News From The Week Of August 31 – September 4, 2020

Friend,

September is here, and that means it’s almost time for AU’s first-ever Virtual National Advocacy Summit! If you love to learn from the best of the best, connect with amazing people, advocate and be inspired, this Summit is for you! I hope you’ll be able to join us – and the hundreds and hundreds of others who have already registered – starting a week from Monday, on September 14-15.

To view our final schedule of speakers, workshops, panels, and advocacy opportunities, click here – and remember to register, it’s free! (Please also consider sharing this registration link with friends and family, since it’s a great way to introduce them to AU): [link removed]

Preparing for the Summit is not all our team has been up to recently. After receiving a complaint about the Orange County, Calif., Board of Education’s unconstitutional practice of including religious invocations during public school board meetings, AU’s attorneys sent a letter calling on the board to end this violation of church-state separation immediately: [link removed]

As AU’s Alex Luchenitser made clear to the board, their practice of religious invocations forces students, families and staff to choose between participating in the decision-making process of their own public schools or remaining true to their personal religious beliefs. No one should be forced to make that kind of choice.

You can read more about our letter to the Orange County Board of Education (and the letter itself) here: [link removed]

The Legal Team was busy this week – AU also filed a friend-of-the-court brief in Colorado, defending the public health order of Governor Polis against a challenge from a church to the state’s restrictions on in-person gatherings. Our work continues to make clear that claims of religious freedom do not give houses of worship the right to risk lives.

Thanks for being with us, and I can’t wait to be with you (virtually) in just over a week at the Summit!

In solidarity,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO

Giving Tax Aid To Religious Schools Forces You To Support Discrimination:
Religious schools have turned students away because their families don’t share the school’s religious beliefs. They have barred admission because a student or parent is LGBTQ or a student has a disability.
READ MORE » [link removed]

Religious Freedom Is Not Religious Privilege:
In her monthly column, AU President and CEO Rachel Laser reflects on the trio of recent Supreme Court decisions that distort religious freedom by privileging certain religious beliefs over the interests and well-being of the vast majority of Americans.
READ MORE » [link removed]

Pressuring Workers To Be ‘Spiritual’ Isn’t The Answer To The Office Blues:
It’s no business of secular employers to meddle in the spiritual or non-spiritual lives of their workers. Under federal law, it’s illegal to intentionally discriminate against an employee because of their religious or non-religious beliefs.
READ MORE » [link removed]

Government-Sponsored Prayer Can Never Include Everyone. That’s One Reason Why It’s A Bad Idea:
The insistence by some government officials that there must be a public expression of faith or it doesn’t count is curious
READ MORE » [link removed]

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