Legislative and Regulatory Update from the Secular Coalition

• Federal -
  
  • The House will consider a repeal of the Affordable Care Act on July 11.
  • We are working with CARD to offer language to the Senate-passed Violence Against Women act that will strengthen the anti-discrimination provisions.
  • We had a good meeting with Rep. Eshoo’s staff. We discussed education-related issues such as school vouchers and the existence of student-atheist/freethought groups. We also left a list of local groups in the Congresswoman’s District that could be used to help with future policy discussions at the local level.
  • We talked with Rep. Stark’s staff about reserving a room for a Hill briefing in September. They agreed and we are working on several options for the presentation and the best date for a briefing.
  • Our meeting with Senate Armed Services Committee staff confirmed that they would like to see the full Senate consider the Defense Authorization bill in July. This would set up a conference between the House and Senate in August with final passage in September. This has been the goal for the past few years but has not been successful. The Committee hasn’t heard any talk of floor amendments similar to the Akin and Palazzo amendments in the House-passed version. The Akin amendment would allow servicemembers to discriminate against other soldiers without recrimination if they did so because of religious belief. The Palazzo amendment would prohibit the use of DoD facilities from being used for gay marriage ceremonies even if those ceremonies were legal in the state where the DoD facility is located.
• Judicial -
  • Moss v. Spartanburg County School District – On June 28, 2012 the 4th Circuit federal appeals court upheld a South Carolina program that allows high school students to earn elective credit toward graduation through off-campus religious courses. Previous cases held that students may be released for religious education during the day as long as the instruction is not on school grounds and the school does not encourage participation. The suit was brought by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, with amicus briefs filed by the American Humanist Association and the Secular Student Alliance, who argued the policy is unconstitutional because students are rewarded for religious participation by receiving school credit. The court ruled the school’s policy had the secular purpose of accommodating students’ desire to receive religious instruction.
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