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Blasphemers Bible – Isaiah 6

September 29, 2026 – FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott to Speak at SCOTUS Preview: First Amendment on the Docket (Tallahassee, FL)

Freedom From Religion Foundation Legal Director Patrick Elliott will be a featured panelist at “SCOTUS Preview: First Amendment on the Docket,” taking place Tuesday, Sept. 29th, at Florida State University College of Law in Tallahassee, Florida. The event, hosted by the Institute for Governance and Civics’ First Amendment Clinic at FSU Law, will examine several high profile First Amendment cases before the U.S. Supreme Court during the upcoming term.

The hybrid, free event will take place from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET at FSU College of Law, with both in-person and virtual attendance options available. The event is open to the public, with lunch provided.

FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott will join fellow panelists Bryan Leitch, Joe Davis and Andrea Picotti-Bayer to discuss the legal questions at stake in the upcoming Supreme Court cases. The panel will offer insight into how the Court may decide these cases and explore their broader implications.

The event will be held in Room 101 at FSU College of Law, 425 W. Jefferson St., Tallahassee, Fla. Registration is encouraged, although walk-ins are welcome as space allows. 

For more information or to register for the event, please visit the event page.

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School Lunch Debt Is Insane

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Arguing Caniform Kinds

Big ideas of the past, present & future

(9/4/2026) – Gloria Steinem died this week. She was a humanist, a courageous leader, and a warrior for civil rights. She fought doggedly for women’s equality – and her ideas were her weapon.

She coined the term “reproductive freedom.” She challenged gender norms and talked about the family being a training ground for authoritarianism. She willed big ideas for the women’s liberation movement – like Ms. Magazine and the National Women’s Political Caucus – into being. She was unafraid to think on the boundaries of the possible, and we’re a more equal society for it.

That’s always been what humanists do, at our best. With no God to tell us what to think and how to live, we set about the task of deciding what we, as people, must do to make our world better. We start from the infinite canvas of a free mind, and we end up with a world where people have better, fuller lives. 

Our annual conference is a chance to come together in community with people who share our ideals – but also to hear, discuss, and share the big ideas that will shape the future of our movement. And if you’re free Saturday, September 19, I hope you’ll join us. 

We’re doing something a little different this year. No more hour-long talks that you’ve heard versions of before at other conferences. We have four types of programming:

• Dynamic ten-minute TED style talks from content creators in our Humanist Creator Fund – from Drew McCoy to Monte Mader to Shawn Towers to Alyssa Grenfell to Kevin Crowe (aka JesusUnfollower) to Barrett Pall. Collectively, they have millions of followers, and they’re shaping the voice of humanism for a new generation. See the big ideas that are shaping the future of humanism for yourselves – and don’t worry about how you’re going to keep yourself awake when the talk reaches the 40-minute mark. It just…won’t. 

• Updates (30 minutes or less!) from leaders at the AHA. Hear from Jake Via about how we’ve added forty new chapters and affiliates since he started in 2025, how we’re training thirty-three longstanding chapters to rapidly grow their ranks, and how we’re building groups of humanists under 35 from Texas to Harvard. Hear from Rachel Deitch about how we defeated ten pieces of Christian Nationalist legislation in states as red as Kansas and Nebraska this year, and plan to do more next year. I’ll share more about our vision for the future – and some exciting announcements! – in our keynote address. 

• Awards for incredible luminaries – and we’re proud to announce University of Pennsylsvania Professor and scholar of religious extremism Dr. Anthea Butler will receive the Religious Liberty Award. She will have brilliant insights to share with the conference, and we can’t wait to announce more awardees soon.  

• A documentary premiere! We made a short film about the American Empathy Project, our nationwide service initiative, and we’d love for you to see it. It’s one of the most compelling pieces of media to come out of the AHA. It made my heart swell and my eyes water, and I already knew what it was about!

Sign up today: conference.americanhumanist.org/ 

You don’t put up a gate around good ideas, so this year, for the first time, our conference is pay-what-you-can. We hope people will donate what they think is reasonable to support the AHA, but if someone can’t afford to buy a ticket, we want them in the room learning, connecting, and hearing from these amazing humanist leaders. (So send it to friends, grandkids, people in your postcard-writing group or Unitarian fellowship – it’s for everybody!) 

We’ll see you there.

For humanity,

Fish

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FFRF to Ohio mayor: Don’t use public office to promote prayer breakfast

FFRF is urging Mount Vernon (Ohio) Mayor Matthew Starr not to be a part of a prayer breakfast being held next Wednesday, Sept. 16.

A concerned Mount Vernon resident informed the state/church watchdog that Starr is once again participating in a Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast hosted by the Mount Vernon Association of Police Chaplains. Starr has been reportedly attending the annual Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast since at least 2022.

FFRF is asking Starr to immediately cease using his position as mayor to promote religion. 

“Your participation in your official capacity sends the message that you, as mayor, prefer those citizens who are religious and engage in prayer over those who do not,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes to the mayor.

A “prayer breakfast,” no matter how well intentioned, does not truly welcome or represent community members who do not believe in prayer, as well as religious community members who do not support public prayer or government entanglement with religion, as FFRF points out. 

To respect the constitutional rights of Mount Vernon residents and honor his duty to remain religiously neutral as an elected official, FFRF is insisting that Starr not frequent the upcoming prayer breakfast or any religious events in general from now on.

FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor notes that the location alone, Mount Vernon Nazarene University, signals that this is to be a Christian-dominated event, which not only sends a message of exclusion to the nearly 29 percent of Ohio residents who are religiously unaffiliated, but the additional 9 percent who belong to other faiths, thereby possibly excluding more than a third of Mount Vernon citizens.

“By taking part in an explicitly religious ‘prayer breakfast,’ Starr is inherently sending a message of disfavoritism to all members of the community who do not fall in line with his personal belief system,” says Gaylor. “Starr could certainly attend as a private citizen, but by prominently lending the prayer breakfast his photo, name and presence in his capacity as mayor, he is misusing his office to bless a religion and a religious event.”

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 and several chapters across the country, including more than 1,000 members and multiple chapters in Ohio, FFRF is the largest association of freethinkers (atheists, agnostics and humanists) in North America. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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