First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State

The publication of this book, like participation in the entire First Freedom First campaign, has been a venture in expansive cooperation.

Seldom does it happen, but in bringing together this publication, every single person to whom I turned for help said “yes” immediately. First among those was Barry Lynn, who consented on the spot to work with me on the content of the book. No sooner had I proposed the idea of the book to Helene Atwan, director of Beacon Press, than she said, “We are the ones to do this book, and we want to do it.”Tom Hallock encouraged the process and offered an amazing degree of flexibility in dealing with a traditionally inflexible publication schedule. Our editor, Brian Halley, has been a model of patience as well as a tremendous source of helpful counsel and other forms of support, personally and professionally.

Board members and staff members of the Grove Foundation have expressed an unusually high degree of interest in and made multiple suggestions regarding this whole campaign generally and this publication specifically. Special thanks go to Eva Grove, Karen Grove, and Rebekah Saul Butler. Andy Grove has been tenacious in his devotion to the First Freedom First campaign and gracious in his willingness to contribute a moving personal perspective on religious freedom to this volume.

I am grateful for the level of interest in and dedication to this project demonstrated by members of the staff of The Interfaith Alliance Foundation. Barry, I know, extends special thanks to writer/ researcher Adele Stan and to Americans United’s Rob Boston and Lauren Smith for lending enormous time and talent researching

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