Saturday is Religious Freedom Day. While it's not one of our most well-known or popular holidays, Religious Freedom Day shouldn't be overlooked. Our country is in the middle of a campaign, spearheaded by far-right religious groups and their political allies, to redefine religious freedom. We cannot allow this to happen.

This campaign takes several forms. We see efforts by Religious Right groups and the U.S. Catholic bishops to take religious freedom, a key individual right, and turn it into something that allows one person to control or make moral decisions for others.

There's a sexual harassment case involving a fellow named Bill that's rocking the headlines, and it has nothing to do with Bill Cosby. Welcome to the world of Bill Gothard, where at least ten women have thus far filed lawsuits accusing the founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) of sexual abuse and harassment, according to numerous reports.

This week, I published a report -- months in the making --  titled, When Exemption is the Rule: The Religious Freedom Strategy of the Christian Right . (I recommend the PDF version, a great reading experience!).  It was intended as a conversation starter. Not because many of us are not already talking about religious freedom as it relates to many issues of concern. Its more that the Religious Right seems to have the upper hand in these matters -- and it is time to change that dynamic.

I'm pleased to report that the conversation has begun this Religious Freedom Week. Rather than going back to the report and quoting myself, allow me the wonderful privilege to introducing the very kinds of reporting and conversations I hoped this project would launch. It is no small thing to publish something like this, and I am grateful that it is being read and discussed by such knowledgeable and thoughtful writers as those below:

Retired Catholic theologian Bill Lindsey kicks it off at his blog.

Fred Clarkson wants this report on how we've gotten where we are with the bogus religious freedom arguments of the religious right, with its attempt to stand authentic religious freedom on its head, to be a wake-up call to us.

Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore last week tried, once again, to block marriage equality in that state.

There is no case pending before the state high court dealing directly with same-sex marriage, but Moore decided to issue an order anyway. He instructed probate judges in the state to cease issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Moore's novel theory is that the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges applies only to a handful of states in the U.S. 6th court circuit, where the case originated.

The government, at least in theory, is supposed to be neutral on matters of theology, neither favoring religion nor irreligion.

In a 1989 case called Texas Monthly v. Bullock, Justice William Brennan wrote, "In proscribing all laws `respecting an establishment of religion,' the Constitution prohibits, at the very least, legislation that constitutes an endorsement of one or another set of religious beliefs or of religion generally."

Yes, folks it's that time of the year again. It's time for the presentation of the annual Coughlin Award. As it is every year, the competition was stiff, so much so that this year for the first time we have a tie!  This year's award goes to Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Maureen Malarkey.

At Donald Trump's December 14 political speech in Los Vegas, he ended his message by bashing recently acquitted Sergeant Berdcahl as a traitor deserving of the death penalty.  This was the punch line to the final epic point of the evening as Trump laid out his Trump card to the audience.  The bashing of Berdcahl reminded me of familiar messages from these crowds regarding American patriotism.

With Republican candidate Ben Carson dropping like a stone in a pool of confusion, who gets invited to the tea party?

Tea Party activists currently appear to be splitting their votes between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. That's at 9 am December 14, 2005.

Things could be different by tomorrow in this fast-shifting environment.

Over at the Free Republic website, which caters to all things of interest to the Right-Wing Patriot Movement, there is an
ongoing and vibrant discussion about this split.

Putting this in perspective takes a few steps.

The state of Tennessee used to have a law that banned members of the clergy from running for public office. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 rightfully declared this provision unconstitutional.

In the United States, pretty much all adults, with very few exceptions, have the right to run for public office. I wouldn't have it any other way. If democracy means anything, it means the right to choose our own leaders. Disqualifying people from the ballot because of their race, gender or religious beliefs is un-American.

We stand in the overflow crowd of some 300 in the small town of Tyngsborough near the New Hampshire border. Several thousand people are inside a local elementary school. The crowd is excited. Here is Donald Trump in Massachusetts in October of 2015. "Why do they always say a Republican can't win in Massachusetts?" we hear Trump say over the loudspeakers set up outside the school.

One woman we meet at the Massachusetts Trump Rally is Joan. A mature White woman who works three jobs to make ends meet. Joan believes in the Lord Jesus Christ and warns that the United States will soon be judged because events in Israel reveal that we are in the seven-year countdown to the apocalypse and Armageddon.

Now is the time for blunt talk. Donald Trump is a dangerous demagogue generating "scripted violence." Trumpism threatens not just the First Amendment but democracy itself. I call him a right-wing populist using fascistic rhetoric to target scapegoated groups. Other journalists and scholars have dubbed him a fascist or a totalitarian. But we all smell the stench of the burning bodies. So let us have our terminological debates, but setting aside all intellectual disagreements, as citizens of an increasingly unfree society, we must stand up and speak out.

The First Amendment guarantees the free exercise of religion, and that includes the right to call religion ridiculous. It protects devout Roman Catholics and those in the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster--even those who sometimes wear colanders as hats. Here at Talk to Action we are nonpartisan, welcome respectful contributions discussing human, civil, and constitutional rights, and find debates between theists and atheists annoying (no trolls blasting either are allowed). Democracy is what we cherish...and it is in trouble.

TV preacher Pat Robertson and I go way back. In 1996, I wrote a book about him, and I've followed his career since.

I long ago concluded that no one can track every zany thing the oracle of Virginia Beach spouts. Doing that would be a full-time job, and I have other things to do.