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If you're behind on your email from yesterday, here's a link to our new 2024 voter scorecards ([link removed]) that let you know how your members of Congress do on legislation that involves separation of church and state or the rights of nonreligious Americans. We use votes, cosponsorships, and membership in the Congressional Freethought Caucus to measure how they rate on these issues.

Last week we held our annual secular staff lunch for Capitol Hill staff. Some came to meet like-minded staff members, some came to hearthe latest data ([link removed]) on the intersection of politics and religious beliefs, and some just came for the pizza. Which is fine because we still got to meet each other. New contacts are a big help.

Congressman Jared Huffman (D-CA) addresses the secular staff lunch.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is out with an essay, The Christian Nationalism We Need ([link removed]) . "To save the nation, conservatives must recover the Christian tradition on which the nation subsists." He gets away with this because about half the country doesn't know the meaning of Christian nationalism and a third supports it to some degree. The Secular Coalition sent him a letter explaining, among other things, that America was not founded as a Christian nation and that Christian nationalism is a problem, not a solution. It concludes, "We encourage you to focus on the failures your essay identified among the conservative elites and stop advocating for a Christian nationalism that the Founding Fathers were smart enough to explicitly avoid." You can read the letter here. ([link removed] )

Just because Congress has been singularly unproductive this year doesn't mean bad bills haven't been making any progress. The Educational Choice for Children Act would authorize $5 billion per year for four years in tax credits for people who make donations to nonprofits that provide vouchers for private and religious school tuition. This back-door federal funds for religious schools bill was just approved on a party line vote by the House tax policy committee and sent to the full House.

The bill says, "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to permit, allow, encourage, or authorize any Federal, State, or local government entity to mandate, direct, or control any aspect of any private or religious elementary or secondary education institution." So donors pay less in taxes, religious schools get more money, and no one can tell them who or what they can do, teach, hire, or admit with it. It's total separation of church school and state. Click here to use our Action Aler ([link removed]) t to tell your representatives to oppose this bill.


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Scott MacConomy, Director of Policy ad Government Affairs at the Secular Coalition for America, wears a blue suit and stands with his arms crossed over his chest in front of the United States Capitol Building.

Your advocate,

Scott MacConomy
Director of Policy and Government Affairs
Secular Coalition for America
[email protected]
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The Secular Coalition for America works every day to defend the separation of religion and government and to fight anti-democratic ideologies like Christian nationalism. Your support for this work is vital.

Donate to protect equal rights for nonreligious Americans! ([link removed])

P.S. Please consider leaving a legacy gift to the Secular Coalition for America ([link removed]) . The protection of our secular values requires eternal vigilance.

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If you have any thoughts about this week's Heretic on the Hill you can email ** [email protected] (mailto:[email protected])