New Federal Voucher Regulations a Christian Nationalist Cash-Grab
Tags:American Humanist, Politics, Religion
New Federal Voucher Regulations a Christian Nationalist Cash-Grab
WASHINGTON – The following is a statement from American Humanist Association Executive Director Fish Stark in response to the Trump administration’s proposed rules for implementing the unprecedented national school voucher program:
“These regulations were written in order to guarantee a massive wealth transfer to scholarship granting organizations and unaccountable private and religious schools that are free to discriminate against students on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, disability status, religion and more. At a time when costs are rising across the country and families are struggling to make ends meet, the Trump administration chose to deliver tax breaks to wealthy donors and corporate special interests who stand to make billions of dollars from this program.
“Every student in America deserves a quality, inclusive public education, but these proposed rules will ensure money that should be serving the public benefit is funnelled into these private religious schools and other privatization organizations – all at a yearly cost of $51 billion, or more, to American taxpayers, with absolutely no attempts on the administration’s part to mitigate risk or ensure accountability. The fact that these proposed rules explicitly prohibit states from implementing safeguards to protect students and taxpayers shows just how little the future wellbeing and education of our nation’s children has been prioritized here.
“This is an irresponsible interpretation of the law, and while the rules aren’t yet final, we urge states to not opt in to this untested and unaccountable program.”
The American Humanist Association
<span data-metadata="“>The American Humanist Association (AHA) works to protect the rights of Humanists, atheists, and other nontheistic Americans. The AHA advances the ethical and life-affirming worldview of Humanism, which—without beliefs in gods or other supernatural forces—encourages individuals to live informed and meaningful lives that aspire to the greater good of humanity.
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Freethought Radio – October 1, 2026
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
After announcing the “Secularist of the Week” and the “Theocrat of the Week,” we speak with Maryam Namazie, president of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Great Britain, about the campaign to release Ibtissame Betty Lachgar from a Moroccan prison for the “crime” of wearing a T-shirt that insults Islam.
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FFRF investigates Hegseth’s new religious office at Pentagon
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is launching an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s alarming creation of a powerful new Office of Religious Affairs.
Hegseth made the explicitly religious motivation behind this office unmistakable in announcing it on Sept. 30. He invoked Psalm 33:12, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” proclaimed that Americans had rejected an “earthly king” in favor of a “heavenly king,” and declared that the military was “putting on the full armor of God” because “the real battle is spiritual.” Hegseth then asserted: “God is good. Evil is not. And America’s military must understand the difference.”
FFRF will file a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records surrounding the creation, planned operation and funding of the new office, including communications with outside religious organizations and documents showing how the Pentagon intends to measure the “spiritual fitness” of American service members. The state/church watchdog is warning that Hegseth is using the machinery of the Pentagon to elevate religion and his Christian nationalist agenda within the U.S. military.
“Our military serves a constitutional republic, not a heavenly kingdom,” observes Dan Barker, FFRF co-president. “Our troops swear an oath to defend our godless and entirely secular Constitution. They do not swear an oath to Christianity, the bible or Pete Hegseth’s deity.”
FFRF is inviting military personnel affected by Hegseth’s expanding religious initiatives, such as religious coercion, preferential treatment or “spiritual fitness” requirements to be in contact. Confidentiality is protected.
“Are you a service member affected by the Pentagon’s new religious policies?” asks Barker. “FFRF wants to hear from you. It intends to find out exactly what this office is doing, who is influencing it and how taxpayer money will be spent.”
Hegseth announced the Office of Religious Affairs during his Sept. 30 “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico. His memorandum grants the office sweeping authority over religious policy, funding and programming across the military. Its director will report directly to Hegseth and the deputy secretary, and will serve as their principal adviser on religious affairs.
The office will control the Armed Forces Chaplains Board, issue religious affairs policies on Hegseth’s behalf and represent him in dealings with Congress, government agencies and civilian religious endorsing organizations.
The office isn’t designed to accommodate individual service members’ religious practices, but instead to serve as the Pentagon’s power center for religion. It is specifically charged with securing funding and resources for religious ministry, religious facilities, chaplain-led programs, chapel youth programs, faith-based homeschool support for military families, faith-based initiatives for suicide reduction and contracts with faith-based organizations.
Most disturbingly, Hegseth has ordered the office to sponsor and oversee “research, technology, and analytical tools” to “assess spiritual fitness, spiritual readiness and spiritual resilience across the Total Force.”
The memo does not indicate what constitutes adequate “spiritual fitness,” how it will be measured, what information the Pentagon will collect about service members’ beliefs or nonbelief, or who will have access to that information. The memo likewise does not assure that participation will be voluntary or that assessments of a service member’s supposed spiritual readiness will have no bearing on evaluations, promotions, assignments or deployments.
And, critically, the memo does not explain how atheists or other nonreligious service members are supposed to demonstrate “spiritual fitness” under a military bureaucracy created by a secretary who publicly attacks nonbelief.
Hegseth, in announcing the office, explicitly blamed “Secular Humanism” for the supposed neglect of religion within the military.
“Political correctness and Secular Humanism got a vote,” Hegseth complained. “Chaplains did not.”
FFRF’s FOIA request will seek answers to these questions, including records defining “spiritual fitness,” “spiritual readiness” and “spiritual resilience”; information about any assessments, technologies or analytical tools under consideration; communications with outside religious organizations; proposed budgets and staffing; records involving faith-based suicide-prevention and homeschool programs; and communications discussing atheists, humanists, nonreligious service members, secular humanism or the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
“Nonreligious Americans are not a defect in our military that Pete Hegseth needs to correct,” adds Barker. “A service member does not need belief in a supernatural being to possess courage, morality, purpose or resilience. It is un-American and unconstitutional to impose a religious test on citizens who want to serve their country.”
Although Hegseth’s memo includes a disclaimer that nothing in it should compel religious participation or diminish the rights of service members “of any faith or no faith,” the disclaimer seems lame in the light of Hegseth’s repeated past attacks on secularism. Hegseth has regularly employed over-the-top Christian nationalist rhetoric and sought to elevate religion throughout the military.
Hegseth has ordered every military department to produce, within 90 days, a comprehensive inventory of its “unfunded and underfunded religious affairs requirements.” Hegseth’s memo contains no comparable directive demanding an accounting of unmet secular needs.
FFRF contends no new Pentagon bureaucracy is necessary to ensure that service members can freely practice their religion. The armed forces already maintain extensive chaplaincies, chiefs of chaplains and the Armed Forces Chaplains Board.
FFRF is calling on Congress to scrutinize the creation, authority and funding of the Office of Religious Affairs and will use its FOIA investigation to determine whether further legal action is warranted.
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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Mo. district sets positive example in resolving football prayer complaint
Tags:Freedom From Religion Foundation, Politics, Religion
Photo by Kaleb Becker on Unsplash
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is commending a Missouri school district for its exemplary response to an FFRF letter about a school-sponsored prayer broadcast at a recent football game.
FFRF contacted the Nevada R-V School District in Missouri after learning that the school allowed the student body president to deliver a Christian prayer over the loudspeaker before a varsity football game on Sept. 11. The employee who informed the state/church watchdog about the unconstitutional broadcast said the prayer made them uncomfortable and expressed particular concern for students who may not feel empowered to speak up when religion is promoted at a school event.
The complainant, who is not Christian, stressed that their concern was not with students praying privately or expressing their own religious beliefs. “When a microphone is handed over to force an entire stadium into prayer, that is where things become blurred,” the employee told FFRF.
FFRF stepped up to clarify the district’s responsibility to keep school events free from religious influence.
“School officials may not invite a student, clergy member, teacher, faculty member or anyone else to give any type of prayer, invocation, benediction or sermon at public school-sponsored events, nor may they give a prayer themselves,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence wrote to District Superintendent Tyson Beshore.
Here, the district had allowed the student body president to lead all attendees, including students, in a Christian prayer over a microphone before the football game. By having school-sponsored prayer at official school events, the district needlessly marginalized non-Christian students, including atheists, agnostics and members of minority faiths. As much as 38 percent of the American population is non-Christian, including the almost 30 percent that is nonreligious. More than half of Generation Z members (those born after 1996) are non-Christian, including 43 percent who are nonreligious.
The district’s response was swift and unequivocal.
Beshore apologized for the incident and explained that the senior class president had been invited to speak but that administrators had not reviewed the student’s remarks beforehand.
More importantly, the district immediately put safeguards in place to prevent a recurrence. Going forward, students will not be permitted to address school audiences over a microphone without administrators first reviewing their planned remarks, and an administrator will be present when students speak.
Beshore emphasized that in his 29 years with the district, he had never encountered another incident like this. “I can promise you it will never happen again,” he wrote.
FFRF applauds the district and Beshore for taking the complaint seriously, acknowledging what went wrong and adopting a concrete solution to protect students. The Supreme Court formally ruled student-led prayer or other prayer broadcast at school events, including football games, unconstitutional 26 years ago.
“This is exactly how school officials should respond when a constitutional concern is brought to their attention,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The district listened, recognized the problem and immediately took steps to protect every student going forward. We greatly appreciate Superintendent Beshore’s forthright and constructive response.”
For the employee who contacted FFRF, the resolution means that future students attending Nevada R-V athletic events will not have to choose between participating in a school-facilitated religious exercise and visibly separating themselves from their classmates and community.
That distinction is especially important in public schools, where students come from families representing a wide range of religious and nonreligious perspectives. Students remain free to pray individually or with one another, but the school itself must not place its microphone, authority or imprimatur behind a religious exercise.
FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence, who wrote to the district on behalf of the complainant, says the outcome demonstrates why speaking up matters.
“Our complainant saw something that made them concerned for students who might not feel comfortable objecting themselves, and they had the courage to raise that concern,” Lawrence says. “Because they spoke up and because district officials responded so responsibly, students will now be able to attend school events knowing that the school will respect their freedom of conscience.”
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 40,000 members across the country, including hundreds of members in Missouri, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
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