The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be taking a lawsuit to the Supreme Court over Bush’s faith based initiatives. AP reports, “The court will decide whether taxpayers can sue over federal funding that the foundation believes promotes religion. It could be a major ruling for groups that fight to keep church and state separate.” They quote the groups founder, Annie Laurie Gaylor as saying, “ What’s at stake is the right to challenge the establishment of religion by the government.” AP also reports that the organization has been growing in recent years in response to challenges to maintaining separation of church and state:
Its leaders say the surge in membership reflects a U.S. population that is becoming less religious and growing liberal alarm since Bush’s re-election.
“There was a feeling that there was almost a near religious-right takeover of our government and that we better speak up now,” Gaylor said.
The American Religious Identification Survey in 2001 estimated that 29 million Americans had no religion, double the number from 1990. The survey, which was conducted by the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, estimated that 1.9 million identified themselves as atheist or agnostic.
Before its battle against the faith-based initiative, the group stopped prayers during the University of Wisconsin’s commencement and overturned Good Friday as a state holiday in Wisconsin.
“We’ve applied some very needed pressure through going to court on keeping state and church separate,” said the elder Gaylor, 80. “We hope we’ve done some educating that will be lasting.”
