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The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging a California city not to retroactively bestow $100,000 of public funds on a church for a fireworks show that included a religious sermon.

FFRF has learned from a local news source that Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue and members of the Salinas City Council are considering retroactively rewarding Compass Church $100,000 for a Fourth of July fireworks event that included substantial proselytizing. The money would come from a “community scholarship” program, with a total budget of $150,000 for the program. According to reporting, a single organization is not supposed to receive more than $50,000; however, a council member proposed making a special exception and awarding Compass Church double the maximum amount.

The program’s eligibility criteria includes: “The city will not award sponsorship to any church organization to promote religious purposes.” A community member explained that the church’s 2025 Firework Extravaganza included a pastor giving a sermon for 10 to 15 minutes. The council has not provided thorough reasoning behind why the church’s firework show, which included a religious service, did not “promote religious purposes” or why the church’s firework show is so important to the community that the council is justified in awarding the church two-thirds of the entire budget and making a special exception to the award cap.

“Out of respect for the First Amendment and the community’s diversity, we ask that Salinas City Council refrain from awarding Compass Church $100,000 in taxpayer funds as reimbursement for its religious event,” FFRF Staff Attorney Sammi Lawrence writes.

The government cannot subsidize certain religions or dispense special financial benefits to religious organizations or ministries, FFRF emphasizes. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause requires government neutrality between religions, and between religion and nonreligion. The City Council’s proposal to retroactively award Compass Church $100,000 for a religious fireworks show is needlessly divisive and betrays taxpayer trust.

The City Council’s proposed actions also marginalize all community members who are among the 33 percent of adult Californians who are religiously unaffiliated, as well as the additional 9 percent adhering to non-Christian faiths. The city of Salinas should devote public funds to endeavors that are inclusive and welcoming to the entire community, not to events with an agenda to proselytize the public to adhere to a particular faith.

FFRF firmly believes that if the Salinas City Council were to award Compass Church double the approved cap for the sponsorship money, it would be creating a needless divide in the community solely based on religious belief.

“The Salinas City Council must not allow this unconstitutional proposal to go through,” FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says. “Local taxpayers cannot be forced to subsidize religious proselytizing. Many Christians in Salinas, not only the more than one-third who have no religious affiliation, would disagree with Compass Church’s proclamation that the bible is ‘infallible.’ We separate religion from government precisely to avoid this kind of abuse.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with over 42,000 members and several chapters nationwide, including more than 5,000 members and two chapters in California. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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