Today the Secular Coalition for America is relaunching its annual Bad Bill Madness campaign, a parody of the popular college basketball competition. The educational campaign pits 16 state bills from across the country into a two-versus-two tournament bracket and invites the Secular Coalition’s supporters to vote on which bill is the worst. The winner is awarded the infamous title of “Worst State Bill.”
The survey will be conducted on social media via the Secular Coalition for America’s Facebook and Twitter pages or via this link. Voting will be held in four rounds beginning today and concluding on April 4. The winner will be announced on April 6. The roster features bills covering a wide range of issues including reproductive rights, religious refusal laws, the teaching of creationism in public schools, and LGBT rights. Some notable contenders this year include Georgia’s HB 457, which actually suggests a Christian prayer to be used in public classrooms and Arkansas’ SB 289, which would allow doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and even insurance companies and employers to cite religious beliefs to deny patients necessary care during a scheduled visit or during an emergency.
“The campaign is an opportunity to shine a light on the attacks against our secular government that are occurring at the state level,” said Casey Brinck, Director of Policy and Government Affairs, “Our goal is to inspire activism through education. Lawmakers know that their attempts to impose religious privilege are largely unpopular and success depends on pushing these bills through quietly. The Secular Coalition for America and its supporters will not allow this to happen. The Bad Bill Madness campaign is one of the ways we’re sounding the alarm.”
Previous winners include bills such as Mississippi’s HB 786, the “Church Protection Act”. The bill deemed that “killing a person while acting as a participant of a church or place of worship security team is justifiable homicide.”
Contact: Andrew McCarty Grossen, Communications Manager, [email protected]
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The Secular Coalition for America is the nation’s premier advocacy organization representing atheists, humanists, agnostics, and other nontheists. Its mission is to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheistic viewpoints in the United States, and to protect and strengthen the secular character of our government as the best guarantee of freedom for all. The Secular Coalition represents 19 voting member organizations.
