Annie Laurie Gaylor, one of two people representing the Freedom From Religion Foundation she co-founded with her husband Dan Barker, is demanding that the city of Hondo, Texas, remove a sign that calls the area “God’s Country”:
This is God’s Country. Please Don’t Drive Through It Like Hell.
Turns out the sign has been around for decades: Read more
When GOP Presidential candidate Ben Carson rose in the polls a couple of months ago, a buzz started — mostly among activists and agitators — about the religious statements made by his now-chief of staff, retired Gen Bob Dees. (Dees had long been on Carson’s staff, but Carson’s rise brought sudden attention to otherwise old information.)
Now that Ted Cruz has risen to be Donald Trump’s primary challenger, critics of faith and liberty have shifted the “religious analysis” to him.
At the liberal-leftist Daily Kos, Ian Reifowitz called on his readers to imagine if a Jew or Muslim had said what Cruz had. Citing Politico, Reifowitz quoted Cruz:
“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth…I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”
Reifowitz assessed:
Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second? Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.
Reifowitz’s argument was almost immediately Read more
Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. President Obama is scheduled to release his proclamation tomorrow.
Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today. Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute. First, Read more
Michael “Mikey” Weinstein relies heavily on his credentials as a “former Air Force JAG.” Presumably, people outside the military ascribe to a JAG a particular expertise on military regulations and the law, and Weinstein seeks to benefit from that connotation.
When Weinstein recently demanded that the US Air Force Academy prohibit cadets from praying, it was notable that not one but two former JAGs spoke up in defense of the military religious freedom Weinstein’s “Military Religious Freedom Foundation” sought to ban.
The Alliance Defending Freedom’s Daniel Briggs wrote a letter (PDF) that became the “opposing viewpoint” that required USAFA to be “prudent and deliberate” in its review of Weinstein’s complaint. Briggs said [emphasis added]
Cadet-led prayer does not violate any purported ‘separation of church and state.’ Courts have long recognized that this term is a misrepresented and tiresome platitude found nowhere Read more
Before the Mountain West Conference championship game this past weekend, US Air Force Academy cadet football players defied the invective and threats of Michael “Mikey” Weinstein — and prayed in the end zone. As captured on video by NBC San Diego:
Mikey Weinstein’s criticism has been called petty even by his supporters, yet he is claiming these cadets taking a knee in the end zone prior to the game violates Air Force instructions, the US Constitution, and the law: Read more
Update: As of November 2015, the full Ninth Circuit refused to re-hear the FFRF appeal, effectively ending the case.
The Montana ski resort statue known as “Big Mountain Jesus” has survived the most recent challenge to have it torn down (from the appeal argued in July). The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a small atheist group that scours the country for signs of religion over which to be offended, sued because the statue is technically on federal land, though the land is perpetually leased to a ski resort. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty defended the statue.
The statue was built in the style of European shrines by the Knights of Columbus to honor the 10th Mountain Division. The Division’s soldiers fondly recalled the many shrines they saw during their combat in World War II. In that regard, it was not raised as a religious shrine itself, as the FFRF claims, but as a memorial that invokes those shrines as an homage to the 10th Mountain Division.
The Appeals Court panel found, in a 2-1 ruling, the statue was essentially secular in purpose — including as justification its “irreverent” use: Read more
In 2014 the Freedom From Religion Foundation appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit intended to remove a statue of Jesus from public land (which is leased as a ski resort). The affectionately named “Big Mountain Jesus” statue was erected as a memorial to the 10th Mountain Division, who recalled seeing many similar shrines during their campaign in Italy during World War II.
A 3-member panel of the 9th Circuit Read more
The city of King, NC, paid Americans United for the Separation of Church and State $500,000 and agreed to remove the iconic image of a soldier kneeling at a cross-shaped headstone, ending a lawsuit filed in 2012.
The city council voted 3-2 to settle.
“I feel this city has been sabotaged and bullied Read more