Year: 2024

By Posted on Posted in Event

 

Our Annual Picnic held September 29 featured our guest, Pulitzer Prize-winning Tony Messenger, columnist of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the popular singer, Laka, with her band! We had over 60 people in attendance, and everybody had a wonderful time.

Mr. Messenger, author of “Profit and Punishment: How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice”, spoke about how the far-right uses laws intended to further religious freedom to impose the narrow religious interpretations  of  a small minority on the rest of society.

By Posted on Posted in Litigation, Uncategorized

  We strongly supported the petition effort to repeal the current no-exceptions ban on abortions in Missouri, which we learned on 9/11/2024 will be on the November ballot!

A link to a comprehensive description of the ruling can be found on the KWMU Web site. Our national office issued a statement on Friday, June 14, expressing our respectful disagreement. Of course, the initiative petition that would, if passed, revoke Missouri’s draconian law against virtually all abortions will be on the ballot in November. However, the effect would not be as clear an affirmation of Missouri’s constitutional statement that church and state are and should be separate as a ruling in our favor would have been. We are disappointed by not surprised.

 

By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized

  Our Board Member (also AU national treasurer), Brian Kaylor, is coauthor with Beau Underwood of a new book about religious freedom in America.  The full title is “Baptizing America: How Mainline Protestants Helped Build Christian Nationalism”. It provides the AU perspective on the alarming growth of Christian Nationalism. Its thesis is that Christian Nationalism is not just a recent aberrant creation of the right wing, but a consequence of years and decades of encroachment on religious freedom by organizations that are often viewed as benign, the “apple pie” denominations such as the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others. The narrative is very up-to-date, but also provides the history of the foundational events that have led to our current uncomfortable situation.  The book is published by Chalice Press and is available everywhere.

By Posted on Posted in Event, Legislation, Litigation

The meeting that was to be at The Heights, was postponed to Saturday evening April 27, 7:00-9:00 pm.  It featured an update on our lawsuit against the state of Missouri by Denise Lieberman, AU’s local attorney for the case, and comments by some of the plaintiffs.    We had a report on the status of bills in the Missouri legislature that impinge on church/state separation.

The business meeting included an update on our finances, plans for the annual picnic and other activities, and the election of new Board members.

By Posted on Posted in Event

On Monday, February 26, 7:00 pm, at the Mid-County Library Branch, 7821 Maryland Avenue, we will meet to view the video, “Deciding Vote”. This NewYorker.com short documentary reconstructs the moral dilemma associated with the passage of the 1970 New York law that made that state a “pre-Rowe vs Wade” sanctuary for legal abortion.  Join us to share the video and our group reaction to it.  We will have some refreshments before the video. Please let us know you are coming through our MeetUp page but come in any case. Trivia question: “Which state was first to pass legislation legalizing abortion in the 1970s?”

Representative George Michaels in the NY

 

The initiative petition seeking to get the Missouri abortion ban rescinded will be available to sign at the meeting.  [This effort is not connected to our own AU suit against the state of Missouri, which would determine the ban to be unconstitutional because it infringes on religious freedom.]

 

By Posted on Posted in Event, Litigation, News

On January 25, our Chapter Treasurer, Hal Harris, presented an update on the status of the suit by AU and the Women’s Law Center against the state of Missouri to the Phelps County Democratic Club.  (AU is a non-partisan educational organization, but we present factual information to the public regardless of political affiliation.) We are suing on the ground that Missouri’s comprehensive and cruel abortion ban infringes on freedom of religion. The Missouri defendants (including the Governor, the Attorney General, and the health-related officers of the State) have tried to claim that the plaintiffs do not have standing and that judge should issue a summary judgement against us.  The claim that we did not have standing was dismissed within two weeks, but the second motion is under consideration.  A ruling was expected “in January”, but has not so far been issued. Any day now …