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,
Another of our Board members, Ed Wright, also wrote to the Post-Dispatch Editor about the recent Supreme Court decision about school-sponsored pray
er:
“Regarding the letter ‘Supreme court fumbled football coach’s prayer ruling’ (July 4): When I read about the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision allowing a public high school football coach to pray at the 50 yard line after games, I wondered if the six conservative justices had completely forgotten their days in middle and high school when the goal of students each day is to avoid being embarrassed, humiliated, singled out or bullied.
What the court has now allowed is nothing more than bullying – Christian bullying. It is clear from testimony by students and professional football players that the pressure to follow along with the coach was not subtle at all. this not a case of a coach’s free speech or religious rights but of inappropriate coercion by a public school authority figure.
We are not a Christian nation. We are a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, agnostic, atheists, humanists, etc. We are strong because of our diversity and our support of diversity. However, this ruling is one more frightening step by the Supreme Court in its campaign on behalf of Christian nationalism.”
Ed Wright
Brentwood
Our long-time Board member, Rev. Rudy Pulido had the following letter published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch today, July 5, 2022:
Regarding “Supreme Court backs coach in praying on field after games” (July 27): Amid all the recent U. S. Supreme Court decisions, giving Washington state coach Joseph Kennedy the right to pray at the 50-yard line after a high school football game was wrong. A school district and lower courts understood the First Amendment better than the Supreme Court. Government has no place supporting an employee’s religious practice on government property. I believe Kennedy has a poor understanding of his faith Jesus indicated prayer was best practiced in a closet, not in public venues like a 50-yard line.
Rev. Rudy Pulido, St. Louis County
The April 21, 7:00pm Annual Meeting was virtual and featured Rev. Dr. Brian Kaylor, who will be updating us on the bills in the Missouri Legislature that impinge on church/state issues. Most of the critical bills are listed in the post two below this one.
Our dear friend and Board member, Ann Lemons Pollack, died April 13 as a result of complications from a fall in her Clayton home. She had been both a stalwart and an entertaining member of our Board for many years, and was a critic of theater and restaurants for several St. Louis publications, including the Post-Dispatch. Joe Holleman had a nice article about her life, which is linked here.
Brian is co-author with AU’s Executive Rachel Laser of an Opinion piece in the Boston Globe addressing the question of whether a Christian organization can fly an overtly secular flag in front of the Boston City Hall. The case is supposed to be argued in the Supreme Court on January 18. Click on the link to read the opinion.
Church/state separation lost a champion recently. Charlie Sumner, long-time advocate, founder of the Nashville, TN Chapter and winner of the AU Guardian of Liberty Award, died on June 24, 2021. He was a friend to several of the members of our Board, which voted unanimously to send a memorial contribution to the Nashville Chapter. If you would like to follow suit, here is a link for that.
A timely and insightful piece by Linda Greenhouse appeared in the September 12 edition of the New York Times. Click on the link to read it. Ms. Greenhouse is a reliable commentator on church-state issues.
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).
Long-time Board member Rudy Pulido’s Letter to the Editor was published in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Some Churches Sadly Succumb to Lure of Federal Money”.
Regarding the editorial: “‘Small business’ relief funds went to wealthy churches, well-heeled lawyers.’ (July 7)”: A first-century argument broke out between religious leaders concerning the remarkable success of a fledgling religious group yet to be known as Christians. The attempt to suppress the new group was for a time halted by the words of a religious leader who said, and I paraphrase here: If the movement is from God, it cannot be stopped.
These words come to mind as I consider the millions of federal dollars that have made their way into churches through the Paycheck Protection Program. Rather than call church and staff members to sacrifice in order to continue ministries, churches that once held to the tenet of the separation of church and state succumbed to the temptation of accepting federal dollars these churches should be honest and inform members that some of their ministries are now made possible by the federal government, rather than God working in the lives of its members.
Rev. Rudy Pulido, St. Louis County