In the News (May 2023)

NASA official gets sworn in on Carl Sagan book

Makenzie Lystrup became the first female director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and chose to be sworn in with her hand on a copy of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, not a bible.

On his “Friendly Atheist” Substack blog, Hemant Mehta writes: “That title is a reference to the indelible image taken by the Voyager 1 space probe in 1990, which Sagan so memorably talked about in this passage:

“‘Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.’”

W.Va. prison sued over forced Christianity

The West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation is being sued by American Atheists, which claims its client is being forced to participate in religious activities in order to be eligible for parole.

Andrew Miller is serving a sentence of 1-10 years, and could be released as early as April 3, 2025, as long as he is a “good” inmate. Miller requested secular accommodations, but the prison wouldn’t allow for them.

According to the lawsuit, the prison runs a program called Residential Substance Abuse Treatment, and inmates who are placed in that program are required to complete it if they want to be granted parole. But the handbook for the treatment program is loaded with Christianity, including the Lord’s Prayer and Serenity Prayer. And some of the required homework includes answering “what God means to me” and “what prayer means to me.”

Miller then requested an alternate secular option for the program. But his request was denied and was told he had to complete the Christian-based program. He’s been denied parole several times because he hasn’t finished the Residential Substance Abuse Treatment program.

Wyoming bans selling, using abortion pills

Wyoming Republican Gov. Mark Gordon signed into law on March 17 a bill that makes it a felony to prescribe, sell or use “any drug for the purpose of procuring or performing an abortion.”

The legislation takes effect July 1. Violators could face up to six months in prison and a $9,000 fine.

Medication abortions are already included in the overall abortion bans in a number of states.

“There’s no stone that anti-choice extremists will leave unturned as they seek to do everything they can to ensure that abortion is banned across the nation,” NARAL Pro-Choice America President Mini Timmaraju said in a statement.

Judge dismisses lawsuit by 36 Methodist churches

A North Carolina Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit filed last year by 36 United Methodist churches demanding to sever their ties to the denomination over their support of gay marriage, according to a report by the Religion News Service.

Judge Richard Doughton issued an oral ruling March 20, dismissing the suit brought against the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, its board of trustees and Bishop Kenneth Carter Jr.

The suit represented a departure from the approved plan for churches wishing to leave a denomination over the ordination and marriage of LGBTQ Christians. Most churches wanting to leave the United Methodist Church work through the denomination’s official disaffiliation plan, which gives them until Dec. 31, 2023, to cut their ties. So far, 1,994 U.S.-based United Methodist churches have left the denomination out of an estimated 30,000 congregations.

Supreme Court rejects preacher’s challenge

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 20 declined to hear a traveling Christian evangelist’s free speech challenge to a University of Alabama requirement that he obtain a permit before handing out religious pamphlets and preaching from a sidewalk adjacent to its campus, according to a report by Reuters.

The justices turned away an appeal by preacher Rodney Keister of a lower court’s ruling rejecting his claim that the university’s permit requirement violated free speech rights under the First Amendment.

In 2016, Keister preached using an amplifier and distributed Christian literature from a sidewalk adjacent to the university campus in Tuscaloosa, trying to engage passersby. School officials told Keister he needed a permit for a public-speaking event.

The university’s policy requires a permit application 10 business days in advance (which has since been reduced to five business days) and sponsorship by a student organization or university academic department.

N.Y.’s Diocese of Albany files for bankruptcy

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany in New York is seeking bankruptcy protection as it faces hundreds of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse.

Bishop Edward Scharfenberger announced the Chapter 11 filing after months of negotiations between the upstate New York diocese and lawyers representing plaintiffs over a potential settlement.

The Albany diocese, like others in the state, is dealing with a deluge of lawsuits dating to when New York temporarily suspended the statute of limitations to give victims of childhood abuse the ability to pursue even decades-old allegations against clergy members, teachers, Boy Scout leaders and others.

Some attorneys representing plaintiffs against the Albany diocese accused it of using bankruptcy as a legal tactic.

Utah abortion clinics must close by end of year

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on March 15 signed into law a bill banning all abortion clinics in the state.

Abortion clinics will be required to close either by the end of the year or when their licensee expires, whichever comes first.

Under the legislation, all abortions will be required to take place in a hospital, which is defined as “a general hospital licensed by the state.”

Currently, Utah bans abortion after 18 weeks. The ban was passed in 2019, but didn’t go into effect until the Supreme Court overturned Roe.

Archbishop stops priest from hearing confessions

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki has stripped retired priest James Connell of his ability to hear Catholics’ confessions because Connell is lobbying about the need to require clergy to report sexual abuse revealed in the confessional.

Connell, 80, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Listecki has ordered him to stop speaking publicly about repealing what’s known as clergy penitent privilege. Connell has for years worked with anti-clergy sexual abuse groups. Wisconsin is among 33 states with laws protecting conversations between clergy and penitents. Only six states have laws requiring clergy to report abuse.

Connell thinks Listecki could further penalize him for continuing to speak out. “I will not keep quiet. I will not be silent. This is all too important.”

Court upholds clergy privilege in abuse case

The Arizona Supreme Court has ruled that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can refuse to answer questions or turn over documents under a state law that exempts religious officials from having to report child sex abuse if they learn of the crime during a confessional setting.

The ruling was issued April 7 but not released to the public until April 25, the Religion News Service reports. A lawsuit filed by child sex abuse victims accuses the church, also known as the Mormon church, two of its bishops, and other church members of conspiracy and negligence in not reporting church member Paul Adams for abusing his older daughter as early as 2010. This negligence, the lawsuit argues, allowed Adams to continuing abusing the girl for as many as seven years, a time in which he also abused the girl’s infant sister.

Clergy in Arizona, as in many other states, are required to report information about child sexual abuse or neglect to law enforcement or child welfare authorities. An exception to that law — known as the clergy-penitent privilege — allows members of the clergy who learn of the abuse through spiritual confessions to keep the information secret.

Pa. district sued for prohibiting Satan Club

The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the Saucon Valley School District in Pennsylvania for not allowing the After School Satan Club to meet in a district school.

The lawsuit was filed March 30 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania.

Superintendent Jaime Vlasaty had first allowed the group to meet, then rescinded that permission after claiming the club violated school board policy by not clearly communicating it was not sponsored by the school district.

“The . . . decision to cancel the After School Satan Club in response to public opposition sets a dangerous precedent,” Sara Rose, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania, said in a news release. “The First Amendment protects the expression of unpopular or controversial views from government censorship. Once the district opened up school facilities to outside use, it was bound by the First Amendment to grant equal access to all groups, regardless of their religious beliefs or viewpoints.”

7 countries have majority that don’t believe in God

There are now seven countries where a majority of their residents don’t believe in God, according to an analysis by Isabella Kasselstrand, Ryan T. Cragun and Phil Zuckerman in their new book Beyond Doubt: The Secularization of Society.

The seven democratic countries in the world today with more atheists, agnostics and assorted nontheists than God-believers are Estonia, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.

Sweden leads the way with 63.9 percent of its residents saying they don’t believe in God. The other six, in descending order of nonbelief, are the Czech Republic (61.6 percent), South Korea (59.4 percent), the Netherlands (56.3 percent), Estonia (54.3 percent), Norway (52.7 percent) and United Kingdom (51.6 percent).

‘Steep decline’: Latinos are leaving Catholicism

A new Pew Research Center survey found the share of U.S.-born Latinos identifying as Catholic dropping from 67 percent in 2010 to 43 percent in 2022.

Among the 65 percent who said they were raised Catholic, 23 percent said they no longer identified as such. “That’s a pretty steep decline,” Pew researcher Besheer Mohamed told Religion News Service.

The share of U.S.-born Latinos who say they are atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” is now at 30 percent, up from 10 percent in 2010 and from 18 percent in 2013.

Still, Latinos remain about twice as likely as U.S. adults overall to identify as Catholic, and considerably less likely to be Protestant

Parents sue California over funds for special ed

A group of Orthodox Jewish parents of children with autism are suing the state of California, claiming it discriminates against religious students by barring private religious schools from receiving public funding for special education resources.

Six parents and two private Orthodox Jewish schools in Los Angeles filed the federal lawsuit on March 13 in the Central District of California, alleging that it’s impossible for children with disabilities to attend religious schools and receive the same funding they’d otherwise be entitled to had their parents sent them to nonreligious schools.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act equips states with grants to fund special education services for students with disabilities, but in California, the lawsuit notes, “only ‘nonsectarian’ schools are welcome.”

The parents allege that California is violating their constitutional free exercise of religion rights and want the state’s prohibition on funding to religious schools to be deemed unconstitutional.

Idaho stops interstate travel for abortions

Idaho Gov. Brad Little on April 5 signed into law a bill that makes it a crime for adults to help minors travel to other states for abortion care without parental consent. Idaho is the first state to make it a crime to travel to another state for an abortion.

The law bans adults from “recruiting, harboring, or transporting” pregnant minors for abortions without parental consent, noting that such activity would still be illegal even if the abortion itself is provided out of state. The bill also criminalizes helping a minor obtain abortion medication without the consent of a parent or guardian. Both activities are considered “abortion trafficking” under the new law.

A conviction for abortion trafficking comes with a minimum sentence of two years in state prison, and a maximum sentence of five years.

Idaho already has a near-total ban on abortion that was enacted as a trigger law following the Supreme Court decision in June 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade.

66K couldn’t get abortion in own state after Dobbs

Around 66,510 people were unable to receive a legal abortion in their home state between July and December of 2022, according to data shared with FiveThirtyEight by #WeCount, a national research project.

That number includes more than 43,830 people who were unable to receive an abortion because their home state had banned the procedure, and an additional 22,680 whose home states restricted or reduced access to abortion — a list that includes Arizona, South Carolina, Ohio, Georgia, North Dakota and Indiana.

A FiveThirtyEight analysis of the data shows that since July 2022, the number of abortions have spiked dramatically in states like Illinois, a pattern that suggests people in states where abortion is banned are driving hundreds or even thousands of miles to reach the nearest state where abortion remains legal. Of the 66,510 people who couldn’t get an abortion near home, an estimated 35,330 seem to have traveled to obtain one. But the data also shows 31,180 people were seemingly unable to get a legal abortion at all. It is unknown whether those people remained pregnant, or got an abortion some other way.

Texas House votes to ban funding for vouchers

The Texas House voted 86-52 on April 13 to amend the budget to ban state funding for “school vouchers or other similar programs,” according to the Texas Tribune.

The amendment came at a crucial time — the same day the state Senate passed legislation to create a voucher-like program and five days before a House committee considers proposals on the subject.

The 86 votes that the amendment received were less than the 115 votes a similar amendment to the House budget got during the last legislative session. However, the “vote itself is essentially symbolic, as the amendment is expected to be stripped by the Senate before the final budget is passed,” the Texas Tribune reported.

Only 52 members voted in favor of school vouchers, far short of the 76-member majority needed to approve any such legislation in the House.

Florida’s 6-week abortion ban signed into law

Gov. Ron DeSantis on April 13 signed Florida’s six-week abortion ban into law just hours after the GOP-led Legislature approved it.

The legislation will upend Florida’s status as an abortion haven in the south, cutting off access for thousands who would otherwise travel from neighboring states each year for the procedure.

The Florida House approved the bill, S.B. 300, on a 70-40 vote on April 13. The state Senate approved it the previous week.

Florida now joins at least 15 other states — including Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and Louisiana — with a full ban or a six-week ban on abortions, a point at which many people don’t yet know they’re pregnant.