Author: Doug

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Glass City Humanist Coming To Toledo Radio

Glass City Humanist cover art next to WAKT logo

We are pleased to announce that start­ing soon, the Glass City Humanist pod­cast, an out­reach of Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, will be mak­ing a 1 hour month­ly pro­gram that will be heard on WAKT 106.1 FM in Toledo and on the Internet.

We Act Radio is a com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion giv­ing the res­i­dents of Toledo a way to know each oth­er through music, talk, and oth­er forms of pro­gram­ming. The con­tent is gen­er­at­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty and by request of the com­mu­ni­ty. It pro­vides a voice for com­mu­ni­ties that may not have a voice in the media.

Glass City Humanist, pro­duced and host­ed by SHoWLE President Douglas Berger, will use the time on WAKT to intro­duce Humanism and the group to a big­ger audi­ence in Toledo and by exten­tion lis­ten­ers to the radio web­site. The exact con­tent won’t dif­fer too much from the con­tent heard on the pod­cast but GCH will be able to do dif­fer­ent things that might not be pos­si­ble with just the pod­cast.

“We plan on doing things like ask­ing for lis­ten­er ques­tions that will be read in the next episode,” the host Douglas Berger said. “We will also be able to inter­view peo­ple in a prop­er stu­dio instead of just on Zoom or my house.”

There also might be chance at some future point to do a live show.

Details are still being final­ized and we will let every­one know when the shows will start air­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion about Glass City Humanist vis­it https://glasscityhumanist.show and for more infor­ma­tion about We Act Radio WAKT 106.1 check out https://toledoradio.org

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Remember SHoWLE on GivingTuesday

Showing logo for GivingTuesdayNWO
Douglas Berger — President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

Hello, I’m Doug Berger, founder and President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I want to remind you that Giving Tuesday is on November 29th and we would like to be your choice for your giv­ing this year.

SHoWLE is the only active group in Northwest Ohio that is a demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber run group pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive — diverse — safe space for human­ists and the non-religious. Our goal is Building Community Through Compassion & Reason For A Better Tomorrow.

We know peo­ple are lim­it­ed in how many groups you can sup­port, we know that under our cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate lots of peo­ple are either strug­gling or have had to cut back. I hope we make the cut for your tax deductible dona­tions this GivingTuesday.

The sim­ple fact is there is no orga­nized effort, in Northwest Ohio, to help sup­port the non-religious. We rep­re­sent about 20% of the pop­u­la­tion in gen­er­al. Humanists and the non-religious don’t have the mil­lions of dol­lars or hun­dreds of vol­un­teers that reli­gious church­es and groups have even as they beg for your dol­lars each year.

SHoWLE sup­ports real reli­gious free­dom like strong sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. We don’t think that pub­lic laws and poli­cies should be based on one par­tic­u­lar reli­gious view.

SHoWLE believes Humanism is a pro­gres­sive phi­los­o­phy of life that, with­out the­ism or oth­er super­nat­ur­al beliefs, affirms our abil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty to lead eth­i­cal lives of per­son­al ful­fill­ment that aspire to the greater good of human­i­ty.

We affirm the dig­ni­ty of every human being and asserts that human­i­ty is respon­si­ble for its own des­tiny, hav­ing with­in itself all that is need­ed to improve the con­di­tions of life.

I hope you will donate to us this year and when you can at oth­er points of the year. If you are inter­est­ed in our group check out one of our meet­ings or even join.

Help us cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty that sup­ports rea­son, sci­ence, and equal­i­ty. Help us build a com­mu­ni­ty through com­pas­sion & rea­son for a bet­ter tomor­row.

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SHoWLE Bans Weapons At Meetings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2022

Toledo, Ohio — The Board of Directors of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) vot­ed to ban weapons from all meet­ings and events it hosts.

The res­o­lu­tion reads in part: “We wish to pro­vide a safe space where, for a short time, peo­ple don’t have to wor­ry about being shot or killed by a dead­ly weapon. Even if the venue where we hold our meet­ings and events allow weapons, SHoWLE will enforce a ban on weapons. We will also try not to use any venue for meet­ings or events that we know allow weapons. People who believe their right to car­ry a gun out­weighs the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty are not wel­come at our meet­ings or events.”

The weapons ban fits in with the group’s human­ist val­ues.

“This ban aligns with our val­ues of peace and social jus­tice, empa­thy, and ser­vice and par­tic­i­pa­tion,” Douglas Berger, President of SHoWLE said. “We have been con­cerned, for some­time, about the inac­tion of the Ohio leg­is­la­ture to address gun vio­lence and how some polit­i­cal lead­ers wild west ideas of the rugged indi­vid­ual strut­ting down the street pack­ing heat is out­dat­ed and the inac­tion is ter­ri­ble, on a dai­ly basis, for many fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty. We felt we need­ed to do some­thing and the ban is what we decid­ed.”

SHoWLE also sup­ports evi­dence based actions and poli­cies that will address the trag­ic cost of unchecked gun vio­lence.

The ban takes effect imme­di­ate­ly and excep­tions will be made for sworn law enforce­ment offi­cers con­duct­ing offi­cial busi­ness.

About Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

Media Contact

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

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The full text of the Resolution can be found on our Policies and Resolution page

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SHoWLE Objects to Bedford Public Schools forcing kids to attend a religious event

Bedford Public Schools is forc­ing chil­dren to attend an assem­bly dur­ing the school day put on by a reli­gious group in the guise of sui­cide pre­ven­tion. Instead of allow­ing par­ents to opt-in to an event where kids will be “invit­ed” to attend a church ser­vice after school, par­ents must opt-out. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie strong­ly oppos­es these assem­blies that attempt to cir­cum­vent church and state sep­a­ra­tion by dis­guis­ing the reli­gious aspect under an impor­tant issue like sui­cide pre­ven­tion of char­ac­ter build­ing.

Carry the Cure is a non-profit orga­ni­za­tion that uti­lizes clin­i­cal tools, cul­tur­al tra­di­tions, and faith-based meth­ods to offer com­mu­ni­ties com­pre­hen­sive sui­cide & abuse pre­ven­tion and healthy life-choice skills. Carry the Cure does­n’t offer any sci­ence based tools that most schools don’t already know and use to help pre­vent chil­dren from com­mit­ting sui­cide.

Groups like Carry the Cure offer schools a free assem­bly on an impor­tant top­ic like sui­cide and dur­ing the pro­gram invite the kids in the audi­ence to anoth­er event either after school or at a local church where ser­mons, tes­ti­mo­ny, and oth­er reli­gious ser­vices not allowed at the assem­bly dur­ing the school day.

SHoWLE believes issues like sui­cide pre­ven­tion and char­ac­ter build­ing are impor­tant and some of that can be addressed in the school, but we object strong­ly to a reli­gious group being allowed to present a fake assem­bly to be used to indoc­tri­nate chil­dren in reli­gion lat­er. We also object that the fake assem­bly is manda­to­ry and requires the par­ents to opt-out. Any pro­gram, espe­cial­ly if it involves a reli­gious group, should always be opt-in with the par­ents ful­ly informed as to pur­pose of the pro­gram, the group pro­vid­ing the pro­gram, and any oth­er ques­tions that arise.

Bedford Public Schools made an error is approv­ing Carry the Cure to per­form their fake assem­bly dur­ing the school day and to force chil­dren to attend.

Social Media post for the after­school event. The fake assem­blies were sched­uled for 1:45 PM September 13th and 12:45 PM September 14th
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More than half of LGBTQIA+ People are Nonreligious

This week­end SHoWLE will be hav­ing a booth at the Toledo Pride Festival at Promenade Park in Downtown Toledo from 12:30 PM to 7 PM. If we get the rain and storms fore­cast for Saturday after­noon we may leave the fes­ti­val before 7 PM.

The Secular Survey from American Atheists just released a report this week with some insights into non­re­li­gious LGBTQIA+ peo­ple. The report says over half of LGBTQIA+ peo­ple are non­re­li­gious and most of them belong to sec­u­lar groups like SHoWLE.

The top pol­i­cy issues is pro­tect­ing the sec­u­lar pub­lic schools, get­ting rid of reli­gious exemp­tions to dis­crim­i­nate, and fur­ther­ing LGBTQIA+ civ­il rights and equal­i­ty.

If you are cel­e­brat­ing Pride this week­end and are look­ing for a wel­com­ing, inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty please check us out.

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Statement Concerning the Leaked SCOTUS Abortion Case Decision

Our right to privacy is now in danger

Like many in this coun­try the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie were heart­bro­ken by the con­tent of the Dobbs deci­sion of the US Supreme Court when it was leaked in May. It com­plete­ly guts a woman’s right to abor­tion under 1973’s Roe v. Wade deci­sion.

We knew this was a pos­si­bil­i­ty from the decades long effort by reli­gious zealots to over­turn the case and send us back to the time of secret back-alley abor­tions that led to unnec­es­sary deaths.

To be truth­ful, abor­tions will still hap­pen, but the abor­tions will be less safe. Those who are caught in pover­ty will be worse off and women becom­ing preg­nant due to a rape or incest will have no oth­er options to ter­mi­nate their preg­nan­cy.

The deci­sion also hints at future attacks on same sex mar­riage, sodomy, and con­tra­cep­tion. Religious zealots want to stomp all of that out and peo­ple like Justice Alito, Thomas, and the oth­er con­ser­v­a­tives on the court are more than hap­py to help.

Religious con­ser­v­a­tives believe wear­ing masks and not being allowed to pray in a church dur­ing a pan­dem­ic is a severe vio­la­tion of their reli­gious free­dom, yet they don’t think twice in using their reli­gion to jus­ti­fy tak­ing fun­da­men­tal rights from all of us. With this deci­sion, our right to pri­va­cy is in dan­ger.

SHoWLE strong­ly con­demns the Dobbs deci­sion. We will nev­er stop sup­port­ing a wom­an’s right to repro­duc­tive choice and every­one’s right to pri­va­cy.

We also repeat our inten­tion not to work with ANY group that does­n’t sup­port a wom­an’s right to make her own health care choic­es. We also will refuse to work with groups who don’t sup­port a right to pri­va­cy.

We know it is a big ask to boy­cott Ohio, which is poised to end legal abor­tion, but if a busi­ness isn’t able to leave or refuse to do busi­ness in states that ban abor­tion, we at least ask those busi­ness­es to strong­ly express their sup­port for a wom­an’s right to choose and offer to help employ­ees obtain abor­tions in states where it will be legal.

Besides con­tact­ing your elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives and sup­port­ing any protests against tak­ing the right to choose from women, we also ask that you donate to local abor­tion groups who help those with less resources to get the care they need.

The Agnes Reynolds Jackson Fund (focus­es on NW Ohio and Toledo)

Women Have Options

Preterm

Midwest Access Coalition

Pro-Choice Ohio

National Network of Abortion Funds

Updated on 06/24/2022 when the deci­sion was offi­cial­ly hand­ed down

The vote to over­turn Roe was 5–4. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined Alito’s opin­ion. Chief Justice John Roberts did not join the opin­ion. He agreed with the major­i­ty that the Mississippi abor­tion restric­tion at issue in the case should be upheld, but in a sep­a­rate opin­ion, he argued that the court should not have over­turned Roe.

The court’s three lib­er­als, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, filed a joint dis­sent.

Supreme Court over­turns con­sti­tu­tion­al right to abor­tion

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

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Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie Condemns Ohio HB 616

The Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie urges leg­is­la­tors and our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers to oppose Ohio House Bill 616.

HB 616 elim­i­nates the abil­i­ty to teach on and dis­cuss top­ics like sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, gen­der iden­ti­ty, and race. If enact­ed, HB 616 would attempt to erase dis­cus­sion of the his­to­ry and lived expe­ri­ences of mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties and stu­dents. The bil­l’s broad lan­guage will have a chill­ing effect on learn­ing envi­ron­ments.

HB 616’s def­i­n­i­tion of anti-racist con­cepts like diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion as “inher­ent­ly racist” and its explic­it men­tions of inter­sec­tion­al­i­ty and crit­i­cal race the­o­ry sug­gest a focus on the sen­si­bil­i­ties of a nar­row group of adults, rather than deep engage­ment with the needs and con­cerns of teach­ers and stu­dents in Ohio’s K‑3 class­rooms.

Humanists “com­mit to treat­ing each per­son as hav­ing inher­ent worth and dig­ni­ty” and “long for and strive toward a world of mutu­al care and con­cern” (The Third Humanist Manifesto). HB 616 direct­ly con­tra­dicts our core val­ues by attempt­ing to leg­is­late away any dis­cus­sion of already mar­gin­al­ized groups.

Listening to peo­ple’s sto­ries is at the heart of acknowl­edg­ing each per­son­’s inher­ent worth. We can only move toward a world of mutu­al care by cul­ti­vat­ing empa­thy; empa­thy can­not be cul­ti­vat­ed when the sto­ries, expe­ri­ences, and his­to­ries of mar­gin­al­ized groups are made unspeak­able.

It is for these rea­sons that the Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie con­demns this bill and oth­ers like it.

We also encour­age our mem­bers to com­mu­ni­cate with their State House Representative. You can find your rep­re­sen­ta­tive by enter­ing your address at the Ohio House of Representatives web­site.

Further infor­ma­tion about the bill can be found here:

House Bill 616 @ Equality Ohio 

House Bill 616 @ Honesty for Ohio Education

Tip of the hat to the Humanist Community of Central Ohio for shar­ing the for­mat of their state­ment used above.

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SHoWLE Condemns Invasion of Ukraine by Russia

Toledo, February 24, 2022 —

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are heart bro­ken that Russia has unjust­ly invad­ed the Ukraine. We con­demn Russia’s actions.

Unjust war is the fail­ure of peo­ple to find com­mon ground and con­sen­sus to live peace­ably. All peo­ple should stand against the use of war­fare to boost ego or set­tle old scores.

SHoWLE believes that the solu­tion to this naked use of war­fare will only be solved by peo­ple and not through thoughts and prayers. There needs to be large scale sanc­tions like exclud­ing Russia from all inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions they belong to such as sport fed­er­a­tions.

A coun­try want­i­ng to be a good inter­na­tion­al neigh­bor does­n’t start a war for no ratio­nal rea­son.

It is dis­ap­point­ing that the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty did­n’t act soon­er to address Russia’s human rights vio­la­tions.

SHoWLE will sup­port groups whose mis­sion is to aid inno­cent peo­ple caught in the cross­fire.

Our thoughts go out to the peo­ple of the Ukraine and we hope this human rights vio­la­tion by Russia ends quick­ly and any loss of life is low.

About Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

The mis­sion of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is to pro­vide a sup­port­ive local com­mu­ni­ty for human­ists and oth­er non­the­ists, while pro­mot­ing an eth­i­cal, rea­son­able, and sec­u­lar approach to life through edu­ca­tion, com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, out­reach, activism, and social events.

We envi­sion a Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan where sec­u­lar peo­ple are respect­ed and inte­grat­ed in broad­er soci­ety, live val­ues of rea­son and com­pas­sion, and enjoy a friend­ly human­ist com­mu­ni­ty.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

#

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Our Virtual Darwin Birthday Blood Drive

Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie is cel­e­brat­ing Charles Darwin’s birth­day with an urgent call for blood dona­tions. There is a crit­i­cal need in our area.

Darwin used sci­ence to change how we under­stand biol­o­gy and evo­lu­tion. With mod­ern sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy, you can impact lives today by donat­ing blood.

For the next 90 days, go to the link below and pledge to give blood, then go to your near­est blood col­lec­tion cen­ter and give the blood. Help make a pos­i­tive impact to some­one in need.

SHoWLE Act Of Humanity Challenge

Take a pho­to of your­self donat­ing blood and share it! Just use the hash­tag #SHoWLEActofHumanityChallenge

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This Giving Tuesday We Need Your Support

This past year has been a big year for Christian Nationalists in this coun­try and here in the Toledo area.

Foundation for Life, the iron­i­cal­ly named anti-abortion group that also includes sup­port from the Archdiocese of Toledo, pur­chased the vacant lot next to the last abor­tion clin­ic in Northwest Ohio. Now mem­bers of their group can harass and mis­lead women with­out con­se­quences.

The Center for Christian Virtue, also iron­i­cal­ly named, a group that is anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, and anti-human just pur­chased a build­ing across from the Ohio State House in Columbus for $1.25 mil­lion.

Groups like these, who com­plete­ly oppose val­ues we Humanists sup­port, can drop tens of thou­sands of dol­lars to push their Taliban-like agen­da.

Make no mis­take, the world that groups like Foundation for Life want to see has already hurt many peo­ple. This isn’t just a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion. Christian Nationalists are an exis­ten­tial threat not only to Humanists but to any­one who believes in the Bill of Rights.

Meanwhile, we have to con­vince peo­ple like you to sup­port our work and to help us build a com­mu­ni­ty with rea­son and com­pas­sion for a bet­ter tomor­row.

It should­n’t be this hard. We should­n’t have to beg. The Christian Nationalists don’t have to beg. Humanists should have a com­mu­ni­ty that is sup­port­ing and affirm­ing of our val­ues in Northwest Ohio.

We are ask­ing you to please sup­port SHoWLE: Make a cash dona­tion today!

Help us build a Humanist com­mu­ni­ty. One that val­ues peo­ple and the world we live.

https://humanistswle.org/donate

Donations are tax deductible.

PS: You can help even more by becom­ing a mem­ber or renew your mem­ber­ship on our web­site

https://humanistswle.org/join-our-group

References:

Center for Christian Virtue, a heavy hit­ter in Ohio’s cul­ture wars, buys build­ing across from Statehouse

Foundation for Life buys park­ing lot across from Toledo abor­tion clin­ic

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