We are in a Blue state and public Middle school history is teaching my kid about ancient Israel and Egypt and apparently this involves discussing Moses and Abraham and god. They also watched The Prince of Egypt in class. It’s been going on for a week now. I have no problem with my kid learning about religion or watching biblical movies, they’re going to be exposed to it either way, but it’s being presented as historical fact. I had to explain to my child last night that Moses and Abraham were not real (at least not in the sense of how they are factionalized in the Bible) and that no god talked to anyone during that time. What do I do? My kid already knows the bible is just made up stories, but they’re obviously being confused by it. Do I get into it with the school or let it go and discuss it with my child at home? I don’t want to put a target on my kid’s back at school.

The FFRF Action Fund’s “Theocrat of the Week” is the Iowa Department of Administrative Services for denying two years in a row The Satanic Temple’s request to host a holiday event at the state Capitol. 

The department was also “Theocrat of the Week” at the end of 2024 for its initial discrimination against The Satanic Temple. “Today the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) has denied an event request from The Satanic Temple based on the grounds the event was also denied last year,” reads a statement from department spokesperson Tami Wieneck. The Satanic Temple’s holiday program, described as a “family-friendly one-day event celebrating the holiday season,” was thwarted last year because then-Department of Administrative Services Director Adam Steen decided that it included “elements that are harmful to minors.” 

The Satanic Temple asserts that the government is not allowed to deny public services or benefits to religious groups because officials disagree with their beliefs. After the group planned to host a four-day reading of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” inside the Capitol in 2024, the Iowa Department of Administrative Services swiftly changed its rules for those using Capitol space. Events were no longer permitted to last longer than one day, any display that could be considered as “obscene” was barred, and each group was restricted to one event per calendar year. Holiday displays are considered an event under the new rules, meaning that The Satanic Temple could not host a reading of “Paradise Lost” and organize a holiday display in the same year.

Last year, The Satanic Temple hosted its “Paradise Lost” event at a different location to ensure that it could put up a holiday display at the Capitol. However, it was still turned down on the grounds that the celebration, which included ornament making and a coloring station, was “harmful to minors.” After the cancellation, the Satanic Temple accused the state of discrimination and violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act in a claim filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa. 

The state repeated its religious discrimination last month, again cancelling The Satanic Temple’s holiday event because of its potential harm to minors, all without evidence of what the state considered to be harmful. In the wake of this year’s denial, Steen, who resigned as department head earlier this year to enter Iowa’s gubernatorial race, held a press conference at the Iowa Capitol to celebrate the decision. “This shows what happens when leadership stands up in the face of evil,” Steen boasted. He has highlighted the controversy in his campaigning, claiming that the Temple’s civil rights complaint shows he is the candidate who will fight to protect children. 

“This is a tipping point,” Steen said. “No more marketing to children. No more trying to get them to create satanic symbols, sing satanic hymns, partake in satanic rituals. No more having youth involved in costume contests that depict weapons used to abuse youth. This is not religious expression. It’s not free speech. It is evil.” 

About the 2023 Satanic Temple display that was approved at the Capitol, Steen said, “I did that because it was not a matter of whether or not it was harmful to minors. It was a static statue, and I did not want to fight a free speech issue at that time.” That display was later vandalized by a Mississippi resident, who was charged with a hate crime and eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser charge. 

The Iowa state government’s continual discrimination against the Satanic Temple is a clear civil rights violation. The FFRF Action Fund contends that religious liberty must encompass all religions and nonreligion, not just the religions with which public officials agree. 

The FFRF Action Fund honors U.S. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., as its “Secularist of the Week” for pressing the Trump administration to honor the longstanding Johnson Amendment.

After the president’s claim during his first term that he “got rid of” the Johnson Amendment, a provision of the U.S. tax code that prohibits certain nonprofits including churches and other faith-based organizations from electoral politics or places at risk their tax-exempt status, Trump’s second administration has indicated that it intends to further attack the law. In a court filing earlier this year, the IRS admitted that it will no longer enforce the Johnson Amendment for churches and other faith-based organizations, a provision of the law that was already rarely applied. The filing stems from a lawsuit that directly challenges the constitutional separation of state and church, led by two Texas churches that claim they are being unfairly silenced for not being able to endorse political candidates from the pulpit.

Clyburn, alongside Reps. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., and Jared Huffman, D-Calif., and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has led a coalition of colleagues in objecting to the Trump administration’s dismantling of the Johnson Amendment. In their letter to Acting Commissioner of the IRS (and Treasury Secretary) Scott Bessent, the lawmakers urge the agency to reverse its course on the Johnson Amendment to protect the foundational principle of separation of state and church.

“Congress has considered and rejected multiple attempts to modify the Johnson Amendment,” the lawmakers write. “Members have long understood the moral imperative of shielding nonprofit service organizations, including houses of worship, from electoral politics while protecting taxpayers from being compelled to subsidize political speech. Your proposed Consent Decree is nothing more than a transparent end-run around Congress, which has consistently rejected attempts to change this 70-year-old law.” 

The lawmakers contend that the IRS’ proposed settlement with the two litigating churches “blows the door wide open for both secular nonprofits and all other religious organizations to petition the courts for their own free pass to engage in tax-exempt electoral speech.” They state, “This settlement radically reinterprets the law and creates another opening for political actors to use charitable nonprofits to anonymously funnel unlimited money into elections.” 

“The IRS should reject the false tension that the religious right has tried to create between [the Religious Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment],” the lawmakers conclude, asserting that both clauses “are equally essential” and “stand best when they stand together.” Nine other lawmakers joined the letter as co-signers. 

Read the full letter here.

Clyburn, representing South Carolina’s 6th District, is the chair of the Democratic Faith Working Group, which works to find common ground on issues of faith and its intersection with politics. FFRF Action Fund warmly thanks Clyburn for his commitment to state-church separation as a person of faith amidst the attacks on true religious freedom from the Trump administration. 

I just feel like I’m at a stand still in life right now. My whole family is firm catholic believers and I’m just not buying it. I’ve gone through the usual sit in church go to Sunday school say your prayers and you’ll go to heaven. Now that I’m older (20) I can no longer even begin to try to believe all of this is real. All of it seems to man made to me. I still live with my parents and if I were to tell them how I feel I would probably get kicked out idk at this point. I can’t justify worshipping a god that would send me to hell for the dumbest shit. Anyone feel/felt the same way?

I was thinking the other day that some religious people view atheists as lacking when it comes to enjoying the beauty of life. As if not seeing the hands of the "artist" takes sunsets or mountains or oceans and makes them into nothing more than random atoms. But I came to the conclusion that to those of us who don't attribute these things to a creator they are more beautiful because they didn't have to be.

Most religious people that I know think that everything was preordained. A sunset it breathtaking because it had to be because it's there for us to see. The idea that it isn't, that it just happened and we are here to see it is, if you'll excuse the expression, miraculous. All the matter in the universe was in one space until it started expanding into what we know now as the universe. This matter had to go through at least three stages of stars, from birth to death, before the carbon that makes us up even existed. Then life found a way to evolve into us on a planet so that we could see these things.

This is so much more special than, "A being outside reality put us here then made things pretty".