St. Pauls Catholic Center, UW Madison

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My interest in the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) was sparked last month when the FFRF started opposing the private plans of the Catholic Student Center in my town, Madison (https://sytereitz.com/2011/01/freeedom-from-religion/ ).  Since then, in one month I have seen stories online about FFRF’s attempts to interfere in local affairs in Giles County, VA, Iowa State Legislature, Colorado, Ellwood City, PA, Yakima, WA, Polk County, FL, and more.

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In each case, FFRF seems to rely on the limitations of small local budgets to intimidate the local groups, demanding that they eliminate public expression of religion, or suffer large litigation costs.

Although FFRF claims that any public expression of religion violates the Constitution, many others believe the reverse to be true, and some court rulings have upheld public expression of religion, including pre- legislative prayer and display of the Ten Commandments.  FFRF seems to rely on threats of litigation toward SMALL communities with SMALL budgets to achieve its goals of banishing religion incrementally.

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The U.S. Bill of Rights states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

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The communities affected by FFRF’s threats of litigation, as well as all communities across America which are in sympathy with preserving our Constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion, should band together to fight the relatively small FFRF together.  FFRF constitutes only 0.003 of 1% of America’s population, while religious people and Christians constitute 90% and 80%.  FFRF’s holdings are $5million, and their annual income is $500,000.  They have a paid staff of four people.  By business standards, this is a relatively small outfit.  If conservative America joined forces, this radical atheist organization with its unconstitutional agenda would be relatively easy to defeat.

One more avenue of opposition to FFRF’s agenda would be for conservative America to join the affected communities in establishing pre-legislative prayer, display of the 10 commandments/Constitution in schools, and nativity displays at Christmas in numerous communities across the nation.  The more communities joining in such an effort, the more FFRF’s limited resources would be spread thin.

This is one battle America could easily win.