One of my favorite secular organizations is the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), of which I’m a member of the “honorary board”. But even honorary boards should play an advisory role, and so I’m doing that here by calling attention to the organization’s mission creep.
In previous posts, I noted that the organization, which is dedicated to keeping church and state separate—a most laudatory goal—had branched out into areas that didn’t really aim at that goal. For example, they’ve gotten involved in legislation that promotes the participation of trans women in women’s sports, which is not only not a church/state issue, but is unfair and, I think, harmful to women’s rights. The FFRF also branched out into disability rights. That’s a cause I do support, but is not in the stated ambit of the FFRF. At the time I posted about this, I wrote:
This time, the FFRF is making a push for disability rights. While I’m in favor of disability rights, I don’t see them as connected in any way with the separation of church and state. This latest move, on top of the unwise support for transsexual girls participating in public school sports (especially when they’re post pubescent), shows that the organization is expanding into the realm of social justice, just as the ACLU and SPLC has. In general, I see such an expansion as unwise, especially when it involves misguided stands like those about transgender women athletes.
This, too, isn’t a church/state issue, but in both cases above the FFRF has tried to justify entering these areas by saying that they’re forms of “Christian nationalism.” That is, Christian nationalists may oppose trans activism more than do “regular” Americans, and may also be more often against disability rights, though that connection seems more nebulous. Here’s what the FFRF said about that:
Disability rights are a state/church issue.
While America’s conscience has not consistently recognized this, there are clear ties between the Christian nationalist ideology that pervades legislation and the ongoing reality of stagnant and inadequate disability rights laws. The dangerous theocratic Christian ideology that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned is the same ideology that continues to play a part in the oppression of the 61 million disabled adults across the United States. This ideology has guided both harmful disability rights policy and the dismantling of abortion rights. To put it simply, if you care about disability rights, then you also care about the separation of state and church
That didn’t convince me that much. Several of us wrote to the FFRF about this expanding mission, but the organization simply stuck to its guns that these are church/state issues.
Now the FFRF has expanded its mission again—this time promoting voting rights and some legal attempts to make it hard for minorities to vote, even if they’re citizens. That, too, is a form of activism I favor, but, like the cases above, the FFRF justifies this activism as opposing Christian nationalism. In the latest issue of their paper, Freethought Today (click on the headline), there’s an article by Sammi Lawrence, “FFRF’s Anne Nicol Gaylor Legal Fellow,” justifying a push for voting rights on the grounds that opposing those rights is one goal of Christian nationalism. Click the headline to read.
Again, I favor opposing attempts to restrict voting, but that is simply not a church state issue. Here’s how Ms. Lawrence justifies it:
A vibrant, fully franchised electorate is the best guarantee to protect our secular Constitution and government. Without a functioning democracy, the wall of separation between state and church cannot be protected or rebuilt. A diverse and fully enfranchised electorate ensures that no single religion, sect or group can take charge of government and privilege itself or discriminate against others. Protecting voting rights, and thus our democracy, is therefore a state/church issue that should concern all secular Americans
. . . . A three-judge panel in Arkansas State Conference of the NAACP v. Arkansas Board of Apportionment has ruled that private parties, including membership organizations, cannot sue to enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Judge David Stras, a President Trump appointee who FFRF highlighted in its 2020 report on the Christian nationalist takeover of the federal courts, wrote for the majority, saying only the federal government may sue to enforce Section 2. For context, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits states from creating voting laws that discriminate against voters on the basis of race, and it has become one of the cornerstones of our country’s civil rights laws since it was enacted in 1964.
This is thin gruel and tortured logic. To say that this is a church/state issue because only a fully franchised citizenry can enforce the Constitution, or that the federal courts are being infested with Christian nationalists, does not show that voting rights is a church/state issue. If you want to say that, then any belief or act that can be connected with Christianity or Christian nationalism becomes a church/state issue. But fighting for voting rights does nothing to keep that First Amendment wall up.
In fact, I’d say that those who benefit most from enforcing voting rights, minorities who are mostly black, are those most likely to be religious. As a 2018 Pew Poll found, and this has been true for decades, “Black Americans are more likely than overall public to be Christian, Protestant.” That doesn’t mean that they’re more likely to be “Christian Nationalists,” of course, but the more religious someone is, the more likely they are to favor erasing the wall between church and state. Atheists don’t oppose the Establishment Clause.
The issue is certainly one of civil rights, but not Establishment Clause rights.
If the FFRF wants to expand its mission, it should admit that frankly, and not engage in this kind of circumlocution to justify its expansion. It’s unseemly and illogical. And, in the case of transgender activisim, by buying into progressive politics, the creep can even be harmful.
And this is my say as an Honorary Board member. The ACLU and the SPLC were once fine secular organizations devoted to protecting everyone’s civil rights. Now both are circling the drain (the SPLC is actually in the drain) because they decided that social justice is as important—or more important—than civil rights. I’d hate to see my beloved FFRF go the same route.
I stopped my re-occurring donation awhile back because of this stuff…
Me, too.
A few months ago I had a related email exchange with Annie Laurie Gaylor, president of the FFRF. I offered some comments about the content of a podcast that focused on trans issues.
I was pleased by her willingness to reply and engage. I was not so pleased with what I consider to be her rather unthoughtful and shallow response itself. FWIW — I still support the organization, but sure wish it would stick to its focal mission. A copy of the email exchange is below.
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Re: Ask an Atheist with guest Kat Grant: Anti-trans legislation
I wanted to comment on a couple of issues raised during the discussion, and then argue that it is a mistake for FFRF to take on this topic as a FFR issue.
First – I appreciate that at the beginning of the discussion you directly addressed the question of why FFRF is taking this issue on as a cause. I also appreciated that Liz Cavell repeatedly made the point that not everyone who opposes some elements of modern gender ideology are Christian Nationalist bigots. Thank you.
A few comments regarding claims made by the guest, Kat Grant.
Grant stated that “these beliefs [referring to beliefs that run counter to trans/gender ideology] are inherently religious.” It may be true that many people ground their anti-trans/gender ideology beliefs in their acceptance of particular religious doctrines. However, it is patently untrue that the beliefs themselves are “inherently religious”. MANY atheists hold beliefs that are inconsistent with cores aspects of trans/gender ideology. Does Kat really think that Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer (and many other well-known atheists) hold beliefs about gender that are fully consonant with those of Grant – and that their opposing beliefs are “inherently religious”? That’s simply an illogical claim.
Perhaps the most egregiously incorrect of Grant’s claims was the statement that the science of puberty blockers and the benefits of so-called “gender affirming care” is settled. That statement is a gross misrepresentation of reality, and it is hard to believe that both Grant and Clavell are unaware of the scientific controversies regarding the use of puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery with gender dysphoric children. A claim like that should not have gone unchallenged. For references – read Jesse Singal, Leor Sapir, and others who have reviewed the uncertain state of the current scientific literature. The claim made by Grant is factually wrong. And yes – I know that the AMA and AAP advocate for the use of puberty blockers and gender affirming care. That does not make the SCIENCE settled (as medical associations in England, Finland, and Sweden have acknowledged.
Both Grant and Clavell laughingly dismissed concerns about transfemales participating in female sports in part on the grounds that there are very few such cases. First – there are obviously more such cases than Grant and Clavell realize (they just aren’t all as high profile as Lia Thomas). But more to the point – if it’s wrong and unfair, then how many cases do there need to be for it to be considered an issue worthy of attention? When I was in second grade, I was one of only two Jews in my K-8 school. An evangelist was invited by my teacher to speak about accepting Jesus. We were all given little new testaments. When my parents complained, it was initially argued by the school that the invitation was fine because of how few Jews were in the school. It was a lousy argument then, and equally lousy when used by Grant to denigrate those who oppose permitting transfemales to participate in female sports.
As an aside –
Next time FFRF discusses the sports issue, it would be helpful if the discussants would start by discussing why we have two sex-based categories for sports competitions at all. Only by first reflecting on the reason(s) why we have women’s sports can there be a reasoned discussion of the question of who should be permitted to participate.
OK – now to the question of why I think it is a mistake for FFRF to take on gender ideology issues as part of its focus and mission.
I appreciate that the question of what qualifies as a FFR issue is a complex one. A few months ago, Freethought Today published a piece that included factually incorrect information about methods of teaching reading. It is true that many religious conservatives share a particular view regarding the best way to teach reading. But that in and of itself does not make that a FFR issue, because there is nothing inherently religious about believing in the benefits of phonics instruction. BTW – the believers in phonics instruction happen to be 100% correct (as a cognitive psychologist who has done research on reading, it’s a topic I know a lot about). I would argue that, similarly to the topic of reading instruction, modern gender ideology and its related issues is not one that is inherently religious. Again – many people may hold a particular viewpoint because of their religious beliefs, but many people hold those same beliefs for reasons that are grounded in science, rather than religion. I stand by my claim that no one who is familiar with the scientific literature regarding gender affirming care can honestly claim that its use with children is based upon “settled science”. Similarly, one can (and many do) oppose participation by transfemales in female sports for reasons that have nothing to do with religion at all.
The more general point is that the more that FFRF strays from its core focus, the more that it will become just another “progressive” organization that has lost its way and its effectiveness.
Hopefully my comments will provide some food for thought. Keep up the good fight!
Thanks.
Regards
Rob
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Thanks, Prof. Guttentag, we will bear your thoughtful comments in mind. We have two staff now who use “they” pronouns including Kat, whose legal speciality is LGBTQ law – Kat’s in the first of 2 years as a legal fellow here. I have to say: both are really lovely people to work with and very dedicated to our cause. It’s hard to remember the pronouns, tho!
I did want to reassure you that a second piece was run on phonics to counter the first. I was also taken aback on that piece, which had really been written years ago. So a rebuttal ran as well as a few letters.
My twin brother taught Direct Instruction for a charter school for years and in fact taught our then-kindergartner to read using it. He had interned with a UW prof who’s a nonbeliever and whose family are all members. She is what made that charter school happen. I also used Direct Instruction with multiplication tables when I tutored a young Cambodian-American (first generation) 4th grader one year, and it really helped him. So I don’t regard phonics as as rightwing plot either :).
With thanks for being a member,
Annie Laurie
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Dear Annie Laurie
Thanks for your prompt and thoughtful reply to my email. Much appreciated. At the risk of venturing into the realm of “crank”, let me offer just a couple of comments in response to your email.
>> I have to say: both are really lovely people to work with and very dedicated to our cause.
I hope my email did not suggest I thought otherwise. I do, however, stand by my claim that Kat made claims on important issues during the discussion that are simply factually wrong, and I’m sorry those claims were not challenged.
I also remain convinced that it is harmful to the mission of FFRF for the foundation to take a stand on gender ideology issues. As I suspect you are aware, the ACLU has now abandoned its most sacred core principles and become an organization that opposes freedom of speech and supports book banning, all in the service of taking a strong position on gender ideology issues. It is sad to see FFRF starting to lose its focus for the same reason.
I do thank you (and the many other hard working people at FFRF) for championing the rights of those who wish to live lives with the same rights accorded to the religious.
Regards
Rob
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Not surprisingly, I did not receive another reply from FFRF.
While this extensive comment may have broken the “people talking too much” rule, I found it very interesting. Because it’s hard to make a case against gay marriage (or gay rights in general) without using religion or religious assumptions, many atheist organizations seem to be working on the assumption that social justice as a whole is embedded in an Atheist World View or something like that. No, ALG certainly didn’t address your actual point.
Re. “it’s hard to make a case against gay marriage (or gay rights in general) without using religion or religious assumptions”.
I would modify this just slightly, to the effect of “it’s hard to make a convincing moral case against …”, because it’s rather easy to make a case against gay marriage/rights without using religion or religious assumptions. In fact, many societies have forbidden or stigmatized all kinds of things or behaviours simply because they do not conform to the norm, i.e. the (often numerically quite significant) majority. Being left handed, e.g., has often been strongly stigmatized and corrected in some cultures, religious connotations not necessarily being attached.
Echoing Sastra here — yes, thank you for sharing your exchange with Annie Laurie Gaylor. It was revealing that she conspicuously avoided addressing your complaint. The FFRF asserts that opposing trans “rights” is “inherently religious”, and I find that personally offensive. “Gaslighting”, as the young people say. Don’t call me religious! Ironically, believing that a man becomes a woman, and thereby has a right to women’s intimate spaces and their rights, based entirely on his assertion about his state of mind, is much closer to a religion than the gender-critical view.
Dismissing the concern about men competing in women’s sport on the grounds that there aren’t very many of them misses the point that one solitary man such as Lia Thomas at a women’s swim meet ruins it for hundreds of women, none of whom now have any chance of winning whatever events he chooses to enter. Rationally, at some probability that a meet will include a man, the women should just not show up unless, like Riley Gaines, they can parlay a second-place finish into a moral victory, or they should abandon the sport altogether at the competitive level where winning matters.
It was disingenuous for FFRF to slide over Prof. Guttentag’s objection that way.
Besides, “this happens a lot for something that never happens”, says Ms. Gaines, reacting to another “historic” record-setting performance by a man. Even better, she seems to have shamed a university into revoking a sports scholarship offer to a high-school student the university claims to have not known was a male — it says the student and family concealed the fact throughout his application.
This adds another dimension for FFRF to chew on: it won’t do merely to advocate for “transwomen” to play women’s sports; rather they will have to have an opinion about verifying the sex of all female college athletes, all because of trans-inclusion policies in highschools that encourage dissembling.
https://www.sportskeeda.com/swimming/news-the-power-public-opinion-accountability-riley-gaines-university-washington-revoking-transgender-volleyball-player-s-scholarship
I’m with you. I’m a long-time supporter of the FFRF, with a Lifetime Member lapel pin and everything, and I’m very disappointed in these developments, especially their efforts to diminish the rights of women.
What you are witnessing is the evolution of organizations that championed liberal ideals to pursuing illiberal ideology. It’s the same thing Mr. Bennett described occurred at the NYT.
When orgs like FFRF that lack a gender brief get involved in “trans rights” anyway, it’s almost always because one of the principals is the parent of a “trans” child and has had a come-to-Jesus moment (ha ha). FFRF has several they-them enbies on the staff
https://ffrf.org/about/staff-board
but IDK whether any of the directors of others who drive this policy have trans kids. Seems likely.
“but IDK whether any of the directors of others who drive this policy have trans kids. Seems likely.”
A form of blackmail – Helen Joyce expands on that idea somewhere, but might not call it blackmail.
BTW that is how cults work – blackmail.
Yes she was the first person I heard articulate this idea of capture & blackmail in her interview with Peter Boghossian.
Paraphrasing James Lindsay :
Christian Nationalism in 10000% an op.
This is the Critical Social Justice principle of Intersectionality being applied: since all bigotry comes from the same source (hatred, hierarchy, and control) all social justice is connected. Not one without the others.
If “religion ” is included with racism/sexism/transphobia/homophobia/conservativism etc, then it follows that liberal religious believers who endorse CSJ aren’t really religious, and atheists who don’t endorse it are actually religious.
Indeed so. It’s the “Atheism+” mentality that infected FreeThoughBlogs, the notion that in order to be a good atheist one had to support a whole roster of other “intersectional” causes.
Ripe starting materials for a dialectical synthesis.
How very disappointing. I had noticed this drift at FFRF without really thinking about it. If they abandon reason we’ll be left with just FIRE.
I agree. I am a “Lifetime Member” of FFRF and an ardent supporter of their core mission. But I am concerned that their message will be clouded by these, shall we say, expansive pursuits.
I can almost get the push for voting rights, though as Jerry notes, this doesn’t necessarily translate into support for the Establishment Clause. But the forays into disability rights and particularly trans-activism are not the reasons I joined FFRF. And to clarify, I am not “anti-trans” or “transphobic”, so I would appreciate any other FFRF members refraining from the usual knee-jerk reaction of labeling every dissenter as such. I simply agree that it is a distraction, and probably a harmful one to the cause, when dealing with the separation of church and state.
The comparison to the ACLU is a worrisome one. I was once a “card carrying member” of that organization but I dropped my support when they abandoned their principles and turned into a pale shadow of what they once were. Claiming that their recent agreement to defend the NRA means that they’re the same as when they defended the march in Skokie is just a smoke screen to obscure their move to illiberal activism.
I don’t think FFRF will do that, but as I know from a lifetime of being nonreligious, being an atheist can at times be socially awkward. FFRF itself touts people who are “out of the closet atheists”, which clearly illustrates the point. We have enough on our plate in combating theocracy without confusing the message.
FFRF’s mission need not be defined in a suffocatingly narrow manner, but forays into “progressive” activism should be eliminated. Attempting to justify such activism by claiming it has relevance to church-state separation is disingenuous and will, I believe, result in a net loss of support and membership for the organization and a diminishing effectiveness for the core mission. I sincerely hope that Annie Laurie and Dan do not believe otherwise.
Oops, sorry, didn’t see the new rule about not talking too much before I posted this. I’ll follow the rule in the future.
What happened with to the ACLU?
So not Frredom from Religion, but a ministry of the new religion.
Thou shalt have no other gods before Ze.
I first noticed some odd “mission creep” postings earlier this year by FFRF on the X-Twitter platform, seeing advocacy by them for Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ issues, among others.
But what recently caused me to actually write to an FFRF staff member was an odd posting (on X-Twitter) by FFRF about a BBC news story, “Scientists close in on fifth force of nature.”
https://x.com/FFRF/status/1708966946912276513
FFRF wrote (or quoted), “If confirmed, this would represent arguably one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs for a hundred years… That is because a fifth force and any particles associated with it are not part of the Standard Model of particle physics.”
Why should FFRF waste time on what is arguably an esoteric and speculative subject? It’s not like there aren’t enough science journals and online websites devoted to science. (Or to science-y hype.)
I’m concerned that the main reason I support FFRF with a monthly donation ($20) may be eroding. I think an influx of younger staff members might be behind these recent changes.
I agree. FFRF used to be great. USED to be. Like the SPLC, ACLU etc. Like the BBC, Pan Am and Time Magazine. Look at our universities, for eg.
Getting one’s head around organizational change/decline is an essential skill we (including myself) aren’t naturally good at. We can see when Grandad is too old to safely drive, but institutions….
Unis particularly because we judge them almost entirely on “our days” often decades in the past (though PCCE is closer to his).
And both decline slowly, Grandpa and the above organizations.
D.A.
NYC
They should stay in their lane. Drifting outside forces them to pick and choose their “issues,” inevitably splitting their constituency into factions. Why do that? It will only weaken their support. Stop!
Oy yoy yoy
I perceive in all this
the well studied need to appear virtuous
the fear of standing against the status quo
the fuzzies of taking an apparently prosocial stance
the fuzzies from turning uncomfortable complexity into comfortable simplicity
the mad rush to take a stand even over issues that may require years of study first before a reasonable stance is possible
a disinterest in fostering consensus and building bridges
increased narcissism (my view must be expressed)
(not expressing it is tantamount to taking the opponent position)
and …..
I considered joining a few years ago but already was noticing a few things that gave me pause. One was what I considered an undercurrent of smugness. Instead of saying “having the 10 commandments on school grounds is a violation of the constitution” the tone was “having the 10 commandments on school grounds is a violation of the constitution you stupid hicks”. I also noticed a few earlier forays into social justice. I ultimately chose not to join. It is too bad since we really need an organization that focuses on separation of church and state.
Yes, it’s a short step from that to what they are doing now.
I suspect that Christian nationalists tend to one side or the other in the astronomical discussion of whether Pluto should be listed as a planet or not. If we can just find out which side they took, surely we expect the FFRF (and the ACLU and etc.) to deliver a ringing endorsement of the other side, whichever it is.
It is a peculiar inconsistency, to carry the name “Freedom From Religion” while promoting or defending gnostic-Hermetic cult alchemy and tactics.
So glad so many people recognized and are ready to fight back. This interests me, an environmental activist since the 1960s, because the social justice warriors (SJW) went rogue and changed the term “climate change” to “climate justice” and continue to co-opt environmentalism at every opportunity. If one were paranoid one might thing that there are hidden corporations out there who are funding the SJW so as to undercut and sabotage environmental activism. The hard core liberals who virtue signal and pull back in horror at the thought of someone calling them “racists” are responsible for letting this happen. Social justice and environmentalism have a thin connection but the former has only a social base, not a science base which should be the foundation of ecological thinking and
change. They have different constituencies, with the SJW having infiltrated environmental groups and effectively sidelined the former in favor of their absurd
“intersectionality”. If this trend isn’t reversed and ended, there may be no actual
environmental movement to hold corporations and government feet to the fire.
Let’s fight back wherever we see this happening. SJW doesnt give a fig for the fate of the earth; it just uses racism and poverty as excuses to promote their own agenda. It is all sickening.
What a hoot. An organization dedicated to the separation of church and state has joined the intersectionality movement, a quasi-religious movement that seeks to remake society, in part, through changes to governmental policies and personnel. I love humans!