On January 23, an informational Zoom Webinar featuring Rachel Laser of AU, Fatima Goss Graves of the Women’s Law Center, and Rev. Dr. Teresa Mithen Danieley of St. Marks Episcopal Church of St. Louis will be online at 6:30 pm CST. It is free, but you have to register,
April 23 and 24 was Earth Day at Forest Park in St. Louis. AU was there with an informational booth manned by Board members and volunteers on both days. The first day was warm and windy and the second was still warmish but not especially dry. A good crowd of people and dogs were there, just like old times. Many old and new friends dropped by to talk about church/state issues and to pick up literature. Volunteer Dave Eschmann and Board members Carol Bartell and and Hal Harris are in the picture.
At 7:00 CST on March 16, AU’s long-time (1992-2017) Executive Director had a Zoom dialog with our chapter. It was a pleasure to see our old friend and to hear his views on the present state of church/state relationships and current supreme court cases.
You may have seen work by Professor Randall Balmer, historian at Dartmouth, in Church and State, or seen him interviewed on PBS, and he had an op-ed, “The Religious Right and the Abortion Myth”, in the October 7 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He is author of a new book, “Bad Faith and the Religious Right” (Erdmann’s, 2021). We were delighted to have him as our Zoom guest for a short talk, “Why Racism, Not Abortion, Birthed the Religious Right”, and a question/answer session on Thursday, November 4, 2021. A recording of the Zoom session is by clicking this link [Passcode was required inadvertently. No longer the case!]
Our speaker this year was Representative Tracy McCreery, who talked with us about the status of critical church/state legislation, and our own experts on the bills gave us the latest news. We hope that we can do this in person in 2022.
We were delighted to have a Zoom featuring AU’s Executive Director, Rachel Laser, for a post-election discussion, on November 18 . A new administration does not mean that church/state issues are likely to be less difficult than they have been for four years. Furthermore, there is likely to be mischief between now and Inauguration Day. Rachel and Legal Director Richard Katskee gave us a comprehensive summary of the current and near-future activities of AU.
We couldn’t have our picnic planned for October 11, but we did enjoy a Zoom session with our planned speaker, Prof. Ken Warren
of SLU! Professor Warren is an internationally-renowned expert on political polling and was big hit at our 2019 picnic. We e-mailed all of our members within 50 miles for whom we had an email address, and sent postcards to those whom we could not contact electronically. We also invited all of our MeetUp group members to the virtual “picnic”. You can join the MeetUp Group at: (https://www.meetup.com/Americans-United-for-Separation-of-Church-and-State).
The County Libraries have cancelled all meetings in their facilities and so we didn’t have a place to meet. Furthermore, meetings as large as ours would be banned in the region, anyway. We instead met online in a super-secret ZOOM session. Our meetings are generally open to anyone, but there isn’t a way to do that at this time.
Professor Greg Magarian of WU Law School spoke to a group of 40 of us at a meeting at The Ethical Society. His topic was “The Law and Politics of Religious Accommodations”. It was a privilege to have a real expert to explain the ins and outs of RFRA, its history and weaponization. 
Professor Magarian teaches and writes about U.S. constitutional law, with emphasis on the freedom of expression. His first book, “Managed Speech: The Roberts Court’s First Amendment”, was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press.
Presentations drawing on the talented faculties of local universities have been quite with our members, and we will surely do more of that. Members are welcome to suggest speakers: mail prez@stlau.org
AU members in the St. Louis region were invited by mail to our annual Holiday Party on January 2, 2020. It was an opportunity for members to meet the Board, convey their ideas about future programs, and volunteer for activities. A generous Board member generously provided the venue. Hope you were there – if not, next year!