Once Again, We Must Challenge Religious Proselytizing on Secular Government Property

By: Tom Cara, Associate Executive Director, FFRFMCC

The Freedom From Religion Foundation and its Metropolitan Chicago Chapter, for over 10 years now, has been tasked with reminding religious groups that its blatant and unwanted proselytizing is NOT something that should be done on secular taxpayer property. The founding fathers of this country went to great pains to ensure religious freedom for all by guaranteeing in our Constitution that government should remain neutral regarding one religion over another or religion over non-religion, and not promote or allow for favoritism of either side.

Yet, religious groups, predominantly Christian ones, have pressured government bodies across the country for decades to turn parcels of government property into public forums which would allow them to push their religious beliefs on others on what should be secular grounds. Each year, during the Christian “holy week,” a religious display is placed on the Plaza at Chicago’s Daley Center. This display has typically included a 20-foot Latin cross and/or a 9-foot banner depicting the biblical character known as Jesus Christ. The latter carries the message, “Jesus, I trust in you.” A tenet fewer and fewer people in this country are choosing to believe.

One of the primary sponsors of this display is The Thomas More Society, a Catholic-based legal group with a longstanding mission of using municipal properties across the country to convert the world to Catholicism by encouraging people to adopt their beliefs.  For its 2023 display, they are featuring only the large cross (what should be considered nothing but a symbol of torture and capital punishment) sans the Jesus banner. The cross is accompanied by a promotion of an annual Easter sunrise service, which is held directly on the Plaza grounds instead of a church where it should take place. Also surrounding the cross are small placards with verses from the Book of Luke referencing the “resurrection” of Jesus — one of four differing versions of this fairytale cited in the biblical book of mythology.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation justifiably challenges this egregious use of government property for religious purposes by displaying two separate banners reminding everyone about the constitutional principle of the separation between state and religion. Both feature images of, and secular quotes from, founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Our founders drafted a completely godless constitution with its only references to religion being exclusionary. The was the first constitution among all nations to create a completely secular government, free from religious influence and control. With the number of those claiming any religious identification in the United States continuing its rapid decline since the 1990s, there is tremendous fear among those who unconstitutionally seek to establish the United States as a Christian-dictated nation. That fear is not just a result of this waning in their numbers, but also in religion’s overall importance and the claim of its need as a societal moral compass. According to a recent study from Pew Research Center, Christian affiliation in the United States is on a trend to drop below 50% within a few decades, making Christianity a minority for the first time in our country’s history. Thus, their determination to insert religion into the public sphere has never been greater, and more dangerous. Religious zealotry has become a primary factor in the stripping of human rights. Most notable are the women’s right to reproductive freedom, the rights of the LGBTQ community, and the right to knowledge resulting from state-wide efforts to ban of books within many school districts across the nation. It is without question these are problems created through the efforts of religious extremists, with their intention being to force all to live by their beliefs.

Our founders recognized the dangers of religious intrusion into public policy and how the ideologies of a specific religious doctrine could seriously divide a nation. They knew that once religious ideology becomes entwined with political ideology, it only fans the flames of hatred and bigotry. And, sadly, this is something we are witnessing today with the rise of Christian Nationalism. As attendance of worship services also declines, religious organizations are now being given excessive privilege by governmental entities, enabling them to bring their religious rituals outside of the church and into the public square. Something of which our founders sternly warned against.

We are also seeing more and more government entities encouraging the use of churches as relief and counseling centers in the wake of tragedies, such as mass shootings and natural disasters. Without respect to a person’s religious affiliation, churches are becoming the recommended place by government officials where people should receive grief counseling, subjecting those who may not be affiliated with that religion to have no other choice but to be exposed to possible indoctrination by clergy and other church staff who do not have the proper training to provide such counseling.

But religious groups will have us believe this should be the norm by increasing their resolve in promoting the fallacy that government and religion must be one. The favored denomination is, of course, whichever one is being advocated by a specific religious group. The problem is, religious denominations, particularly within Christianity, have greatly varying views regarding political and social issues. Which is why our founders insisted on keeping our government’s position on any religion completely neutral by not showing favoritism or preference to any one religion.

Our objective at the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and its many local chapters across the country, is to educate everyone about the divisiveness that results from the entangling of religion and government. With our population becoming more and more diverse, ethnically, religiously, and culturally, it is important to remember that secular taxpayer property should be representative of everyone, and not just those who have the resources and political clout to have their voices heard over all others.

Depending on which survey is cited, there are between 330,000- 350,000 churches in the United States. This translates to one church for nearly every 1,000 people in the country. Truly a disturbing statistic when we consider that nearly 40% of our population now identify as non-Christian. And when we refer to the word “church,” this is meant to apply specifically to places of worship selling some form of Christianity, whether it be Protestant, Catholic, Mormon, or some other denomination. This number is far above and beyond those of other religious traditions, which should make it very obvious that Christian organizations have no need to use secular government property to advance their cause. They have plenty of their own structures from where they can promote their superstitious beliefs. The good news is that the trend over the past 20 years has shown more churches closing their doors permanently as opposed to new ones opening up, as more and more people are moving away from Christianity to a different religion, or abandoning religion altogether.

But, the political power held by varying Christian factions remains dangerously high, and only getting worse. Therefore, it is the duty of all freethinkers to instill within everyone, especially those of moderate to extremely devout religious faith, that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is necessary to protect even them from the threat of tyrannical rule from any religion — including their own.