Earlier today, Pharyngula blogger PZ Myers reported on the right-wing Alliance Defense Fund’s proposed “Pulpit Initiative.” As part of this initiative the Alliance Defense Fund, which is an obliquely Christian legal think tank dedicated to abolition the separation of church and state, is calling on preachers and clergymen nationwide to spend this September 28th deliberately violating the terms of their religious tax exemption by publicly endorsing political candidates for high office in the 2008 election.
To counter, the Bates College Secular Student Alliance has already invited the famous church-state separation activist Ellery Schempp to deliver a talk at Bates College on the importance of church-state separation on the day of the Pulpit Initiative. It is this author’s hope that, even on such short notice, CFI and SSA groups nationwide will take the initiative to make September 28th into a national day of free, public events designed to promote the history and value of the principle of the separation of Church and State in the United States.