Prison Piety No Taxpayer-Funded Evangelism Behind Bars

My first job in Washington, DC, was editing a trade magazine for the men and women who worked in the corrections industry. This was the mid-1980s, and I recall that back then some in the... Read More
Election Reflection: Whither Now, Religious Right?

Pundits spent a lot of time chewing over the results of the November election, but most seemed to agree on one thing: the religious right lost big. Religious right groups had managed to put aside... Read More
Building Bridges or Blowing Them Up? Secular Americans and the Future of Humanist Activism

Polls indicate that some interesting shifts are under way in religious life in the United States. The number of people identifying their religion as “none” has crept upward again, now hovering at around 20 percent.... Read More
The Barton Lies: The Religious Right’s Favorite ‘Historian’ Gets Hit with a Dose of the Truth

I’ve written in these pages before about David Barton, a Texas man who poses as a historian and is a hero to the religious right because of his work “proving” that separation of church and... Read More
Barrier Methods: The Church’s Ceaseless Opposition to Birth Control

I recently found myself on the air at FoxNews.com where I argued with a staff member from the Family Research Council about birth control and its availability. I pointed out that the pill had emancipated... Read More
Stuck in the Belly of the Beast: My Trip to the Values Voter Summit

Every fall I attend a large gathering of religious right activists in Washington, DC. Launched in 2006 and sponsored by the Family Research Council and other far-right groups, the Values Voter Summit has become the... Read More
Standing Up for Science: Taking the Evolution Debate to the Next Level

I recently received an email with a headline that made me do a double-take. It read: “Science Education Triumphs in Texas.” These days, I’m not used to science education triumphing anywhere—but in Texas? The Lone... Read More