View this email in your browser ([link removed])
Snooze alert! I’m going to be writing about federal regulations so some of you will probably end up asleep. Before that happens I want to be sure you get the good news that we’ve added another House member to the Congressional Freethought Caucus. And the credit largely goes to Dana Morganroth, a board member at the Secular Coalition for America who asked his congressman, Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania, to join the Caucus.

Now let me be clear that you don’t have to have some fancy title at some fancy organization to persuade your member of Congress to join. Quite a few Caucus members have said they joined just because someone at a town hall meeting or some other event talked to them about the Caucus. If you might have an opportunity like that, you can learn about the Freethought Caucus here. ([link removed]) There are 30 members now, a significant number. The House Freedom Caucus, which gets lots of publicity by forcing the House Republicans to be take more conservative positions than they want to, only has 35.

_________________________________
Federal regulations are the details about how laws are implemented. Legislation passed by Congress doesn't have all the necessary details so the federal agency involved writes the regulations (Let's just call them “the regs”), gives the public a period for comment, and makes them official. For example, if a new federal grant goes to a religious group to provide services for the homeless, there are regs on whether they can proselytize while they do that and whether they can only offer their services to people of the same religion.

When a new president gets elected they change a lot of these instructions for how the federal agencies carry out the laws. President Trump changed Obama regs, President Biden changed Trump regs, in some cases reversing them back to the Obama regs, and now President Trump is changing Biden regs. (No, it’s not an efficient way to govern.) But there is an official process for repealing the regs and an agency can be taken to court if it’s not followed.

You may not believe this but Trump has a novel and probably illegal approach to changing/eliminating thousands of regs including the ones that involve church-state separation. One of his April Executive Orders lists ten recent Supreme Court decisions that Trump will use to immediately revoke regs because he and his minions are assuming that those regs are also invalidated by those court decisions. Even if those decsions don't directly address issues in those regs. It looks like there will be no official process, no public comment period, just the assumption that, The following regulation will no longer be in effect because we think the Supreme Court thinks it’s wrong, based on this other decision they made recently.

You can find the Executive Order and list of 10 Supreme Court Cases here ([link removed]) . The two we’re concerned about are:
* Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767 (2022) held that a law excluding religious schools from participating in Maine’s school-voucher program was unconstitutional. Therefore “federal agencies must review their regulations to ensure equal treatment of religious institutions vis-à-vis secular institutions for purposes of funding and access to public benefits.”
* Roman Cath. Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 592 U.S. 14 (2020) struck down New York’s Covid-era occupancy restrictions on churches and synagogues because they were uniquely harsher than those that applied to “essential” businesses—Therefore each federal agency should review its regulations to ensure at least equal treatment of religious institutions vis-à-vis secular institutions for regulatory purposes.

So federal regs must make sure religious institutions get funded just like all other institutions getting federal funds, and exemptions from regs for any other reason must include religious exemptions. That’s my take.

The Secular Coalition is planning how to address the coming wave of regulatory changes, both the changes following the official process and those following the “we know what the Supreme Court would think about this” process. We will let you know how you can help as soon as we see the first example.


**
------------------------------------------------------------

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]
Did someone forward this to you? You can sign up at secular.org ([link removed]) with your email and zip code.

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.

============================================================

** Facebook ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Instagram ([link removed])
** Website ([link removed])

Copyright © 2025 Secular Coalition for America, All rights reserved.
You are receiving this email because you requested to receive updates from the Secular Coalition for America.

Our mailing address is:
Secular Coalition for America
1012 14th St, NW
Suite 205
Washington, DC xxxxxx
USA
Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can ** update your preferences ([link removed])
or ** unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])
.

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