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| FFRF: Senior Essay Competition |
| Essay |
Essay competition on a chosen subject.
2008 FFRF High School Senior Essay Competition
First Prize: Blanche Fearn Memorial Award--$2,000
Second Place--$1,000
Third Place--$500
Honorable Mention(s)--$100
"Why There Should be No Religious Test for Public Office"
Eligibility: High school seniors in North America who are college-bound in fall 2008. (Currently-enrolled college students should enter the College Essay Competition.)
Topic: "Why There Should be No Religious Test for Public Office." Article VI of the U.S. Constitution reads: "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust." Yet is there a de facto religious test for public office in place today? Students may analyze the timely intrusion of religion into the 2008 presidential race, and/or write from a historic, legal or editorial perspective on why this provision adopted by the country's founders must be honored and preserved. FFRF is nonpartisan; please keep essays apolitical and nonpartisan.
Requirements: High school essays of 3-4 typed, double-spaced pages and standard margins should be stapled, include the student's own title, and a one-paragraph biography. The biography should include permanent and campus address (if known), e-mail and phone numbers, name and city of high school they are graduating from, and name and location of college or university in which they will be enrolled in the fall. The paragraph should include intended major and interests. Do not include a resume.
Deadline: June 1, 2008. The high school essays must be postmarked no later than June 1, 2008. No faxed or e-mailed essays will be accepted. Students will be disqualified if they do not follow instructions. Winners will be announced in August 2008. The essay competition is open only to students living in the United States or Canada.
Winners will be asked to provide a photograph suitable for publication. By entering our contest, winning students agree to have their essays printed in full or in part in Freethought Today, the Foundation's newspaper, and later posted online at our web site. Winners will receive a school-year subscription to Freethought Today. All eligible non-winning entrants will be offered the choice of a freethought book, or a school-year subscription to Freethought Today.
Who was Blanche Fearn? She was a longtime member and benefactor of the Foundation who died in 1995. Although she never had the opportunity to attend college, she was a lifelong learner. As an elementary-school student in the early 1900s, she bravely objected to prayers at her public school. She maintained an interest in the separation of church and state throughout her life.
Mail (do not email) essay, postmarked no later than June 1, 2008, to
:
High School Essay Competition
FFRF, Inc.
PO Box 750
Madison WI 53701
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| Freedom From Religion Foundation |
The history of Western civilization shows us that most social and moral progress has been brought about by persons free from religion.
In modern times the first to speak out for prison reform, for humane treatment of the mentally ill, for abolition of capital punishment, for women's right to vote, for death with dignity for the terminally ill, and for the right to choose contraception, sterilization and abortion have been freethinkers, just as they were the first to call for an end to slavery.
The Foundation works as an umbrella for those who are free from religion and are committed to the cherished principle of separation of state and church.
What is the Foundation's purpose?
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, Inc., is an educational group working for the separation of state and church. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the constitutional principle of separation of state and church, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
Incorporated in 1978 in Wisconsin, the Foundation is a national membership association of freethinkers: atheists, agnostics and skeptics of any pedigree. The Foundation is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization under Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3). All dues and contributions are deductible for income tax purposes.
Why is the Foundation concerned with state/church entanglement?
First Amendment violations are accelerating. The religious right is campaigning to raid the public till and advance religion at taxpayer expense, attacking our secular public schools, the rights of nonbelievers, and the Establishment Clause.
The Foundation recognizes that the United States was first among nations to adopt a secular Constitution. The founders who wrote the U.S. Constitution wanted citizens to be free to support the church of their choice, or no religion at all. Our Constitution was very purposefully written to be a godless document, whose only references to religion are exclusionary.
It is vital to buttress the Jeffersonian "wall of separation between church and state" which has served our nation so well. |
| 2008-06-01 |
| 3 |
| $500 |
| $2000 |
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| North America |
| 12 |
| Essay must be mailed (not emailed) and be postmarked by June 1st. |
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| http://www.ffrf.org/essay/highschool.php |
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