FCA lawsuit distorts FFRF’s efforts on student religious clubs
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation says a federal lawsuit distorts its endeavors to ensure that religious clubs in a New Jersey public school district remain student-led as per federal law.
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, filed suit Aug. 11 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey against the Hopewell Valley Regional School District and New Jersey education officials. The lawsuit challenges restrictions the district recently imposed on outside adults attending religious student clubs.
Becket, a law firm named for a Catholic saint that demonstrates hostility to the constitutional principle of separation between state and church, has publicly blamed FFRF for the dispute. It claims that “an atheist advocacy group didn’t like that Christian kids were choosing to learn about faith, life and sports from trusted mentors.”
“That’s a convenient culture war trope, but it isn’t what happened,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “FFRF has never sought to prevent Christian students from forming their own religious clubs in compliance with the federal Equal Access Act.”
This law requires public schools that permit noncurriculum student clubs to allow student clubs on religion or politics, with the stipulation that they must be student initiated and run. It expressly provides that “nonschool persons may not direct, conduct, control, or regularly attend activities of student groups.”
“We’re defending the crucial distinction between students exercising their own constitutional rights and an outside religious ministry seeking regular access to public schoolchildren,” Gaylor says. “Public schools aren’t mission fields for outside religious organizations.”
FFRF’s letter of March 13, 2025, asked the district to investigate reports that outside adults were regularly attending and participating in meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club at Timberlane Middle School and to ensure that the club remained student-initiated and student-led.
The fellowship’s own lawsuit acknowledges that FFRF asked the district to make certain that outside adults did not “regularly lead, attend or participate” in religious student clubs. It further acknowledges that the district subsequently “went even further than FFRF demanded” by allegedly prohibiting all outside individuals from attending religious club meetings.
“Becket is trying to turn a straightforward request that a public school follow federal law into a story about atheists attacking Christian students,” adds FFRF Staff Attorney Madeline Ziegler. “There is an important legal distinction between students exercising their own religious freedom and representatives of an outside Christian ministry regularly leading public school students in religious activities.”
In its legal complaint, the Christian group describes its “huddle ministry” as a critical component of its religious mission and states that its presence on public school campuses is “essential” because schools provide the platform through which the Christian fellowship reaches student-athletes. It says that these huddle activities include “prayer, religious teaching, religious counseling” and “ministry outreach to share the Gospel with other students.”
According to its complaint, Fellowship of Christian Athletes Area Director Carolyn McDonough and another volunteer attended huddle meetings and moved among small group discussions that students were holding, “sometimes participating” in those conversations. They answered questions from students about “life, faith or sports” and mentored student leaders, providing feedback.
Elsewhere, the fellowship says its adult volunteers provide students with “spiritual guidance,” mentor students in being bold in their faith and, when asked, pray for students.
“The Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ own allegations show that its adult ministry representatives were regularly present on a public school campus to improperly lead religious discussions and provide spiritual guidance as part of its broader religious mission,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott.
FFRF notes an obvious distinction between an occasional guest speaker invited to give a presentation to a student club and representatives of an outside religious ministry regularly attending its affiliated club to participate in religious discussions and rites.
Even though the Equal Access Act provides that school employees may be present at religious or political clubs only in a “nonparticipatory capacity,” the Christian fellowship specifically challenges the district’s requirement that employees attend such meetings in a custodial role. It asks the court to declare that district employees, who wield tremendous authority and influence over students, nevertheless have a right to participate in student bible study, prayer and other religious discussion in their purported personal capacities.
“The fundamental principle here is simple,” Elliott concludes. “An outside ministry cannot convert student rights into a right for its adult representatives to regularly conduct a ministry among children inside a public school, contrary to the safeguards of the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause and those that Congress expressly enacted.”
FFRF will continue to defend students’ freedom of conscience, including the rights of religious and nonreligious students alike while working to ensure that public schools remain neutral toward religion and comply with the safeguards imposed by federal law.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with about 41,000 members nationwide, including more than 800 members in New Jersey. 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 FCA lawsuit distorts FFRF’s efforts on student religious clubs appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
FFRF ensures Ga. superintendent will not sermonize at employee events
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has made certain that future staff events in the Douglas County School System in Douglasville, Ga., will not be treated like church.
FFRF received reports from numerous school district employees regarding proselytizing that took place at the mandatory July 28 convocation. Reports, photographs and a video provided to FFRF show Superintendent Trent North sermonizing employees in his official capacity throughout the convocation. FFRF was told that during the multihour event, North made “numerous remarks about God” and said that he believes God sent him to “save Douglas County Schools.” He reportedly preached to staff, quoted bible verses, told employees that “[you] need to learn to trust the Lord,” and that “we don’t need church just on a Sunday, we need to teach our students to worship any day of the week.”
Gospel singers also performed religious songs throughout the convocation that were reportedly explicitly Christian. FFRF’s complainants stated that North would sermonize between gospel songs to emphasize the religious points being made. The event lasted roughly 190 minutes, with about two hours devoted to gospel music and sermons.
One employee stated that as the convocation progressed, it “became increasingly more Christian and religious” and that North’s remarks over the course of the event reminded them of a pastor. They “tried to tune it out” but “became increasingly more uncomfortable.” They further explained:
I felt like I wasn’t free to get up and leave because every person in the district was there, and I would look rude or bad to them. I felt my employment was in jeopardy if I didn’t comply because my school’s principal told me that morning that it was a district mandated event, and that I would not be paid if I didn’t attend.
Another employee stated that they felt “like the odd ball out because I didn’t conform to [the superintendent’s] narrative of religion,” while a third stated that they “felt heavily coerced to participate in a religious service as a condition of [their] employment.”
FFRF wrote to the district asking it to put a stop to the proselytizing and religious coercion of employees.
“In this case, [North], and thus DCSS, displayed clear favoritism toward religion over nonreligion, and Christianity over all other faiths, by preaching to employees in [North’s] official capacity during the convocation,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to North.
It is unconstitutional for a public school district to require employees to observe, listen to and reflect upon religious music and messaging as part of an official district event, FFRF stressed in its letter. Requiring employees who are nonreligious or members of minority faiths to make a public showing of their lack of religious belief by not participating in a prayer or else display deference toward a religious sentiment in which they do not believe is coercive, embarrassing and intimidating. The religious performances needlessly marginalized employees who are nonreligious or members of minority faiths. Up to 26 percent of Georgians are nonreligious, and by keeping employee events secular, the district excludes no one and welcomes everyone.
FFRF is pleased to report that the district has changed course to be more inclusive.
“I discussed and explained with the superintendent the principle of separation of church and state specifically addressing the First Amendment as it relates to Free Exercise Clause and the perception of promoting or inhibiting a particular religion during staff meetings,” the district’s legal representative responded. “I am confident that the superintendent is now cognizant of this matter and has assured me this will not occur again.”
FFRF is glad to see its advocacy having a positive impact.
“District employees should not be made to feel like outsiders at mandatory work events,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor states. “Keeping events free from religious coercion is a constitutional requirement for all public school districts. While this never should have happened in the first place, FFRF is glad to know it won’t happen again.”
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 across the country, including over 600 members 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 ensures Ga. superintendent will not sermonize at employee events appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
August 23, 2026 – Apostate’s Picnic by Minnesota Atheists Meetup Group (Bloomington, MN)
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Join us for the August Freethought Picnic honoring Apostates – those who have left religion. All atheists/agnostics/non-religious are welcome, of course, regardless if you had to leave a religion or were lucky enough to be raised without religion.
It will be a potluck picnic at the brand-new net-zero Bryant Park Shelter in Bloomington which has seating both indoors and outdoors. The interior space is really nice, with bathrooms, a kitchen, and plenty of windows to outside. A charcoal grill is available. There is a playground nearby.
International Apostasy Day is the day before, so to honor this day, we are we are pairing up this picnic with a Debaptism Ceremony performed by our own Secular Celebrant, Steve Adams. Affirm your status as an apostate by becoming debaptized with a hair dryer. We will provide certificates to commemorate the event.
We will have a short program featuring FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott, who will discuss FFRF’s most recent legal actions and his personal journey to atheism.
We will also hold a School Supply Drive.
Many local families are still recovering from Operation Metro Surge. Donate a backpack (or other school supply) to ensure no student starts the year behind.
Donations will go to CLUES (Spanish for: Latino Communities United in Service), Minnesota’s largest Latino-led nonprofit organization, founded in 1981 by and for Latinos to provide culturally and linguistically relevant services. Their mission is to advance social and economic equity and well being for Latinos by building upon their strengths and cultures, uplifting the community, and enabling leadership for systemic change.
Donate New and unused:
- Backpacks
- #2 Pencils
- Crayons
- Colored pencils
- Washable markers
- Glue sticks
- Scissors
- Folders
- Spiral notebooks
- Composition notebooks
- Corded headphones (no bluetooth)
Bryant Park (Bloomington)
1001 West 85th St · Bloomington, MN
We will be in the picnic shelter
The post August 23, 2026 – Apostate’s Picnic by Minnesota Atheists Meetup Group (Bloomington, MN) appeared first on Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Arizona Supreme Court says pastor’s admission of abuse is NOT protected by religious privilege
This newsletter is free and goes out to over 25,000 subscribers, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can subscribe via Patreon or the Subscribe button below! You can also make one-time donations through Venmo, CashApp, or PayPal.
The Arizona Supreme Court has just ruled that a confession of a pastor admitting to sexual abuse can be used in the criminal case against him… which sounds like it should be obvious. But the fact that this was ever in doubt says a lot about the problem with religious privilege.
Here’s the situation: Generally speaking, if you confess your sins to a priest, you can rest assured those conversations are confidential. Even if you say you’ve committed a petty crime or that you’re the victim of a crime, the priest is under no legal obligation to share that with law enforcement… unlike, say, social workers and teachers and anyone else considered a mandated reporter.
The problem is that there’s a major loophole in that rule: What happens if someone confesses to committing sexual abuse of a child? (In many states, it’s an open question whether a confession of sexual abuse must be relayed to law enforcement. Religious leaders typically oppose such rules because they prioritize dogmatic secrecy over the safety of children.)
What happened in Arizona a few years ago, however, blurred those lines completely.
Back in early 2021, Mario Rodriguez-Ramirez was arrested in Tempe, Arizona on charges of child sexual abuse. He had been the pastor of Arcadia Park Baptist Church for many years but he was apparently dismissed from that job months earlier (after those allegations first came to light).
According to a months-long investigation by the Tempe Police Department, one of the reasons cops were able to take this guy into custody was because he supposedly confessed to everything:
During the investigation, court documents say Rodriguez-Ramirez admitted his actions and said, “he knew it was wrong and regrets it.”
During a recorded conversation with a family member, the suspect said, “his mind was clouded and was fighting his urges.”
He was “fighting his urges” because he knew those urges were immoral and illegal. He “regrets” what he did because he acted on those urges.
There were at least two victims, one of whom was only nine years old.
He was arrested on two counts of sexual abuse, sexual conduct with a minor, child molestation, aggravated assault and voyeurism, and indecent exposure while at the Tempe Home Depot.
Rodriguez-Ramirez is facing one charge of felony sexual conduct with a minor.
Rodriguez-Ramirez’s trial remains ongoing, but last year, there was a snag in the case… which sounds confusing because it didn’t seem like there was much controversy here. He admitted to everything, right?
Not exactly.
It turns out that the “recorded conversation with a family member,” in which Rodriguez-Ramirez confessed to “fighting his urges” and essentially admitted the allegations were true, were made… to a fellow pastor.
In fact, it was his brother-in-law, a man who helped lead their church and who also happened to be the uncle of one of the victims.
It appears that in mid-2020 (after the allegations surfaced but before Rodriguez-Ramirez was arrested), he met his brother-in-law at a public park (due to COVID restrictions) to talk about what they should do. How would the church move forward? Should he tell the congregation the truth or just walk away quietly?
He also expressed concern about the harm to the church, the congregation, the alleged victim, and the alleged victim’s family. The co-pastor acknowledged those actions, discussed the harm it caused the alleged victim, and spoke about the spiritual ramifications for Rodriguez-Ramirez.
Unbeknownst to Rodriguez-Ramirez, though, his brother-in-law was recording everything. That recording was later shared with church members and another pastor—and it eventually landed in the hands of the police. They used that as evidence to arrest him.
But here’s the question that created all the controversy: Could that recording be used against Rodriguez-Ramirez during his trial?
The state argued that it could be used because this wasn’t a formal religious “confession.” After all, just look at everything they talked about! It’s not like he was only asking for forgiveness. They were chatting about business!
Lawyers for Rodriguez-Ramirez argued the tape could not be used since the only reason he was spilling his guts was because he knew he was speaking to a fellow pastor. The specifics of their conversation should be irrelevant in the court’s eyes, they said.
When Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Kristin Culbertson heard these arguments, she allowed the recording into evidence because it was “not reasonable” to pretend this conversation was for the “purpose of spiritual guidance.”
In response, lawyers for Rodriguez-Ramirez—with support from the right-wing group First Liberty Institute—asked an Arizona appellate court to step in and undo that decision before the judge could issue any formal ruling in his trial.
And that’s what they did last year. In a unanimous ruling filed in April of 2025, the Arizona Court of Appeals said the recording could not be admitted into evidence in the pastor’s trial because their conversation was “privileged.”
They explained that reasoning by saying the two men were talking about religious stuff… which made it a confession…. so ¯_(ツ)_/¯ to the victims.
Just look at what they cited in defense of that:
Rodriguez-Ramirez spoke with his co-pastor about his earlier actions, said he was struggling with unwanted urges, and acknowledged concern about what he did. He also expressed concern about the harm to the church, the congregation, the alleged victim, and the alleged victim’s family. The co-pastor acknowledged those actions, discussed the harm it caused the alleged victim, and spoke about the spiritual ramifications for Rodriguez-Ramirez.
During the discussion, Rodriguez-Ramirez sought the co-pastor’s help to minimize harm to the congregation. The communication also addressed matters of church management. They talked about whether it would be better for him to just leave without telling the congregation the truth. Alternatively, they considered whether it would be better to face the congregation. It reflected a concern for the congregation. For Rodriguez-Ramirez, a clergy member, church management concerns reflect how he could reach harmony with himself and the other members of his church… The conversation thus was a “confession”…
It went on like that for a while. Because the co-pastor offered spiritual guidance, we were supposed to assume Rodriguez-Ramirez saw this as a confession worthy of confidentiality. It didn’t matter that they met at a park, the court said, because this was during the pandemic so they didn’t have the usual in-church options.
The end result was that the recording, the transcript of the recording, and the testimony from the brother-in-law about what they discussed wouldn’t be allowed in the criminal trial. Since Rodriguez-Ramirez pleaded not guilty, that severely limited the tools law enforcement could use to send this guy to prison.
But now there’s some good news.
The Arizona Supreme Court has just unanimously vacated the ruling from the Court of Appeals, basically saying that wasn’t a formal “confession” at all, so the recording can absolutely be used against him.
How did they arrive at that decision? Basically, they said lower courts never truly defined what a “confession” was, and to assume Rodriguez-Ramirez was giving a confession to his brother-in-law is an illogical leap, as the Arizona Republic explained:
… The ruling clarifies what counts as a confession in a religious context when the person making the statement wants to keep it from law enforcement.
The high court said Rodriguez-Ramirez couldn’t use the clergy-penitent privilege because his conversation with the other pastor was largely about reputation management, not “absolution,” and therefore wasn’t actually a religious “confession.”
The opinion, written by Justice James Beene, clarified how courts should assess privacy between religious leaders and confessors when confessors want to shield their disclosures from law enforcement or the courts.
“A communication does not cease to be a confession merely because it also includes discussion of non-spiritual matters. Similarly, a communication is not transformed into a confession merely because it contains admissions of wrongdoing, spiritual discussion, or a prayer. Instead, a communication must be for the purpose of absolution,” the opinion says.
That makes a lot of sense. Rodriguez-Ramirez wasn’t seeking absolution. He was discussing damage control (what to tell the congregation, whether to disappear quietly, etc). Just because they prayed or included religious language in that conversation didn’t make it a confession.
The good news is that this ruling means the recorded confession—the slam dunk piece of evidence—can be used in the criminal trial.
But this should never have been in question. It’s the reason “clergy-penitent privilege” is a problem to begin with. It allows abusers to feel better about themselves even if they’re struggling with a crisis of conscience. This is why confessions of abuse should be required to be reported regardless of circumstances—and why they shouldn’t be shielded from prosecution.
I guess we should consider it lucky that Rodriguez-Ramirez didn’t just seek absolution because the Supreme Court’s ruling suggests there was a very simple way for him to have both confessed to the crime while also making sure the recording would never see the light of day in court. That loophole should never exist. The legal system shouldn’t depend on whether an alleged abuser used the correct religious language before discussing the sexual abuse of a child.
(Portions of this article were published earlier)
