Jason Lemieux was raised in a village in the Adirondack wilderness of northern New York. After graduating from a vocational high school program in logging, heavy equipment operation, and natural resource conservation, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps on September 10, 2001. Trained as an infantry assaultman, Jason served three tours in Iraq leading small infantry teams in combat. After his military service, Jason became an outspoken activist for ending the occupation of Iraq. This was the beginning of a varied, even eclectic, career in public service.

Jason’s formal public service career began in 2012 with a United Nations Development Programme peacebuilding internship in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. In Bougainville, Jason documented the presence of hazardous World War II-era unexploded military ordnance and examined its impact on peacebuilding following the civil war between this island region and mainland Papua New Guinea.

In 2015, Jason accepted his first permanent position as a Legislative Correspondent in the office of U.S. Senator Cory Booker. In Senator Booker’s office, Jason gained invaluable experience managing the Senator’s affairs in the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

Jason next served as Director of Government Affairs at the Center for Inquiry (CFI) lobbying on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures for the equal rights of nonbelievers.

In November 2022, Jason was invited to a written forum of the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps journal where he called for a modernized, inclusive military chaplain corps that fulfills the life-affirming needs of our diverse military including the 30 percent of service members with no known religious preference.

Jason is a versatile public speaker who excels at presentations, speeches, legislative testimony, and formal instruction to an audience of any size.

Jason graduated from Columbia University in the City of New York with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science (cum laude) and a Master of International Affairs with a concentration in Human Rights and a specialization in Advanced Policy and Economic Analysis.

Jason is also a restaurant manager and bartender licensed to supervise alcohol sales on-premises in the District of Columbia.

Kyle was raised in a small, conservative town in Northern California that had no stop lights and even less desire for social change. Knowing this myopic and religiously oppressive environment was the antithesis of her moral compass, she escaped, seeking a brighter, more inclusive atmosphere to grow and thrive.

She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California and has lived in Los Angeles for over 15 years. As a social media marketing and branding specialist, Kyle started her company Socially Aware in 2015 and has thoroughly enjoyed advocating for clients ranging from small businesses to large corporations, across a dozen industries.

With a particular skill for storytelling, she helps shape and amplify the unique voices of her clients and their organizations, with an ethos of integrity as the guiding principle of her work. As an Ex-vangelical, atheist, and fierce advocate for women’s equity, joining the Secular Strategies team is one of her most personally and professionally fulfilling assignments to date.

She’s passionate about filmmaking, interior decorating, environmentalism, and caring for her 32 houseplants.

Cara has worked in and around government for over 15 years, including lobbying in New York City, New York State and Washington, D.C. Her experience includes advocacy for some of the largest non-profits and health care organizations in the United States, as well as working for the federal and municipal government and with elected officials. She is a member of the Governor-appointed New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, board member and Secretary for the Fund for Public Health and volunteers teaching new parents English in her free time.

Cara graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a B.A. in political science and is a New York-licensed attorney with a JD from American University, Washington College of Law. She grew up in Dallas, Texas and lives in New York City with her daughter Zella.

Lindsay was raised in the Republic of Panama and gained an interest in politics and foreign policy from an early age, living through the rule of Manual Noriega and the following governmental transitions. She has worked as an advocate in international human rights for 17 years, with a focus on freedom of religion, conscience, and belief for religious minorities, along with numerous other related rights such as gender equality, reforming justice systems, trafficking of women and girls, and much more. Her work has primarily focused on the US Congress, governmental agencies, the UN, and foreign governments. 

She founded and served as the Advocacy Director for Open Doors USA from 2004 through 2012. During this time, Rodriguez worked on a variety of issues including lobbying against the UN Defamation of Religions Resolution in coalition with other NGOS, focusing extensively on rights for minorities in Muslim majority countries, as well as a variety of human rights issues in North Korea, China, and Asia. 

Lindsay created the first scorecard grading all Members of Congress on their prioritization of international religious freedom for the 111th and 112th sessions of Congress.  This new tool resulted in increased support and attention to the promotion of international religious freedom within the U.S. Congress and is now published by 21Wilberforce. 

She joined Coptic Solidarity in 2013, advocating equal citizenship rights of the indigenous Coptic Christians in Egypt and other religious minorities such as Shi’a, Baha’i, and Atheists. Much of her work focused on the promotion of separation of mosque and state and promoting secular values and governing principles.

Rodriguez graduated with a B.A. in Intercultural Studies and Political Science from BIOLA University and from the Torrey Honors Institute at BIOLA University followed by an M.A. in Political Science from Cal State Fullerton. Lindsay is proud of her blended, multilingual family which includes for 4 rambunctious kids and a lot of Spanglish. Her hobbies include soccer, hiking, camping, and blogging about religious abuse from the perspective of an Evangelical missionary kid survivor.