Free Republic

MADISON — At all hours, strangers phone Anne Nicol Gaylor's Madison home, always desperate.The caller one recent morning was a middle-aged woman with a 14-year-old pregnant daughter."What clinic will she be using?" asked Gaylor, 83, jotting down the response and the cost of a second-trimester abortion ($875)."If we helped with $300, do you think you could find the rest?" Gaylor asked.After the call, Gaylor opened a checkbook for the Women's Medical Fund, a Madison nonprofit that has helped pay for abortions for 34 years. Gaylor has written every check for every abortion.This was No. 18,986.Controversial figureGaylor is well-known for...

BELLE PLAINE, Minn. (AP) — A veterans’ memorial park in Minnesota will soon include a satanic monument among its tributes. The city is allowing the monument in its Veterans Memorial Park after the Freedom from Religion Foundation threatened to sue over another statue that features a soldier praying over a grave marked with a cross. The cross was removed once the issue was raised, but residents rallied to put it back.

An atheist group is suing President Donald Trump over his religious liberty executive order, which loosens restrictions on political activity by religious groups. The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed suit Thursday in federal court against Trump and the Internal Revenue Service, claiming the order is unconstitutional because it makes government favor religion over nonreligion. Although the executive order applies to all nonprofits, FFRF believes it will be selectively enforced so as to only benefit churches and religious organizations.

More than 100 supporters showed up to a rally in a small Mississippi town Saturday to fight back after being forced to remove a Christian flag flying over Veterans Memorial Park. One organization stepped in and threatened to sue if the flag wasn’t taken down. But the Christian supporters say they’re not backing down. “There just comes a point in time when you’ve got to be politically incorrect and take a stand,” said organizer Kevin Nelms. They rode from the VFW in Corinth, 12 miles, to the Veterans Memorial Park in Rienzi, proudly waving their Christian flags. The same flag...

EXMNA The request included a picture of the Ex-Muslims of North America (EXMNA) name and logo, with a caption of “Congratulations on 3 years!”, but was refused by an associate from the Fairfax branch of the popular chain, stating that the request was “offensive.” EXMNA representatives called Wegmans bakery to clarify, and were refused again, with no explanation on why the logo, name, and caption was considered offensive. After conferring with management, the Wegman’s employee stated that her boss(es) would not change their stance on the issue. The associate further added that – the store had Muslim workers, “my employees...

News channel KJCT8 in Colorado is reporting that atheist and satanic groups are going to be circulating atheist, secular and satanic literature to middle and high school students in Delta County, Colorado. In December, Gideons made Bibles available for students at public schools in Delta County. That led to a student complaint, and led to secular groups such as the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Western Colorado Atheists and Freethinkers and the Satanic Temple to apply for similar distribution. …

A litigious atheist organization known for its lawsuits challenging Christian prayer and symbols in public spaces and Bibles in public schools is now voicing objection to the designation of a Muslim prayer space at the University of Iowa (UI). The Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) says it is “questioning the appropriateness” of the two prayer rooms created primarily for male and female Muslim faculty and students at UI. FFRF states in a press release: The public university, located in Iowa City, has recently established two prayer rooms for its Muslim students. This is in addition to a longstanding university...

So what are well-intentioned people of faith supposed to do? How does one respond to the incessant onslaught of negativity, criticism and legal action aimed at those who choose to make their religious convictions known in the public square? Perhaps a good place to start would be the example set by the young men of the Naperville Central High School football team in suburban Chicago. After representatives from The Freedom from Religion Foundation filed a complaint against Coach Mike Stine’s voluntary practice of allowing players who want to to gather on the field and pray before games, senior player Daniel...

We’ve often reported here on the efforts of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FRFF) to remove all vestiges of “religious” symbols in public places – and by religious, it’s really only the Christian religion they object to. Their actions extend to public schools, military facilities and public offices. Most recently, FFRFF has drawn a red line in the sand in Breathitt County, Kentucky. Jesus must go. For some time, the FRFF has been trying to get a picture of Jesus removed from the courthouse. There’s just one little problem. FRFF can’t find anyone in Breathitt County to act as their...

A police department in a Texas Bible Belt community has placed large “In God We Trust” decals on its patrol vehicles in response to recent violence against law enforcement officers, drawing criticism from a watchdog group that says the decals amount to an illegal government endorsement of religion. The decision by police this month to unveil the phrase in Childress, an agricultural community of some 6,100 people at the southern edge of the Texas Panhandle, follows a similar move by dozens of other police agencies elsewhere in the country. […] … (O)f the dozens of complaints about the decals lodged...

An atheist group is demanding that publicly funded universities take immediate steps to bar Christian coaches and chaplains from “converting football fields into mission fields.” “The words of coaches and chaplains make clear that their purpose is to instill Christianity in vulnerable young men,” the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) says in a new report, titled “Pray to Play.” “Public universities and their employees cannot endorse, promote, or favor religion,” the report states. “Yet, many football coaches at public universities bring in chaplains—often from their own church or even members of their own family—to prey on and pray with students,...

The IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups prior to the 2012 election was an unconscionable abuse of power for which accountability and punishment have been noticeably absent. But this was and is not the only use by the Obama administration of the power to tax to attempt to destroy its political opponents. The IRS is also involved in targeting what President Obama has called “less than loving” Christians through the mandates of ObamaCare and its attack on the free exercise of religion through the attempted coercion of mandated health insurance coverage This administration’s war on religion is...

(CNSNews.com) -- When the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) went after a city council in Jay, Fla., for displaying a nativity set on public property, the atheist group might have won a battle, but seems to have lost the war. The FFRF, known for protesting any and all religious displays in public places, sent a complaint letter recently to local officials in the 526-person city of Jay, arguing against the life-sized nativity that had been set up on the site every Christmas for nearly 40 years, the group said in a press release. In a letter sent to the city’s...

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) — Florida’s Capitol will have a new holiday decoration this year. The Satanic Temple will be among its nativity scenes and secular presentations. It’s for Festivus, a non-commercial festival “for the rest of us,” is close to coming back as a 6-foot stack of empty beer cans. The Florida Department of Management Services this week approved the proposed holiday display from the Satanic Temple, which a year ago was rejected because the agency said its proposal was “grossly offensive.” The temple’s entry was one of five displays that got approval to be put up in the first-floor rotunda...

An Oklahoma school district is reportedly walking back plans to begin offering students an elective course on the Bible after facing pressure from a major atheist group. The class, called “The Book: The Bible’s History, Narrative and Impact,” was developed, in part, by Hobby Lobby president Steve Green, and it was set to launch in Mustang Public Schools, Raw Story reported. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) said on its website Tuesday that the district canceled the class after Hobby Lobby allegedly did not provide the district with the final curriculum for approval and did not “commit to providing legal...

In Case You Had Any Doubts About What the Freedom From Religion Foundation Really Is Michael Egnor October 29, 2014 4:35 AM | Permalink The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is planning to distribute some... literature... to public high school students in Florida: An atheist group is planning to distribute a pamphlet in several Florida public high schools that depicts an illustration of a cartoon Bible sexually assaulting a young woman.According to a report by Brittany Hughes at CNSNews.com, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) plans to hand out a pamphlet entitled "An X-Rated Book: Sex and Obscenity in the...

People say America is one of the most religious countries in the world. But is it religious in the way that you think it is? You’re bound to learn something new in this list:

Freedom From Truth: FFRF is beyond all reason by Daniel Clark “Our purpose is to protect the constitutional principle of separation between state and church,” At least that’s what Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote in a thinly veiled threat to the Allegheny County Council, to dissuade it from installing a plaque in the county courthouse that says “In God We Trust.” That principle, like everything else the FFRF stands for, is a lie. If Gaylor and friends can point to anything in the U.S. Constitution that prohibits a Pittsburgh courthouse from acknowledging God, this particular resident...

The Satanic Temple responded to a Florida school board and judge decision allowing the dissemination of religious materials in public schools by distributing its own Satanic literature to Orange County classrooms. “In response to a recent School Board decision in Orange County, Florida that allows for the dissemination of religious materials in public schools, The Satanic Temple will be distributing educational religious material to students,” reads a statement from the group. The Satanic Temple (TST) describes itself as a group that, “facilitates the communication and mobilization of politically aware Satanists, secularists, and advocates for individual liberty.” Earlier this month, a...

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,...