Friend:

As we approach Thanksgiving and the beginning of the 2020 winter season, I’m sure the usual celebrations and rituals look a little different for you this year – they certainly will for my family. This year, we will replace our extended family gathering with a Zoom, and I will be trying to get my young adult kids, two of whom are home from college, to do a family hike followed by some joint cooking. Wish me luck!

COVID-19 continues to surge, and sadly that means more pain in our communities, more lives lost, and more lawsuits demanding religious exemptions from science-based public health restrictions. Two significant legal challenges to New York’s temporary restrictions on large, in-person gatherings have reached the Supreme Court.

AU filed friend-of-the-court briefs in both of these cases, explaining that the Court has never before – and should not now – mandate a religious exemption when doing so would inflict substantial harm on people beyond the individual or entity seeking the exemption. In this case, it’s now been shown time and time again that religious gatherings are super-spreaders and risk harm to entire communities.

AU’s work on these cases also underscores that, in many core issue areas for church-state separation, the threats to religious freedom will remain even after President Trump is out of office. I spoke on NPR’s Morning Edition about what the fight for religious freedom will look like under the Biden-Harris administration, emphasizing the need for swift executive action.

Click here to listen to NPR’s 4-minute Morning Edition segment (you’ll hear me about two minutes in).

Friend, this is not an easy moment. The days are shorter, there is an increase in coronavirus, and too many of us won’t be able to share the upcoming holidays with our loved ones.

But this community – that you have helped build – gives me and our staff much-needed hope to fight hard and fight forward. You are fiercely loyal, you care deeply about freedom of conscience for everyone, and you make AU a force to be reckoned with in the courts, in Congress, and across the states. You are why we are ready right now to seize the opportunity to reclaim religious freedom.

Wishing everyone a joyful Thanksgiving.

With enormous thanks for all you do,