Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Founded 1947
Location
Area served
United States
Method Litigation, education
Members
Over 75,000[1]
Revenue
$6,921,251 USD (2007)[2]
Website http://www.au.org/

Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Americans United or AU for short) is a group that advocates separation of church and state, a legal doctrine set forth in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Organization

Americans United describes itself as officially non-sectarian and non-partisan. According to The Praeger Handbook of Religion and Education in the United States "It includes members from a broad religious, and non-religious, spectrum, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists." Its national headquarters are in Washington, D.C.. Its current executive director, Barry W. Lynn, is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ,[3] as well as an attorney involved with civil liberties issues.

History

Americans United for Separation of Church and State was founded in 1947 as Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State (POAU) by a coalition of religious, educational and civic leaders in response to proposals pending in the U.S. Congress to extend government aid to private religious schools, particularly Catholic parochial schools, which was at the time, and continues to be, the largest system of private schools in the United States.[4] They believed that government support for religious education would violate church-state separation and force taxpayers to subsidize sectarian education. The decision was made to form a national organization to promote and defend this point of view.

The organization aimed to influence political leaders, and began publishing Church & State magazine in 1952 and other materials in support of church-state separation to educate the general public.[5]

Its original founding members were Charles Clayton Morrison, Glenn L. Archer,[6] Edwin McNeill Poteat, G. Bromley Oxnam, and Joseph Martin Dawson.[7]

Recent work

Americans United was one of three national organizations that opposed the teaching of intelligent design in Dover, Pa., public schools. A federal judge struck down the policy in December 2005 (see Kitzmiller v. Dover). More recently, Americans United has worked to secure marriage equality for gays and lesbians and has opposed religious freedom laws that would permit government officials, such as county clerks who issue marriage licenses, to refuse to serve the LGBT community. Americans United runs a project called Protect Thy Neighbor to oppose such legislation.[8]

Americans United represented residents of Greece, N.Y., who opposed that city's practice of opening its council meetings with mostly Christian prayers. The case, Town of Greece v. Galloway, went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. After the decision was issued, Americans United launched Operation Inclusion to ensure that such council prayers were as inclusive as possible.[9]

In recent years, Americans United has worked to uphold the federal law that bars non-profit groups, including houses of worship, from intervening in partisan politics. In 1992, the group reported a New York church to the IRS after the church ran newspaper ads telling people not to vote for Bill Clinton. The IRS subsequently stripped the church of its tax-exempt status.

In May 2013, Americans United released a parody video starring Jane Lynch and Jordan Peele as "Church" and "State", respectively, undergoing a humorous musical breakup.[10]

Reception by religious community

In its first years, a main focus of AU's activity was opposition to the political activities of the Roman Catholic Church and was thus seen by critics as a Protestant-based anti-Catholic organization.[11]

Critics in the Evangelical Christian community have described Americans United as "atheistic" and "anti-Christian."[12] The executive director of Americans United, Rev. Barry W. Lynn, is an ordained minister with the United Church of Christ,[13] and a critic of religious fundamentalism on the Christian right.[14] Lynn self-describes as a member of the Christian left.[15]

See also

References

External links

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