Hours after a controversial Ten Commandments monument went up on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock in 2017, a protester plowed his car into the granite slab. Police positioned concrete barricades around its replacement to prevent a repeat performance. As president and spokesperson for the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers (ASF), attorney Anne Orsi \u201984 is taking a different approach toward the monument\u2019s permanent removal \u2014 one that faces obstacles through a courthouse instead of the capitol lawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orsi is a lead plaintiff in Orsi v. Martin<\/em>, a federal lawsuit against the State of Arkansas that argues the monument\u2019s presence is an unconditional endorsement of religion by the government and that government must maintain religious neutrality. Orsi\u2019s suit was combined with one filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, resulting in a panel of plaintiffs ranging from atheists, pagans, and wiccans to people of Jewish, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Episcopalian faiths. \u201cWe refer to it as our rainbow coalition,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a longtime activist with the ASF, Orsi advocates for the rights of nonreligious individuals in society. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was literally a sign that led Orsi to connect with the organization in the first place. She\u2019d been feeling consumed by work and isolated, in search of a community that welcomed atheists like herself in the heart of the Bible Belt state where she\u2019d grown up. One day, driving through Little Rock, something caught her eye. \u201cIt was an Adopt-a-Highway trash pickup sign sponsored by the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI thought, \u2018Wow, there are freethinkers in Arkansas?\u2019 I made a note to myself to seek them out.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She enthusiastically joined the ASF, and in 2012, she closed her law practice that focused on real estate, juvenile, and family law and devoted herself to the civil rights issues championed by the organization. In 2013, she joined the board of Lucie\u2019s Place, a nonprofit that serves homeless LGBTQ adults ages 18 to 25. In 2014, she officiated same-sex marriages during the one week it was legal in Arkansas (before the Supreme Court made it legal nationwide in 2015). \u201cThese issues have, at their core, religious discrimination,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Orsi most frequently works on cases of religious discrimination in schools. She has intervened when public schools scheduled field trips to Christmas plays and when a history teacher refused to teach students about the Stone Age because it conflicted with her own biblical-based perspective that the Earth is only approximately 6,000 years old. Orsi recently consulted with a superintendent whose school district was about to adopt a math textbook in which Bible verses started every lesson. \u201cThe lawsuits have tended to be filed over public displays and monuments and things like that,\u201d she says, \u201cbut the vast majority of problems we deal with have to do with religion in public classrooms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Ten Commandments case has been gradually making its way toward trial. After delays with discovery and disputes over testimony, Orsi was supposed to have her day in court for a nonjury trial in early July. But due to the pandemic, the trial has been postponed. Despite the challenges, Orsi remains energized by the Ten Commandments lawsuit and the other issues she takes on for the ASF. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is fun seeing things happen because you demand change and make people do the right thing,\u201d she says. \u201cI find it gratifying that we can address inequities, [take] action, and see some progress.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Attorney Anne Orsi \u201984 advocates for the rights of nonreligious individuals in society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1221,"featured_media":5167,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[262,295],"coauthors":[424],"class_list":["post-5393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-justice","tag-law"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-1oZ","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/08\/Anne-Orsi-2020-4-copy.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5565,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5393\/revisions\/5565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5393"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}