Oklahoma is facing backlash from atheists and other groups that are vowing to sue the state for approving the nation's first religiously affiliated public charter school.

The Oklahoma Statewide Virtual Charter School Board approved the application of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School on Monday, marking the first time a state had approved a religiously affiliated charter school. The effort was championed by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R-OK), who praised the approval of the new charter school as a "win for religious liberty."

More details about this troubling development can be found in this story from the FFRF:

https://ffrf.org/news/news-releases/item/42308-ffrf-sounds-alarm-over-okla-ok-to-catholic-charter-school

An encouraging story from NPR includes the following:

"Boomers are about 20% 'nones' and Gen Z is about 45% 'nones,' so you're just seeing this kind of slow wave sweep across America," says Burge, who is himself a pastor with the American Baptist Church. He believes about a third of the country's 350,000 Christian congregations are "on the brink of extinction."

"Every year the pews are getting emptier and the collection plates getting lighter," he says. "We're going to see thousands of churches closing in America over the next 20 or 30 years in every part of the country, in every region and every state, urban, suburban, rural."

I am reminded of a quote from Madalyn Murray O'Hair:

“An atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An atheist believes that deed must be done instead of prayer said. An atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated.” 

Might be a good idea to convert those empty churches into regional medical clinics or section 8 housing, eh?

And here's the entire NPR story:

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/17/1175452002/church-closings-religious-affiliation

So here's another example of religious privilege pushing its way into secular spaces. Here's a link to the article:

https://baptistnews.com/article/texas-is-first-step-in-a-national-plan-to-install-chaplains-in-public-schools-instead-of-professional-counselors/

And here's an excerpt:

Texas is first step in a national plan to install ‘chaplains’ in public schools instead of professional counselors

NEWSMARK WINGFIELD | APRIL 20, 2023

A Texas proposal to allow unlicensed “chaplains” to take the place of public school counselors undermines religious liberty, according to Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and others.

The Texas Legislature is considering House Bill 3614 and Senate Bill 763, which would allow Texas schools to hire chaplains to perform the work of school counselors but without any required certification, training or experience.

A headline from CNN today:

Texas Senate passes bill requiring public school classrooms to display Ten Commandments

The Texas Senate passed a bill Thursday requiring each public school classroom to display a copy of the Ten Commandments, a move that drew backlash from civil liberty advocates who say lawmakers should not dictate what religious materials students are exposed to.

The legislation, which passed the state Senate on a 17-12 vote, will now head to the state’s House of Representatives.

Senate Bill 1515, authored by state Sen. Phil King, a Republican, requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a “conspicuous place” in each classroom in a “size and typeface that is legible to a person with average vision from anywhere in the classroom.”

King has previously said the bill will help restore religious liberties “that were lost” and it “reminds students all across Texas of the importance of a fundamental foundation” of America.

The full story is here:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/22/us/texas-senate-passes-bill-ten-commandments/index.html

From this article in the Washington Post comes this hopeful headline:

Latinos leaving Catholicism and organized religion, study says

"Latinos, like the rest of the country, are increasingly leaving church pews. About 30 percent of Latino adults are not religiously affiliated — a dramatic increase from just 10 percent in 2010, according to a new Pew Research Center report."

Here's hoping that once we remove magical thinking from the process, that more logical processes will prevail!

As we noted previously, the last freeze we had here in Austin brought ice and sleet. The trees ended up coated with thick ice and the wind broke the branches so they were hanging rather precariously above the building.

We had a local arbor company come by today and trim all the branches before they fell on the roof damaging people or property. Just more of the day to day operational things we have to deal with to ensure things are "ship-shape"! 

   

We get this kind of question often. "Why do you care what people believe?" "Why can't you just leave religious folks alone?" "Where's the harm?"

The thing is, beliefs inform actions, and actions have consequences. People who are convinced by religious arguments take those convictions to the voting booth. I'm reminded of a quote:

“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”― Robert A. Heinlein

And what happens when they do legislate their creed? You get laws like we have in Texas now- and those laws lead to law suits such as this:

Three Texas women are sued for wrongful death after allegedly helping friend obtain abortion medication

In the first lawsuit of its kind since Roe v. Wade was overturned, a husband seeks damages from women who allegedly helped his ex-wife obtain the medications to terminate her pregnancy.

Read the terrifying full article here:

https://www.texastribune.org/2023/03/10/texas-abortion-lawsuit

As part of our ongoing process to create new and interesting ways to reach folks with our messages, we have added a new 24x7 live stream to our Atheist Experience YouTube channel. To do this, we collected clips from various episodes of The Atheist Experience show and placed them on a dedicated laptop computer that is delivering these clips in random order non-stop.

The new channel can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/live/JG0KHLzFMj0

We're in hot water again- in a good way! The old leaky water heater has been replaced and the new unit is working great! Also, the leaking valve that was outside in the front of the building has been repaired as well. Thanks again to our stalwart volunteer Phoenix for alerting us to the leak before it could cause any problems.