Executive Branch

A letter to our constituency from Acting Director Ron Millar

Apr. 27, 2009

Dear friends,

I am writing to tell you about my meeting last week, along with other representatives of CARD (Coalition Against Religious Discrimination), with Joshua DuBois, the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

I entered the meeting with very mixed emotions. Although I was glad that the Secular Coalition for America has the political connections to meet face-to-face with the person who runs President Obama's new faith-based office, I was saddened that this meeting was even taking place -- saddened that our new president has decided to continue the failed faith-based policies of his predecessor.  Read more »

Constitutional-Scholar-in-Chief Highlights American Secular Values

For Immediate Release: April 8, 2009
Contact: Anne Singer, 202-271-4679

Washington, DC – The Secular Coalition for America heartily endorses the words spoken by President Barack Obama during a press conference in Turkey this week: "One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation; we consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."  Read more »

The Secular Coalition for America is pleased that President Obama has signed an executive order ending his predecessor's restrictions on stem cell research. Medical experts agree that embryonic stem cell research has great potential to help alleviate or even cure many devastating medical conditions.

Opponents of stem cell research can provide no medical or scientific support for their position. Instead, they offer only a biblical claim that these cells constitute human life. The Secular Coalition has consistently argued that such theological arguments have no place in sound science policy.

With this decision, President Obama has empowered the National Institutes of Health to devise a plan for pursuing research on the most promising stem cell lines - research that may someday lead to the alleviation of tremendous human suffering.  Read more »

With reports indicating President Obama will accept the traditional role of honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America, the Secular Coalition calls on him to use his power to move the Boy Scouts beyond their "traditional values" and to practice the American values of diversity and tolerance. The Coalition also hopes the First Lady, likely to become Girl Scouts' honorary president, uses her position to promote that group's enlightened embrace of diversity.

In releasing his 2010 budget outline today, President Obama indicates that his administration will continue funding abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education, an approach that has repeatedly failed to reduce teen pregnancy. It does nothing more than prohibit sexual activity among unmarried young people, as if sexual activity after marriage has a different outcome.

To prevent teen pregnancy, the president’s budget "supports State, community-based, and faith-based efforts to reduce teen pregnancy using evidence-based models. The program will fund models that stress the important of abstinence while providing medically-accurate and age-appropriate information to youth who have already become sexually active."  Read more »