Under Barack Obama, George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, which gives federal government money to religious organizations, has grown larger. When Obama embraced Bush’s idea of channeling government money to churches, he promised to reform the program, but the promised reforms have not come. Churches that get government money can use it to engage in discrimination, refusing to hire anyone but believers in church theological doctrines.
It’s in this context of continuing erosion of the separation of Church and State that the Reason Rally is taking place this spring. On March 24, what is being billed as “the largest gathering of the secular movement in world history” is coming together on the National Mall in Washington D.C.
The Reason Rally isn’t the only national secular gathering taking place this spring, though. Up in Canada, over in British Columbia, the Imagine No Religion conference is scheduled for May 18-20.
