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 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.

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!

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,