31 December 2011

By Raymond Billy | ResonateNews.com

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group whose stated purpose is “to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism,” asserted itself this year perhaps as never before. The 33-year-old Wisconsin-based organization filed a series of lawsuits designed to stem commingling between religion and civic institutions or the leaders of those institutions.

Although the foundation gained a larger platform for its advocacy in 2011, the year was also marked by a string of setbacks. In April, the foundation's legal challenge to the National Day of Prayer — Freedom From Religion v. Barack Obama, President of the United — was rebuffed by a three-judge panel. In an opinion written by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook of the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Obama “has made a request” that citizens pray, “he has not issued a command. No one is injured by a request that can be declined.”

Leaders of the foundation were not satisfied with the appeals court's reasoning.

“Is the 7th Circuit suggesting that unless the government is forcing citizens to pray — say, at gunpoint on the National Day of Prayer — there is no violation of the constitutional separation between religion and government?” the foundation's co-president, Dan Barker, asked in a news release.

The foundation has other challenges to the Day of Prayer pending, targeting the event at the state level in Arizona and Colorado. Speaking of the Arizona gathering of the event, Annie Laurie Gaylor, another co-president of the foundation, said it's unfair for the Gov. Jan Brewer to promote an event that non-theistic residents are necessarily excluded from.

“It does indeed injure the civil rights and standing in the community of nonbelievers when the highest elected official in the state continually turns them into outsiders because they do not conform to her personal religious views. Atheists and agnostics do not believe in the efficacy of prayer, much less that there is a god who answers prayer.”

Texas was in the foundation's crosshairs several times in 2011. Gov. Rick Perry's participation in The Response — an event of prayer and repentance — was criticized by the foundation on the same grounds that they objected to Obama and Brewer's involvement in prayer events. They filed suit to prevent Perry from being even a figurehead in the event. Again, their challenge was to no avail.

“Gov. Perry has done nothing more than invite others who are willing to do so to pray,” U.S. District Judge Gray H. Miller wrote in his ruling.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation closed out the year challenging a nativity scene at the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens, Texas. The foundation's presidents wrote a letter to the state attorney general, Greg Abbott, criticizing him for supporting the display.

“By entering into the religion business, by conferring endorsement and preference for one religion over all others and over non-religion, the Attorney General’s Office has struck a blow at religious liberty,” the letter, which was cosigned by Barker Gaylor.

The nativity scene was not removed. Calls for its removal gave rise to a large prayer rally near the Courthouse in Athens that was attended by thousands of people.

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