2007 Year-End Report on the 110th Congress

Tell-a-Friend
Dec. 4, 2007

The face of Capitol Hill changed in January of 2007. We wondered if our lobbying work at the Secular Coalition for America would change, too. This report midway through the 110th Congress looks both ways as we reflect on our accomplishments this past year and anticipate the challenges ahead of us in 2008.

There is good news about this Congress: the Religious Right is no longer driving new policy initiatives. We've been spared the flurry of legislation on everything from court stripping to posting the Ten Commandments in public spaces. These bills are still being introduced, but the Religious Right can no longer rely on committee chairs to move their initiatives forward. Our focus in upcoming sessions will largely be undoing the damage inflicted during their fourteen-year reign.

Still, there is much room for progress in the second half of this session. Despite the new majority that took control of Congress last January, legislators have so far failed to demonstrate real leadership on some key issues that matter to our constituency. In particular, the Secular Coalition for America had hoped to see reversals, or at least de-funding, of Religious Right programs currently in place, such as:

• abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education
• the president's faith-based initiatives
• religious school vouchers in the District of Columbia
• RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act)

Government programs which privilege religion will be high on our agenda in the coming months.

The Secular Coalition for America has been working with allied organizations to encourage the new majority to embrace its control of Congress and find the courage to protect the separation of church and state. Our active participation in coalitions comprised of both religious and secular organizations has also strengthened the image of nontheists as viable players in the policy arena. As we enter the 2008 election cycle, we look forward to securing commitments from both sides of the aisle to preserve our Constitution and secular state.

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A growing presence on Capitol Hill

In addition to our projects with partners, the Secular Coalition for America has been actively meeting with individual members of Congress and their staff to present the position of nontheists on issues affecting our constituency. As we conclude our second year with full-time staff here in Washington, we are becoming better known in the halls of Congress. The relationships we have built allow our voice not only to be heard, but to be attentively considered by elected officials.

In September, this outreach paid off. We organized a lobby day for participants in the Atheist Alliance International annual conference to help nontheists feel comfortable participating in the political process. As a direct result of our citizen lobbying that day, Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) agreed to co-sponsor the "Prevention First Act of 2007," a bill mandating that rape victims get access to emergency contraception and that federally funded sex education be comprehensive and medically accurate.

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The budget process and earmarks

Each fall, Congress focuses on the federal budget and appropriations, including the insertion of earmarks -- a mechanism by which individual members of Congress direct government funds to organizations and projects in their home districts. Many of these earmarks fund projects that would never survive open debate or public scrutiny. Therefore, earmarking is often the preferred method for funding religious organizations.

We are pleased to report that our lobbying recently defeated one of the more egregious earmarks this budget season. Working with other organizations, we succeeded in forcing Senator David Vitter (R-LA) to withdraw his earmark for the Louisiana Family Forum, a creationist organization planning to craft a "science" curriculum for Louisiana public schools. That money will now be used for science lab equipment and computers instead of theology instruction in science classes.

Another example of covert funding attempts was Senator Sam Brownback's (R-KS) earmark on the Transportation / HUD Appropriations Act (HR 3074) for the construction of dormitory facilities at a Christian-only camp. The camp advertises itself as a program for troubled youth, but a quick look at its Web site shows it is a training camp for evangelicals. Fortunately, this is one of many appropriations bills the president is vetoing. We now have more time to lobby members of Congress to remove these unconstitutional earmarks.

The Secular Coalition is also working to reduce funding for established programs like abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education. While the Senate version of the recent appropriations bill did cut abstinence-only funding, the House version actually increased it beyond the president’s budget request. Senate leaders on the Conference Committee assured us that their version would prevail, but the House version with its increased funding was sent to the president. Because this is another budget bill the president vetoed, we do have more time to convince Congress to cut funding for ineffective and religiously driven abstinence-only programs.

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Congress bans religious discrimination in Head Start

For the first time in five years, we celebrated a Head Start victory in the House Education and Workforce Committee. In previous sessions, the House passed amendments (which later died in the Senate) to allow Head Start programs run by religious organizations to discriminate in hiring based on religion. This year's committee vote drew applause from the audience, and a later effort to resuscitate the amendment on the House floor was also defeated. Congress passed the Head Start reauthorization with its civil rights protections intact, and it was signed into law by the president.

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Proselytizing in the military

The Secular Coalition for America has met several times with members of Congress and their staff on the growing problem of harassment in the military of the "unchurched" (i.e., anyone who is not a born-again Christian). We partnered with Mikey Weinstein's Military Religious Freedom Foundation to distribute information about more than 6,000 military proselytizing complaints the Foundation has received in the past two years. While some of these complaints will be processed through the judicial system, our focus has been to alert members of Congress to a pervasive atmosphere of "Christian crusading" in the military. We are expressing our concern about harassment endured by service members and pointing out the dangerous message a U.S. military filled with Christian crusaders sends to the international community.

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Rep. Pete Stark goes public as nontheist

The Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy presented Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) with its annual award in conjunction with a lecture he gave on the campus in September. Next year he will accept the American Humanist Association's Humanist of the Year Award.

As most of you know, Rep. Stark went public through our contest to identify the highest level openly nontheistic elected official in the U.S., which generated hundreds of news articles. The Coalition anticipates that his pioneering leadership and exemplary public service will encourage other elected officials to "come out" as nontheists and dispel the general public's misplaced distrust of atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists.

Following his historic announcement Rep. Stark told the media, "I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services."

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Our work for 2008

Stem cell research

We will lobby for a veto-proof majority to expand embryonic stem cell research. Existing limitations are perhaps the cruelest consequence of theocratic governance. They put narrow religious ideology ahead of the needs of people suffering from debilitating diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and juvenile diabetes, plus spinal cord injuries and other devastating medical conditions.

Vouchers for religious education

We will continue to educate new members of Congress about the issues surrounding vouchers for religious schools. Working with a number of allied organizations, we have distributed information to Congress and supporters about attempts to sneak "parochiaid" into legislation. Our work paid off last January when the Senate defeated Sen. Gordon Smith's (R-OR) amendment to extend tax incentives for religious school tuition.

We are lobbying to end a voucher program in the District of Columbia. According to the Catholic Church, tuition vouchers are an effort to "save" D.C.'s parochial schools using taxpayer dollars. The program funds everything from staff salaries to catechism classes. We are working with other organizations to bring the program to an early end by eliminating funding for the next fiscal year. At that time the responsibility for these costs would return to the sponsoring churches.

Faith-based programs

We were proud to participate in a February rally supporting our Coalition member, the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Their U.S. Supreme Court case, Hein v. FFRF, challenged the White House's faith-based initiatives (specifically, coaching designed to give religious groups an edge over secular groups in the competition for federal grants).

We were disappointed that the Court limited taxpayer standing in this case, severely restricting citizen access to the courts when challenging presidential actions that contravene the Establishment Clause. In response, the Secular Coalition for America is now lobbying Congress to investigate the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

There has been a shift of government grants away from secular social service providers and toward the Bush administration's favored religious institutions. We are citing language from the Hein decision indicating that Congress has the power -- in our view, an obligation -- to proactively address abuses of faith-based grant-making. Thus far these initiatives have not been held accountable to taxpayers.

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Media attention expands

In addition to the tremendous media attention surrounding Rep. Stark's announcement and a Boston Globe article on his lecture for the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy, the activities of the Secular Coalition for America continue to pique interest around the world. A feature article about us was published in the Christian Science Monitor on Jan. 4.

Also in January, CNN contacted the Secular Coalition for an interview and to request contacts of people who had experienced discrimination for their nontheistic beliefs. We were diappointed that CNN's Paula Zahn Now used only one sentence of a half-hour taped interview, and that only theists appeared on the discussion panel following the segment. The biased production drew justified outrage from our community, convincing CNN to invite Secular Coalition advisor Richard Dawkins to provide an atheist perspective on a later show.

The Secular Coalition for America was mentioned in several articles reporting the growth of nontheists both in number and visibility. The Washington Post ran a Sep. 15 article titled In America, Nonbelievers Find Strength in Numbers. The New York Times used us extensively as a resource on religion in electoral politics. Unfortunately, the July 22 article, God ’08: Whose, and How Much, Will Voters Accept?, implied that a candidate's religion is the voter's best gauge of individual morality. The Coalition protested in a letter to the editor, published four days later.

In June the Secular Coalition for America was featured on more than a half dozen shows on Radio Row during the "Take Back America" Conference in Washington, D.C. The Coalition also had an information booth at this annual event.

The Secular Coalition for America is indebted to its member organizations for providing speaking opportunities at their conventions and for including our content in their publications, Web sites, podcasts and blogs. The Coalition has received generous exposure from the nontheist community, including Skepticality, the official podcast of Skeptic magazine, and the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science.

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Coalition growth

Collaboration

In February the Secular Coalition for America co-hosted the Heads III Summit with the American Humanist Association. This is the third annual meeting of the leaders of national atheist, humanist, freethinker and other nontheist organizations. In 2007 over 25 organizations were represented to exchange ideas and build collaborative associations.

Military atheists join Coalition

We are very pleased to report that in February our board voted to include the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) in the Coalition. This marks a doubling of members since the Coalition's founding in 2002.

MAAF provides a community of support and a public voice for the men and women without god-belief who serve in our armed forces. Jason Torpy, president of MAAF, stated, "My group has greatly benefited from the work of the Secular Coalition for America and we are excited to become an official member of the organization. We will provide support and a constituency of service members and veterans to ensure that our political leaders act on the Coalition's important message."

The current atmosphere in the U.S. military is especially problematic for nontheist service members. The most outrageous affront to freedom of conscience may be the threats against Spc. Jeremy Hall, first for holding an approved freethought meeting in Iraq, and later for attempting to protect his right to do so.

Harris, Hitchens, Rushdie on advisory board

Our advisory board has grown, too. In January we added our thirteenth advisor, author Christopher Hitchens, whose latest book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was released earlier this year. In April the advisory board expanded further with the addition of Sam Harris, best known for his books The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. Our most recent advisor is author Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses caused the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran to issue a fatwa that generated numerous death threats and an assassination attempt against the author. In 2007 the Queen of England awarded Mr. Rushdie a knighthood for his services to literature. We welcome Mr. Hitchens, Mr. Harris, and Sir Rushdie to our distinguished and diverse advisory board.

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Tell-a-Friend

The Coalition has been successful in 2007 because of the support of concerned Americans just like you. Thank you! We look forward to lobbying on your behalf in 2008.

Sincerely,
Lori Lipman Brown, Director
Secular Coalition for America