Freedom From Religion Foundation

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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American Freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism. The FFRF publishes Freethought Today, the only freethought newspaper in the United States. The organization pursues public interest lawsuits and engages in public debates to further their goals. Since 2006, the Foundation has produced the Freethought Radio show, currently the nation's only radio program for atheists, agnostics, and other freethinkers.

The FFRF was co-founded by Anne Nicol Gaylor and her daughter Annie Laurie Gaylor. Annie Laurie Gaylor is the author of Women Without Superstition : No Gods - No Masters (ISBN 1-877733-09-1), edits the FFRF newspaper Freethought Today, and serves as co-president with her husband Dan Barker, author of Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (ISBN 1-877733-07-5). Dan Barker is a musician and songwriter and a former fundamentalist Christian minister.

Contents

[edit] Important legal outcomes include

[edit] Wins

  • Winning the first federal lawsuit challenging direct funding by the government of a faith-based agency
  • Overturning a state Good Friday holiday - plaintiffs included Foundation staff and state employees
  • Winning a lawsuit barring direct taxpayer subsidy of religious schools
  • Removing Ten Commandments monuments and crosses from public land
  • Ending the U.S. Post Office's issuing of religious postage cancellations
  • Ending Bible instruction in public schools

[edit] Losses

  • Challenged a Congressional proclamation calling 1983 "The Year of the Bible" (dismissed as moot)
  • Challenged a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in La Crosse, Wisconsin (dismissed)
  • Filed a federal lawsuit to stop the building of a chapel at the Illinois statehouse (lost in appeals court)
  • Went to Colorado state court to remove a Ten Commandments monument on Capitol grounds in Denver (lost in State Supreme Court)
  • Challenged "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency in Colorado (lost in 10th Circuit Court)
  • Tried to block the state of Wisconsin from granting $100,000 to assist building a center at St. Norbert Catholic College, DePere, Wisconsin (lost in appeals court)
  • Challenged a lighted nativity scene in a public park in Waunakee, Wisconsin (lost in Wisconsin Supreme Court)
  • Sued over the removal of its banner, "State/Church: Keep Them Separate," from the rotunda of the Wisconsin State Capitol (lost in federal court)
  • Went to federal court in Missouri to sue over the phrase "So help me, God" on tax forms (case was dismissed, then was lost after refiling). [1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.ffrf.org/legal/legal5.php

[edit] See also

[edit] External links