News From The Week Of August 17 – August 21, 2020

Friend:

Why is religious freedom important to you? This year, AU asked high school juniors and seniors to answer this question in an essay, and over 300 submitted responses. We were thrilled to read the diverse perspectives and voices that these essays represented, and finally – with great difficulty – we narrowed them down to three winners.

The winning essays are all available to read now on our blog! Click here (or on the articles below) to read them: [link removed]

Part of AU’s mission, as the only organization dedicated solely to the defense of church-state separation, is to ensure our work is continued by the generations to come. We are thankful that this contest brings in so many young voices, and we are hard at work building on that youth outreach in lots of new and exciting ways.

Before I sign off, I wanted to update you on AU’s fight against foster care discrimination. On Thursday, AU filed an important friend-of-the-court brief in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, an upcoming Supreme Court case centered on taxpayer-funded foster care agencies that want to use a religious litmus test to discriminate against qualified parents. You can read more about the case, and AU’s brief that tells some of these families’ stories of discrimination, in this statement: [link removed]

Thanks for all you do to support the separation of religion and government, friend, and thanks for reading this update.

Sincerely,

Rob Boston
AU Senior Adviser and editor of Church & State magazine

Meet The Winners Of AU’s 2020 Student Essay Contest:
Americans United is proud to introduce the winners of the 2020 Student Essay Contest, which asked students to reflect on why religious freedom and the separation of religion and government are important to them, their peers, their families and their communities.
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AU Student Essay Contest Winner: Your Medical Care Shouldn’t Depend On Someone Else’s Religion:
AU 2020 Student Essay Contest winner Priya Aggarwal of Bristol, Conn., writes about the harm caused when religion is used to discriminate in health care and other areas of life.
READ MORE » [link removed]

AU Student Essay Contest Finalist: An America ‘By The People’ Requires Church-State Separation:
AU Student Essay Contest finalist Olivia Bokesch of Columbia, S.C., writes about the intermingling of religion and government that she’s experienced, particularly in the South.
READ MORE » [link removed]

AU Student Essay Contest Finalist: Religious Freedom Is Essential To Preserving America’s Diversity:
AU Student Essay Contest finalist Miles King of Milwaukee, Wisc., writes about the efforts to protect religious freedom that he sees in his school district and state.
READ MORE » [link removed]

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