Good Girls and Alpha Males: Madeline Peltz

Join us on Friday, January 29 at 12p/MST for a conversation with journalist and author Madeline Peltz. She’ll discuss her new book Good Girls and Alpha Males: How Conservative Media is Targeting Gen Z.

Click here to register for this virtual presentation.

Madeline Peltz is a writer, journalist, and researcher born in Chicago. Over the last decade, her reporting has appeared in Media Matters for America, MSNOW, Newsweek, More Perfect Union, and more. She has been quoted as an expert on right-wing media and the conservative movement in The New York Times, CNN, Democracy Now!, The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, and elsewhere.

The fight for young minds is happening daily on podcasts, YouTube, and social media—platforms saturated with conservative messaging. The right has spent decades investing in this year-round digital propaganda apparatus, targeting Gen Z’s economic insecurity and distrust of mainstream institutions to push answers rooted in hyper-individualism, misogyny, and bigotry.

In Good Girls and Alpha Males, journalist Madeline Peltz takes readers inside the online conservative sphere shaping the future of politics. From “tradwife” influencers to “manosphere” mouthpieces, she exposes the voices driving Gen Z’s shift to the right along gendered lines. With equal ferocity, Peltz interrogates the Democratic Party’s culpability, condemning the hostility to its younger, more progressive flank.

The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Michael Blanding

Join us on Friday, December 4 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Michael Blanding to discuss his new book The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Inside a Billionaire Family’s Quest to Craft a Christian Nation.

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Smithsonian, Slate, The Nation, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston. His newest book, The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Inside a Billionaire Family’s Quest to Craft a Christian Nation was published by PublicAffairs in July 2026. 

His previous book, In Shakespeare’s Shadow: A Rogue Scholar’s Quest to Reveal the True Source Behind the World’s Greatest Plays, was published by Hachette Books in 2021, and won the International Book Award for Narrative Non-Fiction. Before that, The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps, was published by Gotham in 2014 and named a New York Times Bestseller; an NPR Book of the Year; a New England Indie Bestseller; and winner of an NES Book Award from the New England Society of New York. His first book, The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World’s Favorite Soft Drink, was published by Avery in 2010.

Michael was formerly a senior writing fellow at the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University. In addition, he has been a senior writer at Harvard Business School; a senior writer and associate editor at Boston Magazine; and editor of New England Travel magazine. He has also co-written several travel guides to New England destinations for Moon Handbooks, and taught journalism and creative nonfiction at Tufts University, Emerson College, Northeastern University, and GrubStreet Writers. He lives in the Boston area and has two children. Visit his website at www.michaelblanding.com. 

Weapons of Worship: Rick Pidcock

Join us on November 20 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Rick Pidcock to discuss his new book Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. 

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

In a sweeping investigation of the music of megachurches and political rallies, how did songs beloved by white evangelicals become the soundtrack of Christian supremacy’s war on democracy?

Praise and worship music often fits hand-in-glove with Christian Trumpism, and in this unsettling account, journalist Rick Pidcock asks: How did songs like “How Great Is Our God” become anthems of rallies for the regime? How do lyrics like “Praise is the water my enemies drown in” shape the people who sing them? Singing with others creates a powerful sense of belonging and transcendence. So what happens when the music of one movement becomes the soundtrack of another?

Pidcock, who led worship in evangelical churches for twenty years, uncovers how worship gatherings blur into political rallies and vice versa. He takes us to worship gatherings on the National Mall, to charismatic concerts around the country, and into the early days of contemporary Christian music itself. He looks at the racism, misogyny, apocalypticism, and individualism that underwrite the songs, and at the ways children are being indoctrinated by the lyrics of silly songs with disturbing undertones. He uncovers a worship culture increasingly controlled by a set of powerbrokers and looks at how algorithms define the worship repertoire.

Celebrity worship leaders like Sean Feucht and worship collectives like Bethel Music and Hillsong are crafting worship experiences that strengthen the power of those at the top, dehumanize those below, and wage war against people who won’t submit. The same songs sung at your local megachurch this Sunday–about power and punishment, floods and flames, pain and praise–now mark many political gatherings. As praise and worship music sands down the edges between Christianity and politics, Pidcock asks: Where are songs of conquest and spiritual warfare taking us?

 

Take Your Power Back

Posted on by Jeanne Casteen

A quick glance at the headlines any given morning probably gives all of us a similar feeling: powerlessness. 

Just this week, gas prices have skyrocketed (again), the GOP held a midterm convention where they threw thirsttrap photos of Hasan Piker on the Jumbotron, Heather Cox Richardson unlocked a new level of fascist hell in her most recent Substack, and an Anthropic researcher quit, warning that “[t]he people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” 

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When Religious Confidentiality Meets Child Abuse Reporting

Posted on by Sagarika Nandi, Secular AZ Legal Intern

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An American Problem: Kevin Morris

Join us on October 30 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Dr. Kevin Morris to discuss his latest book, An American Problem: How the County Built – and the Supreme Court Broke – the Voting Rights Act.

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The rise and fall of the Voting Rights Act, from the triumph of its passage in 1965 to its evisceration by the Supreme Court in their 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally made good on the promise of the Fifteenth Amendment, which nearly a century before had granted Black Americans the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act was the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, which had battled for years against voting laws that made it all but impossible for Black Americans to cast a ballot. The act was a resounding success, bringing Americans of all races and ethnicities into the democratic process. And then, in 2013, the Supreme Court brought this progress to a screeching halt with their decision in Shelby County v. Holder. In this book, Michael Miller and Kevin Morris offer a sweeping history of the Voting Rights Act and the attacks it has suffered.

 

Faith, Politics, and Constitutional Neutrality: Lessons from India and the US

Posted on by Sagarika Nandi, Secular AZ Legal Intern

Religion has long played a significant role in shaping societies, influencing culture, traditions, moral values, and community life. For many people, faith provides a sense of identity, purpose, and belonging, and religious institutions have made lasting contributions through education, healthcare, charitable work, and community service. At the same time, history demonstrates that religion has also been a source of conflict and division, particularly when religious beliefs become intertwined with political power. Throughout history, religious ideas and institutions have at times been used to justify wars, persecution, discrimination, and unequal treatment of minority communities. Women have often faced restrictions on their rights and opportunities based on religious or patriarchal interpretations, while LGBTQ+ individuals have frequently encountered exclusion, criminalization, or social stigma justified on religious grounds.

These experiences illustrate why democratic societies continue to grapple with a fundamental constitutional question: how can governments protect every person’s freedom of belief while ensuring that no belief system is given legal or political preference over others?

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Religious Liberty, Federal Funding, and Lessons for HB4117

Posted on by Sagarika Nandi, Secular AZ Legal Intern

The case of Landor v. La. Dep’t of Corr. & Pub. Safety, No. 23-1197, slip op. (U.S. June 23, 2026) sits at the intersection of federal funding law and religious liberty in prisons. At its core, the dispute concerns the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), a federal statute passed under Congress’s Spending Clause power. RLUIPA says that when states accept federal funds for prisons, they must not substantially burden an incarcerated person’s religious exercise unless the restriction is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest.

Damon Landor, a Rastafarian prisoner, alleges that prison officials violated his religious beliefs by forcibly shaving his head despite knowing that his faith required him to keep his hair uncut. According to Landor, when he was transferred to another prison near the end of his sentence, he provided the new officers with a copy of an order protecting his religious practice. He alleges that the officers disregarded the order, discarded it, and cut his hair anyway. For Landor, the violation was not simply a disagreement over prison policy; it involved the loss of a religious practice that he believed was central to his faith. He sued under RLUIPA, seeking relief against both the Louisiana Department of Corrections and the individual prison officers in their personal capacities.

The key legal question before the Supreme Court was whether RLUIPA’s Spending Clause framework allows prisoners to seek monetary damages from individual state officers who themselves were not parties to the federal funding “agreement.”

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2026 Legislative Report and Scorecard: Which Lawmakers Voted Against the Constitution?

Posted on by Secular AZ

Read the 2026 Legislative Report and Scorecard

After each legislative session sine dies, Secular AZ analyzes how state lawmakers voted, which bills they wrote and sponsored, and how their actions impact the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.

During Arizona’s 57 th Legislature, lawmakers introduced a record-breaking 2,190 bills, memorials, and resolutions. Secular AZ tracked 60 bills that would interfere with Arizonans’ right to a government free from religious influence.

In 2026, the Arizona State Legislature considered:

  • 17 bills threatening LGBTQIA+ and transgender equality
  • 15 bills codifying religious privilege such as controlling curricula, indoctrination in schools, vaccine exemptions, tax
  • benefits, clergy abuse reporting, and more
  • 14 bills attempting to restrict reproductive rights
  • 5 bills threatening public health
  • 3 bills based in anti-scientific mis- or disinformation
  • 4 bills that directly violate the Establishment Clause and chill free speech
  • 2 bills discriminating against specific religious groups

Of these bills, memorials, and resolutions:

  • 36 failed in the House or Senate
  • 17 passed both chambers and were vetoed by Governor Katie Hobbs
  • 5 passed and will be on the ballot this November
  • 2 were signed into law by Governor Hobbs

The anti-secular bills passed and signed into law include:

  • HB2312: Allows “patriotic” groups in schools
  • HB4117: Prohibits protests or assemblies in or near places of worship or religious services.

In contrast, more than 40 bills were introduced that would have protected separation of church and state by:

  • ensuring access to reproductive healthcare
  • protecting LGBTQIA+ and transgender equality
  • demanding accountability in the ESA/voucher program
  • protecting public healthcare coverage

These bills were all introduced by Democratic lawmakers. Unfortunately , the GOP-led legislature did not allow any to progress. However , these bills indicate the potential for positive change in Arizona, should the balance in the legislature change.

These bills’ stories are told in this report, along with a scorecard ranking how your elected officials voted.

 

Read the 2026 Legislative Report and Scorecard

Why I’m Celebrating Dependence Day This Year

Posted on by Jeanne Casteen
I’m nostalgic for kindness, decency, and empathy. I’m a child of the 70s, and Fred Rogers and Kermit the Frog set the tone of my childhood. I remember when Mr. Hooper died, and the cast of Sesame Street turned it into a lesson about death and grieving. I remember when Mr. Rogers shared his pool with the Black police officer, Officer Clemmons. 

Now these two examples of just being a decent fucking human being would be considered “woke” by many. 

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