Update: A little over one week left in TFN’s matching donor challenge. Double the impact of your year-end gift to TFN, and help our Insider blog keep a close eye on the religious right in 2011.
TFN Insider readers know that this has been a busy year for the Texas Freedom Network. We have been fighting hard to defeat efforts by right-wing extremists to rewrite history in our public schools, politicize our children’s education, threaten the separation of church and state and keep young people ignorant about how to protect themselves from unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Our public opinion research and citizen education and training opportunities have provided important lobbying tools for activists across the state.
All of that work, frankly, costs money. So as this year comes to a close, we are asking TFN Insider readers and other supporters to consider donating to help fund our critical work in 2011.
Well-heeled donors poured millions of dollars into far-right causes and pressure groups in the months leading up to last month’s elections. And they are prepared to keep spending mountains of cash to support a divisive and destructive agenda that threatens the values we all hold dear.
The Texas Freedom Network is proud to work with a coalition of other organizations on a range of issues critical to the future of this state. But it remains true that TFN is the only organization that fights the religious and radical right in Texas on a broad front, full-time, 365 days out of the year.
We’re glad that so many people come to this site for reliable information about politics and the radical right in Texas. And we will be grateful for any support you can provide as we continue our work for a Texas that respects religious freedom, defends civil liberties for all and promotes strong public schools.
Please click here to support the work of the Texas Freedom Network.
A major reason as to why TFN has to continue to “raise money” to counter the religion right is because, even after all the years TFN has been in existence, it continues to incorrectly frame the constitutional debate and continues to fail to unquestionably win the debate in court and/or in the public square. As long as TFN stubbornly refuses to use the Constitution’s wording, the public continues to believe it is only a “church” about which the Constitution speaks. To the contrary, the word in Art. 6. and the First Amendment is “religion,” not “church.” Beck and Palin and the witch from Delaware are correct: the words “church and state” are not in the Constitution.
Does no one at TFN comprehend the difference? Did no one at TFN ever take a debate class? Or, does TFN simply like to continue to lose, even after all these many years? The debate is over when the Constitution’s words are used. No one can deny the word in the First Amendment is “religion.” It is “religion” which is not to be established, the whole subject “thereof,” not just a church.
Show me the words “church and state” in the Constitution! You cannot.
Gene Garman, author, The Religion Commandments in the Constitution: A Primer.
Gene. Everyone knows your position. Are using TFN as a marketing venue for your book?
Mr. Garman, I grew up in the Baptist Church, even went to a Baptist College. However, after years of listening to rhetoric often laced with venom and hatred toward a perceived enemy, I had enough. Reading your rant above simply convinces me I made the right decision, although I lament it took far too long to do so. Sentient, thoughtful people will never allow you to run the government. Religious freedom – absolutely! Religious control of government – never!