Vashti McCollum's Historic Victory
Freethought Radio
Freedom From Religion Foundation
4.6 • 577 Ratings
🗓️ 5 November 2012
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why are "acts of God" and "gifts of God" always so bad? This week we report on theocratic politicians, more football prayer, and an early "holiday" controversy in Texas. Then hear interviews of Vashti McCollum, whose historic 1948 Supreme Court victory removed religious instruction from public schools, and Roy Torcaso, whose equally historic 1962 Supreme Court decision affirmed there should be no religious test for public office, in FFRF's 1988 film "Champions of the First Amendment."
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Free Thought Radio with co-host Stan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, Irreverent Views, News, Music, and Interviews. |
| 0:19.0 | Imagine there's no heaven. |
| 0:21.6 | It's easy if you try. |
| 0:27.6 | No hell below us, above us only sky. |
| 0:41.3 | Imagine all the people living for today. |
| 0:58.5 | Hi, I'm Annie Laurie Galar and happy November to you. |
| 1:03.2 | This is a month in which many famous Freethinkers and Nonbelievers were born. |
| 1:10.3 | For example, Pat Tillman, Marie Curie, Albert Camus, Edmund Haley, Carl Sagan, Turgenev, Van Schiller, Kurt Vonnegut, August Rudin, |
| 1:16.2 | Elizabeth Katie Stanton, IAN Herssey Ali, Robert Louis Stevenson, Aaron Copeland, Nehru, Margaret Atwood, |
| 1:25.1 | Jody Foster, Bjork, Voltaire, George Eliot, Scott Joplin, and Nicol Gaylor, |
| 1:32.6 | Andrew Carnegie, Bill Nye, and Mark Twain. So who says that nonbelievers have not contributed |
| 1:38.2 | beauty and art and progressive thoughts to the world? We've been very influential. |
| 1:43.7 | And we'll also work for state church separation. |
| 1:46.6 | This week also marks the centennial of the birth of Vashti Cromwell, McCollum. |
| 1:51.9 | We've talked about her a lot on this show in the past, the famous McCollum decision. |
| 1:55.7 | She was born November the 6th, 1912. |
| 1:59.0 | And today we're going to commemorate Vashti McCollum and that landmark Supreme Court case that she won, |
| 2:05.6 | barring devotional religious instruction in the public schools, by playing a historic interview with Vashti. I'm Dan Barker, your friendly neighborhood, atheist of the airwaves. This is the November 3rd, 2012 broadcast of Freethought Radio. |
| 2:20.5 | We broadcast, produce at the Mike 92.1 in Madison, Wisconsin. |
| 2:25.8 | Free Thought Radio also streams from here, and we podcast around the cosmos, |
| 2:31.6 | and we broadcast also in other cities, including Columbia, Missouri, Ithaca, New York, Grand Rapids, Michigan, Monterey, California. |
| 2:40.5 | Free Thought Radio is the weekly production of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and we're a 501c3 educational charity. |
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