Photos, cartoons (May 2023)

On April 6, FFRF’s Metropolitan Chicago Chapter placed colorful banners in Daley Plaza promoting the secular views of the Founders. Supporters who helped erect the display are, from left, Rick Schuch, Bob Hunter, Shane Stapley and Steve Foulkes. “This is to counter and protest a religious prayer shrine that’s placed annually on government property by a private Catholic organization during the so-called ‘Christian holy week,’” says chapter President Steve Foulkes.

Freethought Today Editor PJ Slinger recently took a vacation to southern Utah to see the majestic mountains of Zion National Park and other beautiful scenery. While there, he also visited the town of Colorado City, Ariz., which sits on the border of Arizona and Utah, and was the home base of Warren Jeffs and his polygamist community. Jeffs, the former leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has been in a Texas prison since 2011, serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old and 15-year-old (who gave birth to his child), who were among his “spiritual wives.” The building in this photo is the 44-bedroom house that used to be Jeffs’ home. Jeffs’ 65th wife, Briell Decker, who left the FLDS in 2012 after Jeffs was imprisoned, donated the property to a nonprofit organization. From there, the nonprofit turned the complex into the Short Creek Dream Center, which offers rehabilitation and recovery services, counseling, housing and food services. The “Pray and Obey” signage on the chimney from the Jeffs era is still there, which was the phrase women in the FLDS were taught to follow, as they were expected to submit to Jeffs’ choice of husband for them, regardless of age. Women who were reassigned to a new husband had to obey those orders.

The Ozarks Chapter of FFRF on April 8 participated in the first farmers’ market of the season in Bentonville, Ark., where dozens of residents stopped to talk and give positive comments, according to Chris Sweeny, the chapter’s leader. It was the first farmer’s market also for Sweeny’s daughter, Indie Sweeny McGuire.Help

ing monitor the table and greet interested passersby were, from left, Linda Farrell, Sweeny, Linda K. Laue, James Brazeal and Kirsten Hawkins.

FFRF’s Events Manager Sadie Pattinson showed FFRF staff members some old photos from her aunt and uncle’s wedding held at Freethought Hall. We thought we’d share them with you. Brenda and Gary Pattinson got married at FFRF’s headquarters in Madison, Wis., in 1995. Sadie’s father, Ron Pattinson, was the best man. Connie Pattinson, Sadie’s mom, is not shown in these photos. Sadie was born three years later and was registered as a household member of FFRF with her parents in 1998. “My dad was inspired by Dan Barker and became an ordained minister a few years later and has married a few freethinking couples since then,” Sadie said. Gary and Sadie’s parents are still atheists and members of FFRF. Sadly, Brenda died from cancer in 2012. Newly married Brenda and Gary Pattinson stand outside Freethought Hall in 1995 with Ron Pattinson and an unidentified bridesmaid.

FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, right, performed the ceremony.

Cartoon

Peter Isley (right), an internationally known advocate for survivors of priest abuse based in Milwaukee, visited Freethought Hall in March with colleague Sarah Pearson to tape an episode for FFRF’s TV show, “Freethought Matters.” Sarah is deputy director of Nate’s Mission, named for a Wisconsin man victimized by a priest who committed suicide three years ago after the Catholic Church cut off funds for therapy. She is the director of a new film, “Manufacturing the Clerical Predator.” Peter and Sarah are advocating for the promised full investigation and report on Catholic abuse of children in Wisconsin that appears to be stalled in the attorney general’s office. Sarah shares Charles Darwin’s Feb. 12 birthday, so they visited “Mr. Darwin,” FFRF’s silicone attraction in FFRF’s Joel Landon and Wanda Beers Library.

“Two Ways to Go” (1896) by editorial cartoonist Watson Heston from The Freethinkers’ Pictorial Text-book : Showing the Absurdity and Untruthfulness of the Church’s Claim to Be a Divine and Beneficent Institution and Revealing the Abuses of a Union of Church and State.

Comstock cartoon: “You rhonor, this woman gave birth to a naked child!”

Cartoon

Photos, cartoons (May 2023)

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