More news

August Break Report on the 110th Congress

August 22, 2007

Overview

The Congress has recessed for its August break and will reconvene on September 4, 2007. This recess provides an opportunity to reflect on our efforts in the first eight months of the new 110th Congress and prepare for the remainder of the year.

Working with the 110th Congress has been both encouraging and discouraging. An encouraging aspect is that the atmosphere is completely different from the 109th -- the Religious Right is no longer driving policy initiatives. We do not have to fight against court stripping bills and bills seeking to post decalogues and other religious items in public sites. However, we are discouraged that the new majority does not have much enthusiasm -- or perhaps courage -- to reverse, or at least cut funding for, Religious Right policies that are currently in place such as abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, the president's faith-based initiatives, RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person's Act), and other programs that privilege religion.

But we have only just begun our efforts. Working alone and with allied organizations to protect the separation of church and state, we have been able to present the position of nontheists, often for the first time, to members of Congress and their staff. Our participation in issue coalition meetings with allied organizations (both religious and secular) has also strengthened the image of nontheists as viable actors in the policy arena with these important groups.

However, the most important advancement for our community was not legislative but personal.

Rep. Pete Stark Self-Identifies to Public as Nontheist

In March we made the announcement of the first ever self-identified nontheist member of Congress. Rep. Pete Stark's (D-Calif.) public notice of his nontheism through our contest to find the highest level nontheistic elected official generated hundreds of articles.

The Coalition hopes that his pioneering leadership and exemplary public service will encourage other nontheistic elected officials to talk about their beliefs and dispel the general public's misplaced distrust of atheists, humanists, freethinkers and other nontheists.

Following this 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."

We have met with his staff and will work to help Stark take a lead on these important issues in Congress. For the first time ever in Congress our community has a "seat at the table."

In addition to the press coverage, Rep. Stark was impressed with how the Secular Coalition handled the announcement and what a positive experience it was for him.

"The attention is amazing," he told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I don't know what the guys who put out the press release did, but I'd like to hire their PR person to run my next campaign. I have been inundated (with responses) from literally all over the world."

New Congress Bans Religious Discrimination in Head Start

In addition to our delight in having a member of our community in Congress, we enjoy working with the new 110th Congress. The atmosphere is completely different from the 109th, and change is in the air. For the first time in five years, we can celebrate the failure in the House Education and Workforce Committee of an amendment that would have allowed religious organizations running Head Start programs to discriminate based on religion in their hiring and firing of teachers. This vote drew applause from the audience in the committee room. And on May 2nd, efforts to insert this offensive amendment on the House floor were defeated.

On religious discrimination in the federal Head Start program and other issues, we work in a broad alliance with both religious and secular groups devoted to protecting the separation of church and state. Our active participation in these issue coalitions has strengthened the Secular Coalition for America's effectiveness and demonstrated our legitimacy as a policy participant.

While the theocratic right is no longer driving policy initiatives, we cannot be complacent. Hard work is still ahead of us in getting Congress to focus on the issues and actions our community and our theistic allies care about, such as a thorough audit/investigation of the use of public monies being funneled for partisan gain to so-called religious social service providers, cutting funding of the president's unconstitutional faith-based initiatives, revising regulations that would allow military chaplains to impose proselytizing on "the unchurched," and a review and revision of RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person's Act), which privileges religion over nonreligion.

Stem Cell Limits, Parochiaid, Boy Scout Funding Remain as Challenges

We came short of a veto-proof majority in expanding embryonic stem cell research in the Senate and, unfortunately, in the House as well. The limitation on this research is perhaps the cruelest result of theocratic governance, putting narrow religious ideology ahead of the needs of people suffering from debilitating diseases like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, juvenile diabetes, spinal cord injuries, and other devastating medical conditions. President Bush has promised to veto this potentially lifesaving research. Unless we gain two votes in the Senate and 37 votes in the House the president's veto will be sustained.

We are continuing efforts to educate the new members of both chambers about the issues surrounding vouchers for religious schools. Working with a number of allied organizations, we have distributed information about and discussed the ways some members of Congress try to sneak vouchers into various pieces of legislation. For example, in January the Senate defeated Senator Gordon Smith's (R-OR) amendment attempting to make permanent certain tax incentives supporting religious education.

We are also lobbying for an end to a voucher program in the District of Columbia, which the Catholic Church admits as "saving" D.C.'s parochial schools. The voucher amounts were enough to provide federal dollars to cover everything from paying staff to teaching catechism classes. We are working with about a dozen other groups to ensure that this program is not extended and, if possible, to eliminate funding for the next fiscal year (the last year of the program).

Unfortunately, we do not need to lobby against a resolution supporting federal funding of the Boy Scouts of America's (BSA) Jamborees. Based on a faulty interpretation of taxpayer standing in Establishment Clause cases, an appellate court decision held that the funding could continue. Had the court ruled in our favor, which we believe would have happened if the court had ruled on the merits of the case, we expected Congress to propose a resolution favoring funding. We were gearing up to lobby against such a resolution.

We were proud to participate in a February rally supporting our coalition member, Freedom From Religion Foundation, during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments regarding standing in the Hein v. FFRF case, a lawsuit challenging the White House's faith-based initiatives (specifically, conferences instructing religious groups how to top the secular competition when applying for federal grants). Unfortunately, the Court limited taxpayer standing in this case as well, making it virtually impossible to use the courts to curtail Presidential actions which contravene the Establishment Clause. The Secular Coalition for America is now citing language from the Hein decision which indicates that it is up to Congress to deal with issues surrounding abuses of faith-based grant-making, as we lobby Congress to investigate the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Thus far, these initiatives, and the process surrounding the shift of government grants away from secular social service providers and toward religious institutions, have not been held accountable to the taxpaying public.

Media Attention and Coalition Infrastructure Grow

In addition to the tremendous media attention surrounding Rep. Stark's announcement, our efforts continue to pique interest around the country. A feature article about us was published in the Christian Science Monitor (January 4, 2007). Also in January, CNN contacted Lori for an interview and requested contacts of people who experienced discrimination because of nontheistic beliefs; however, CNN only used one sentence of a half hour taped interview on Paula Zahn Now and the discussion panel following the segment was composed only of theists. The biased discussion drew justified outrage from our community, and the protest forced CNN to have Richard Dawkins, a member of our Advisory Board, appear on the show to provide an atheist perspective.

A reporter from the Los Angeles Times called us for some background information on a story regarding the fallout from a fraudulent study published in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine, which linked increased success rates for in vitro fertilization with prayer. We put the reporter in touch with Dr. Bruce Flamm, an Advisory Board member who first exposed the flaws and fraud of the research in 2004 and has continued to follow the careers of the study's three discredited authors.

The Secular Coalition for America was featured on more than half a dozen shows on Radio Row during the Take Back America Conference in Washington, D.C. The Coalition also had a booth at this conference. Recent coverage has been international including a radio interview on BBC. Lori Lipman Brown, Coalition Director, shed light on nontheist "morality" in a letter published in the New York Times.

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

Following the Summit, the board of the Secular Coalition voted to make the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF) a coalition member. The addition of MAAF 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."

Our Advisory Board has grown, too. In January we added our 13th advisor, author Christopher Hitchens, whose latest book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything was released earlier this month. 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. We welcome both Mr. Hitchens and Mr. Harris to our distinguished and diverse Advisory Board.

The Coalition has been successful because of support from hundreds of concerned Americans just like you. Thank you!