Matilda Joslyn Gage Women’s History Month is a time to honor not only the women whose names appear in our textbooks, but also those whose courage helped define the very boundaries of a just democracy. One such figure is Matilda Joslyn Gage, a suffragist and radical thinker who saw with remarkable clarity that women’s freedom—and the freedom of all marginalized people—depends on keeping government power separate from religious authority. At a moment when religious groups were lobbying for a “Christian Amendment” to declare the United States a Christian nation, Gage recognized that such a fusion of church and state would undermine fairness, equality, and basic rights, especially for women and Indigenous peoples. For the Boulder Humanist Chapter of the American Humanist Association, Gage’s legacy speaks directly to our core principles. She understood that when government endorses or enforces religious doctrine, it is not morality that is elevated—it is inequality. Attempts in her era to abolish divorce, grounded in religious dogma, would have locked women into abusive and economically dependent marriages. Today, we see the same …