Gov. Kay Ivey fired away at the Freedom from Religion Foundation in a letter Friday, blasting the group for “misleading and misguided” objections to religious activity at Alabama colleges, including Auburn Coach Hugh Freeze baptizing students.

“As Governor, I can assure you that we will not be intimidated by out-of-state interest groups dedicated to destroying our nation’s religious heritage,” Ivey wrote in a two-page letter to Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-presidents of the Wisconsin-based foundation.

This month, the foundation has called attention to two incidents in Alabama.

It criticized the Unite Auburn event held on Sept. 12, which featured Freeze and other prominent Auburn figures baptizing students at the pond behind Auburn’s Red Barn in Ag Heritage Park off South Donahue Drive. A video of Freeze baptizing freshman defensive back Sylvester Smith in the lake went viral on social media.

In addition, the foundation in a Sept. 8 letter to Snead State Community College President Joe Whitmore said it was contacting him after complaints from a staff member. According to the FFRF, the employee said staffers have been required to participate in Christian prayer before meals and staff events, and that Whitmore presents a “guiding Bible verse” each year in official communications.

In her letter, Ivey said “we should be more welcoming, not less, to expressions of faith, and society would be worse off were we to purge religion from our public institutions.”

The objections were misleading, she stated, as “the facts described in your recent letters do not violate anyone’s religious liberty.”

“Even according to your own account, these events all involved adults interacting with other adults, and no one faced any threat of adverse consequences for declining to participate,” Ivey wrote. “What is more, requiring college officials to entirely remove faith from their lives could well violate these officials’ own religious freedom…

“In the meantime, please understand that our state motto is ‘We dare defend our rights.’”