Free Republic

Put the Bibles back! A Navy spokesman confirms that Bibles will be returned to base lodges, and they’ve also launched an investigation to determine why God’s Word was removed from guest rooms in the first place. Navy Exchange, which runs the base lodges, sent a directive out in June ordering the Bibles removed, after the Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a complaint. The atheist group alleged the books were a violation of the U.S. Constitution and amounted “to a government endorsement of that religious text.” Navy spokesman Ryan Perry said the decision was made without their knowledge. “In June 2014,...

While I was at the recent Napa Institute gathering, I got to know Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of The Becket Fund, which defends religious freedom. They guided the Hobby Lobby decision to a good conclusion and for that we owe them a lot. I had this note from them today. It included this: [quote] Dear Friends, I grew up in a household where we were expected to pepper all tales with a bit of Cuban exaggeration. This was, after all, essential for good storytelling. So, in a way, I wish I were making this up. Within the IRS, there is,...

Is the Internal Revenue Service a threat to religious liberty? As the IRS continues to come under well-aimed fire for harassing conservative groups, on Friday it secured a final court order formalizing what amounts to a secret agreement to monitor the pulpits of ill-favored churches. The serious danger, as former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams told Fox News, is that the IRS will start treating “theology as politics,” and regulate it accordingly. Lovers of liberty should be very concerned. According to a June 27 IRS letter to the Justice Department, 99 churches merit “high priority examination” for allegedly illegal...

First Amendment: Government's assault on religious liberty has hit a new low as the IRS settles with atheists by promising to monitor sermons for mentions of the right to life and traditional marriage. A lawsuit filed by the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asserted that the Internal Revenue Service ignored complaints about churches' violating their tax-exempt status by routinely promoting political issues, legislation and candidates from the pulpit. The FFRF has temporarily withdrawn its suit in return for the IRS's agreement to monitor sermons and homilies for proscribed speech that the foundation believes includes things like condemnation of gay...

The IRS recently settled a case against it brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF). As part of the settlement, the IRS has agreed to monitor church sermons for political content. The suit was filed because FFRF apparently did not like an event called Pulpit Freedom Sunday. Apparently once a year a number of pastors preach on political topics, presumably to rebel against the never enforced Federal prohibition on 501(c)(3) political activities. Technically it is illegal for tax exempt non-profits to engage in political activities, presumably this includes commenting on politics from the pulpit. To date there isn’t a...

The Internal Revenue Service said it will monitor churches and other houses of worship for electioneering in a settlement reached with an atheist group. The settlement was reached Friday (July 18) in federal court in Madison, Wis., where the initial lawsuit was filed in 2012 by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a Wisconsin-based atheist advocacy group that claims 20,000 members nationwide. The suit alleged the IRS routinely ignored complaints by the FFRF and others about churches promoting political candidates, issues or proposed legislation. As part of their tax-exempt status, churches and other religious groups are prohibited from engaging in partisan...

ORLANDO – A federal judge has given a secular organization the green light to distribute more atheistic and anti-Christian materials to Florida public school students, in spite of the materials’ graphic content and offensive language. As previously reported, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) learned last year that a Christian ministry had made Bibles available to Orlando high school students on “Religious Freedom Day.” To counter the Bible distribution, FFRF sought permission from the school district to give students a variety of atheistic and anti-Christian materials. According to reports, the Orange County School Board permitted FFRF to distribute several books...

A small, coastal town in central California has settled a lawsuit regarding prayer at City Council meetings, ultimately agreeing to no longer hold any form of prayer, whether sectarian or non-sectarian, ahead of the local government meetings. City officials say they decided to settle the lawsuit to avoid further legal costs paid by taxpayer money. Pismo Beach city officials announced their settlement earlier this week, nearly six months after the Freedom From Religion Foundation [FFRF] and the local chapter of Atheists United San Luis Obispo filed a lawsuit against the city, arguing that it had violated the U.S. Constitution's separation...

That was awkward. In the clearest sign yet of the potent effect of the government shutdown on the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Ken Cuccinelli avoided being photographed with Ted Cruz at a gala they headlined here Saturday night—even leaving before the Texas senator rose to speak. Backstage, a source said, Cuccinelli urged Cruz to work with Democrats to end the federal shutdown. But he did not make that point, or even acknowledge Cruz, in short public comments to some 1,100 social conservatives. Cruz has become the face of GOP intransigence, and the conservative attorney general’s effort to distance himself from...

An atheist group that is known for targeting supposed violations of the separation between church and state recently protested a Holocaust memorial because the monument plans to feature a Star of David.The Freedom From Religion Foundation, or FFRF, has stated its opposition to the proposed Ohio Statehouse Holocaust memorial because its leaders believe that including the religious symbol would create "legal precedent."The co-presidents of the FFRF, Don Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, wrote a letter to Richard Finan, chair of the Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board about the proposed memorial, The Blaze reported.“Permitting one permanent sectarian and exclusionary religious...

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, one of the largest nonprofit secular groups in America, ran an ad on Sunday in The New York Times asking why the Boy Scouts of America is maintaining its ban on nonreligious members after having changed its policy to now accept gay members. A pro-family group believes FFRF is right in its questioning. "The bottom line is, Scouting has now removed any logical or legal basis for protecting against the inclusion of openly gay scout masters, so in a sense this group is perfectly correct," Rob Schwarzwalder, senior vice president for the Family Research Council,...

WASHINGTON, DC (Worthy News)– The Freedom From Religion Foundation is suing the U.S. Treasury Department to remove "In God We Trust" from all its currency. A nonprofit organization that represents atheists and agnostics, the FFRF claims the motto is "offensive" to the nonreligious. In February, the FFRF and 19 plaintiffs filed a civil suit in New York claiming the motto violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution; they also claim it forces atheists, agnostics and secular skeptics to impart a religious message they all decry whenever using U.S. currency, resulting in a false declaration of their own religious...

Hooray for the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Unlike all too many liberal courts throughout the country, which have held that atheist hate speech against Christians is perfectly okay, the Sixth ruled last week that such anti-religious malice is not protected by the First Amendment. The case dates back to 2010, when the Freedom From Religion Foundation, an atheist hate group based in Madison, Wisconsin, wrote a series of letters to Jim Fouts, Mayor of Warren, Michigan, demanding that the city remove a nativity scene from a holiday display it has put up for years. Mayor Fouts told the...

A Wisconsin-based group has accused a Georgia high school football coach of violating the First Amendment by allowing local churches to prepare meals for his team. The Freedom From Religion Foundation sent a letter to the superintendent of Walker County Schools demanding an “immediate investigation” into Ridgeland High School football coach Mark Mariakis. The FFRF is a Wisconsin-based group whose purpose is to “protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church.” They are demanding the school system launch an investigation into allegations that Coach Mariakis allowed local churches to prepare pre-game meals for his football team. They also...

Recently, a group called the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) ran a full-page ad in The Washington Post cast as an “open letter to ‘liberal’ and ‘nominal’ Catholics.” Its headline commanded: “It’s Time to Quit the Catholic Church.”The ad included the usual criticism of Catholicism, but I was most struck by this paragraph: “If you think you can change the church from within — get it to lighten up on birth control, gay rights, marriage equality, embryonic stem-cell research — you’re deluding yourself. By remaining a ‘good Catholic,’ you are doing ‘bad’ to women’s rights. You are an enabler....

For a number of Americans, the Christmas season is a time for joy and love, but for others, it’s an opportunity to stage a war against Christianity. The latest battle entails a blasphemous nativity scene from a group of atheists, which they have defended as a response to counteract the Christian “War on the Constitution.”  Wisconsin is once again at the center of a major dispute, this time because Governor Scott Walker made the mistake of referring to the “holiday” spruce as a “Christmas tree.” That prompted the Freedom from Religion Foundation to call Walker “a Teabagger governor wearing religion...

ATHENS, Texas, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A crowd of more than 5,000 people gathered in Athens, Texas, in support of a nativity scene on display at the Henderson County Courthouse. "We are seeing unfold before our very eyes, the beginning of persecution of Christianity in our nation," First Baptist Church Malakoff Pastor Nathan Lorick said at the rally Saturday. "It seems it is no longer acceptable to express and exhibit the doctrines of our faith in the nation that was founded upon those same doctrines. That is why thousands are here today." The rally came after Freedom From Religion Foundation...

US Postal Service (USPS) due to issue stamp commemorating Mother Teresa, the Freedom From Religion Foundation objects… The FFRF was established in the USA which is a nation that was premised upon the concept of freedom of religious expression… Now, note the logical steps which discredit [the FFRF’s] objection: 1) Criterion No. 6 states that stamps shall not be issued to various organizations. 2) But the organization Mother Teresa ran and was inextricably identified with Roman Catholicism, etc. 3) Therefore, her organization is not being honored on the stamp: Mother Teresa is being honored. It is really as simple as...

The atheist Freedom from Religion Foundation has taken its anti-faith message to Denver, the site of the Democratic National Convention. Their "Imagine No Religion" sign demands Denver residents and Democratic Party officials preparing for the convention to envision an America without people who believe in God. In response, Bishop Council Nedd, chairman of the In God We Trust has asked Senator Barack Obama to condemn the sign's message. The Freedom from Religion Foundation President, Dan Barker, has called Christianity "and enemy to humanity" and "the antithesis of freedom." In his letter to Senator Obama Nedd states, "By placing their billboard...