Executive Branch

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Responding to recent comments by President Barack Obama and a top White House official, the Secular Coalition for America today urged the Obama administration to stop ignoring faith-based and taxpayer-funded employment discrimination and recommit to the president’s 2008 campaign promise to overturn the Bush-era policy that allows such discrimination to occur.   Read more »

WASHINGTON, D.C. – At a live-televised town hall meeting in College Park, Maryland, today, President Barack Obama gave the first question opportunity to Amanda Knief of the Secular Coalition for America, who asked the president why he has still not fulfilled the campaign promise he made three years ago to end the Bush-era policies that allow federally funded religious organizations to discriminate in hiring and employment on the basis of belief.   Read more »

A letter to our constituency from Acting Director Ron Millar

Apr. 27, 2009

Dear friends,

I am writing to tell you about my meeting last week, along with other representatives of CARD (Coalition Against Religious Discrimination), with Joshua DuBois, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

I entered the meeting with very mixed emotions. Although I was glad that the Secular Coalition for America has the political connections to meet face-to-face with the person who runs President Obama's new faith-based office, I was saddened that this meeting was even taking place -- saddened that our new president has decided to continue the failed faith-based policies of his predecessor.  Read more »

Constitutional-Scholar-in-Chief Highlights American Secular Values

For Immediate Release: April 8, 2009
Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679

Washington, DC – The Secular Coalition for America heartily endorses the words spoken by President Barack Obama during a press conference in Turkey this week: "One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."  Read more »

The Secular Coalition for America is pleased that President Obama has signed an executive order ending his predecessor's restrictions on stem cell research. Medical experts agree that embryonic stem cell research has great potential to help alleviate or even cure many devastating medical conditions.

Opponents of stem cell research can provide no medical or scientific support for their position. Instead, they offer only a biblical claim that these cells constitute human life. The Secular Coalition has consistently argued that such theological arguments have no place in sound science policy.

With this decision, President Obama has empowered the National Institutes of Health to devise a plan for pursuing research on the most promising stem cell lines - research that may someday lead to the alleviation of tremendous human suffering.  Read more »

With reports indicating President Obama will accept the traditional role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America, the Secular Coalition calls on him to use his power to move the Boy Scouts beyond their "traditional values" and to practice the American values of diversity and tolerance. The Coalition also hopes the First Lady, likely to become Girl Scouts' honorary president, uses her position to promote that group's enlightened embrace of diversity.