The Freedom From Religion Foundation has spent decades sending legal threat letters to Republican officials – and watching them fold.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier just ended that streak.
Now the country is finding out what one word from one AG looks like when he means them.
The Letter That Backfired
The FFRF sent Uthmeier a formal demand on April 28 – insisting he either retract his legal opinion allowing religious schools to access public funds or resign his office.
His complete response: "Dear Mr. Line: No. Sincerely, James Uthmeier."
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2049141635124957629?s=20
No lengthy legal rebuttal. No offer to meet and discuss.
No carefully worded non-answer designed to placate an activist group that was never going to be placated anyway.
The backstory matters.
Uthmeier had issued a memo on April 2 arguing that Florida government entities cannot legally exclude religious organizations – including charter schools – from public benefit programs like scholarships and grants simply because of their religious status.
He went further.
Some Florida laws on the books actually bar religious schools from public funds.
Uthmeier announced his office would not enforce them.
"Some Florida laws prohibit religious schools from accessing public funds, and we will not enforce unconstitutional laws," he said.
The FFRF fired back that Uthmeier was misrepresenting Supreme Court decisions and called on him to resign if he was unwilling to carry out what the group called his "constitutional obligations."
https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/2039717446173503783?s=20
The Supreme Court Already Settled This
The FFRF's claim that Uthmeier misrepresented recent SCOTUS decisions is itself a misrepresentation.
The Supreme Court has ruled on this exact question three times in five years – and the trajectory is unmistakable.
In Trinity Lutheran v. Comer (2017), the Court held Missouri couldn't exclude a church from a playground safety grant program solely because of its religious identity.
In Espinoza v. Montana (2020), the Court extended that principle to school choice scholarship programs – striking down Montana's attempt to block religious schools from participating.
Then came Carson v. Makin (2022) – the case that makes Uthmeier's position bulletproof.
Maine ran a tuition assistance program for students in rural districts with no public high school. Maine excluded religious schools.
The Supreme Court said that exclusion violated the Free Exercise Clause.
That is the case the FFRF wants you to believe doesn't exist.
https://twitter.com/JacksonLahmeyer/status/2048810244701069697?s=20
Florida's constitutional provision restricting religious funding is a Blaine Amendment – a relic of 19th-century anti-Catholic bigotry that spread across state constitutions specifically to keep Catholic immigrants from accessing public education funds.
Uthmeier isn't defying the Constitution.
He's enforcing it against a law that the Supreme Court has now made clear cannot stand.
What the FFRF Was Actually Doing
Here's what the Freedom From Religion Foundation understood perfectly well before they sent that letter.
These demand letters are not legal arguments.
They're pressure tactics designed to make Republican officials spend political capital defending something completely defensible – or back down and give the FFRF a fundraising win.
The goal was never to win a legal debate.
The goal was to make Uthmeier spend weeks crafting a careful, lawyerly response that acknowledged the "complexity" of the issue and left room for future negotiation.
Instead he wrote two words and went back to work.
That response is spreading because it's exactly what people have wanted to see from Republican officials for thirty years.
You don't negotiate with activist groups whose business model is your capitulation.
You say no.
Sources:
- Joseph Feldman, "Florida Attorney General Issues Terse Refusal to Demand He Rescind His View on Religious Funding," VIN News, April 28, 2026.
- Carson v. Makin, 596 U.S. 767 (2022), Supreme Court of the United States.
- Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, 591 U.S. 464 (2020), Supreme Court of the United States.
- Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U.S. 449 (2017), Supreme Court of the United States.
