News From The Week Of May 3 – May 7, 2021

Friend:

As the leading defender of church-state separation in our country, AU’s best-known work addresses nationwide threats on a large scale. I recently talked about many of those threats, especially the rising dangers of Christian nationalism in America, with Seth Andrews of the Thinking Atheist podcast ([link removed]).

But that’s only one part of our work. AU also has tremendous impact at the local level, often spurred by our members’ violation reports. Let me tell you about a recent victory we had in Detroit thanks to one of our members notifying us about a serious problem.

The city was directing tax dollars to the Faith Forward Fund, which helped faith-based and secular entities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, the program had no safeguards to prevent taxpayer money from being used for religious purposes and appeared to be giving special preference to religious applicants. As AU said in our letter to Detroit officials ([link removed]), that was unacceptable, and even the name of the program, Faith Forward Fund, “suggests that it is only for faith-based organizations and communicates a City preference for and endorsement of religion.”

AU laid out several suggestions to solve these issues, and made clear that it would be unconstitutional for the program to continue in its current form. City officials quickly responded by pulling taxpayer money from the program, and the program now includes additional safeguards to ensure that grant money is not used for religious purposes and that non-discrimination guidelines are observed. That’s a win for church-state separation if I ever saw one! I am so grateful to our supporter who alerted us to the situation.

Just like the work we do to combat Christian nationalism, these interventions at the local level are critical to protecting everyone’s religious freedom.

So please remember: If you experience a violation of church-state separation in your community, report it to AU on our website: [link removed]

Thanks for powering our work, friend. We couldn’t do this without you!

With hope and determination,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO

AU Complaint Prompts Detroit Officials To Alter Program That Gave Preference To Faith-Based Organizations:
Officials in Detroit have ceased involvement with a taxpayer-funded program after Americans United raised concerns about its legality and lack of religious freedom safeguards.
READ MORE » [link removed]

The National Day Of Prayer: It’s Still Annoying But Likely To Be Less Horrifying This Year:
It’s simply not the place of our secular government to direct its citizens on when, how or whether to pray. Government has no business even offering us advice on how to behave when it comes to religion.
READ MORE » [link removed]

The Challenges We Face Are New. Our Responses Should Be, Too:
From AU CEO Rachel Laser: We cannot make transformational progress until we understand what obstacles stand in the way of more people joining our cause.
READ MORE » [link removed]

An Arkansas Creationism Bill Has Failed To Evolve Into Law:
An Arkansas bill would have allowed the teaching of creationism alongside evolution in science classes.
READ MORE » [link removed]

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