride Night game. In a letter sent to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, FFRF has commended the league for standing by its neutral uniform policies and resisting efforts by politicians and government officials to portray routine workplace rules as anti-Christian discrimination.

“Religious liberty is a fundamental American value, but it does not entitle individuals to disregard neutral workplace rules or demand preferential treatment,” FFRF Co-Presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker write. “By maintaining that distinction, MLB has demonstrated that it is possible to respect religious freedom while also preserving an inclusive environment for all.”

The controversy stems from the San Francisco Giants’ annual Pride Night game on June 12. During the event, players wore caps featuring a rainbow-colored Giants logo. Several Giants pitchers reportedly wrote bible verse citations on those caps, including references to Genesis 9:12-16, a passage that discusses God’s covenant after the flood and describes the rainbow as a sign of that covenant.

Major League Baseball subsequently warned the players that adding unauthorized messages to league-issued uniforms violated league rules.

That decision drew criticism from several conservative elected officials and political appointees, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier and Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who have characterized MLB’s actions as religious discrimination. Dhillon has reportedly asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate the matter. FFRF says those claims fundamentally misunderstand both religious liberty and anti-discrimination law.

“The issue is not whether the players are Christian or whether they quoted scripture,” FFRF writes. “The question is whether individual players may alter league-issued uniforms to display personal messages in violation of league policy. The answer is plainly no.”

The state/church watchdog notes that employers routinely distinguish between official organizational messaging and unauthorized personal expression. A player would not be entitled to add political slogans, ideological messages or other personal statements to league-issued apparel — and religiously motivated messages are no different.

“Religious belief does not confer a right to disregard neutral workplace rules,” FFRF explains. “An employee does not gain a special exemption from generally applicable policies merely by invoking religion.”

FFRF also rejects the claim that enforcing a neutral uniform policy constitutes religious discrimination.

“Anti-discrimination laws protect employees from adverse treatment because of their religion,” the letter states. “They do not require employers to grant special privileges to religiously motivated expression or exempt religious employees from workplace rules that apply equally to everyone else.”

The organization expressed particular concern over reports that the Department of Justice has asked the EEOC to investigate MLB.

“The Civil Rights Division exists to combat genuine discrimination, not to transform religious liberty into a weapon against organizations that seek to create welcoming environments for historically marginalized communities,” FFRF writes.

FFRF notes that Pride Night events are intended to ensure that LGBTQ+ fans, players and families feel welcome in a sport that has not always been inclusive.

“Such initiatives are not anti-Christian, anti-religious or discriminatory,” the letter states. “They simply reflect the principle that every person deserves equal dignity, respect and inclusion.”

Read FFRF’s full letter to Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred here.

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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