FFRF Co-President Dan Barker, left, debated Catholic apologist Trent Horn, right, on the topic “Does the Christian God Exist?” at Minnesota State University-Mankato on Sept. 24. Also in the picture are, second from left, co-moderator Michael Mortenson of the St. Thomas More Catholic Newman Center on campus, Secular Student Alliance Mavericks manager Raghen Lucy and co-moderator Heidi Newbauer, an English professor at MSU-Mankato. A full house of more than 350 people attended the debate, and dozens more watched from an overflow room. The event was organized by The Catholic Mavs and the SSA Mavericks.
FFRF Legal Director Rebecca Markert introduced the panel of speakers following a screening of “Balancing the Scales: The Story of Women Lawyers in America” on Sept. 27 at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Members of the esteemed panel were, from left, former Dane County (Wis.) Circuit Judge and President of the State Bar of Wisconsin Susan Steingass, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Kristy Yang, Wisconsin Court of Appeals Justice JoAnne Kloppenburg, and employment and civil rights attorney Tamara Packard.
FFRF Legal Fellow Colin McNamara gave a presentation to the Iowa Lakes Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Okoboji, Iowa, on Oct. 14. Pictured, left to right, are moderator Linda Weir, McNamara, Cheryl Squires and David Squires.
The title of the talk was “The Moral Case for Strict Church-State Separation — Madison’s Memorial and Remonstrance.” In the talk, McNamara made the case for why church-state separation is an indispensable safeguard of a free people and a free society. The talk was based on James Madison’s “Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” written in 1785, six years before the First Amendment was ratified. In “Remonstrance,” Madison lays out 15 reasons why the slightest incursion of government into religion — or vice versa — constitutes a “dangerous abuse of power.”
