Friend:

Every week, I’m amazed at what Americans United’s team accomplishes. Even as we face a movement of emboldened Christian Nationalists attacking church-state separation at every turn, AU is making strides to protect religious freedom and a host of related issues, from inclusive public education to abortion rights to LGBTQ equality. 

Here’s just a taste of some of our successes in the last week:

• Last weekend we celebrated the defeat of a West Virginia bill that would have invited public school educators to teach intelligent design – an inherently religious creation belief that has no place in public schools. As we repeatedly explained to state lawmakers, an AU case nearly 20 years ago resoundingly proved intelligent design was simply creationism rebranded. It’s religion, not science. It belongs in Sunday schools, not public schools.
• In Missouri, we expanded the lawsuit we filed with the National Women’s Law Center to challenge the state’s abortion bans and added a 14th faith leader to our roster of plaintiffs. Like the other clergy plaintiffs, the Rev. Darryl Gray, a Progressive Baptist from one of St. Louis' oldest Black congregations, deeply values abortion rights and church-state separation. AU is very honored to represent these faith leaders who are helping us take back the narrative to affirm that church-state separation protects religious freedom – and fight the false narrative that church-state separation and abortion rights are anti-religion.
• Decades of effort by AU’s Policy Department to protect the religious freedom of vulnerable people who rely on government-funded social services is about to pay off. Since the 1990s, AU and the Coalition Against Religious Discrimination (CARD) – a coalition of 50+ national organizations that AU leads – have worked to ensure that there are strong religious-freedom safeguards built into the rules that apply to government partnerships with religious and other nonprofit social-service providers. At our urging, the Biden administration is about to restore protections for beneficiaries of social services that the Trump administration had gutted. This week AU and our allies submitted extensive public comments to thank the administration for what it got right and suggest some changes to make the new rules even better.

It’s so important to note the many ways we continue to make progress given the real challenges we face these days. I write this positive message knowing well, for example, that an activist federal judge in Texas (who worked for the Shadow Network before his lifetime appointment) could be on the cusp of issuing a nationwide ban on a key medication for medical abortion. 
 
Let’s celebrate our wins. We’re in this fight together and we refuse to let up. With your support, we can achieve a country that promises freedom without favor and equality without exception for everyone. 

With hope and determination,

Rachel K. Laser
President and CEO