News From The Week Of June 22 – June 26, 2020

Friend:

While this summer is anything but “normal,” Americans United is moving full steam ahead on fulfilling our strategic roadmap goals, including ensuring that the new generation of leaders understands and values the importance of keeping religion and government separate.

Just one way we do that is through our summer internship program. We can’t have interns join us in-person at our Washington, D.C., office this summer, but we’re proud to have talented young people joining AU through fully remote internships for the first time in our organization’s history.

Kalli, an AU litigation intern, wrote a recent blog post ([link removed]) about how she first connected with AU when facing anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination at her university, and how the guidance AU Public Policy Advocate Sam Sokol provided helped shape her commitment to church-state separation. Rebecca, an AU communications intern, blogged recently about reproductive freedom being one of her main connections to religious freedom; read her blog post here: [link removed]

Next week, AU’s interns will be hosting the final course in our Summer Speaker Series, “Youth Activists for Religious Freedom,” which will examine how private school voucher programs hinder disability justice and other civil rights. Click here to RSVP for their course on Tuesday, June 30th, at 3 pm ET: [link removed]

You might have heard that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which extended marriage equality nationwide. During a normal Pride Month, AU and our team would have participated in the annual Capital Pride Festival in Washington, D.C., as we always do, but it was canceled this year. But we continue our work fighting the government’s misuse of religious freedom to license discrimination – in health care, foster care, social services, federal contracting and more.

As we await three more Supreme Court decisions that will impact the relationship of religion and government, Americans United is busy not just doing our regular work, but also crafting our work plan for the next fiscal year so that we stay laser-focused on our strategic roadmap goals.

Thanks for all you do to help Americans United hold our country accountable to the standard of treating us all equally no matter what we believe or don’t believe, so long as we don’t harm others.

With hope and determination,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO

Five Years Later, Christian Nationalist Predictions About Marriage Equality Look Pretty Silly:
Pastors who disliked the ruling on marriage equality had the ability to criticize it from the pulpit. No church had to admit LGBTQ members. Nothing changed.
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Americans Support LGBTQ Rights – But That Hasn’t Slowed The Trump Administration’s Attacks:
The Trump administration attacks on LGBTQ rights span all parts of life from the workplace to health care to education to housing.
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Franklin Graham Thinks Science And Religion Must Fight. As Usual, He’s Wrong:
The idea that science is perpetually at war with religion and that one must choose sides is a tiresome trope embraced by fundamentalists. Most religious people long ago reconciled their faith with modern science. For many believers, God gave us intellect and reason precisely so that we can discover things about the world around us.
READ MORE » [link removed]

I'm Proud To Spend My Summer Helping Americans United Stand Up For Equality:
Discrimination in areas like health care, education, public accommodations, and housing is killing members of the LGBTQ+ community. Defending such discrimination on religious grounds is not only antithetical to a society that values religious pluralism and equality but also disregards the core doctrines of love and acceptance found in almost every major religion.
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Americans United for Separation of Church and State
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