Author: Doug

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Ohio Politicians Need To Stop Practicing Medicine Without A Licence

*For Immediate Release*

Ohio Politicians Need To Stop Practicing Medicine Without A Licence

Toledo, October 2, 2019 — It seems like every­day the Ohio leg­is­la­ture is intro­duc­ing or pass­ing yet anoth­er abor­tion restric­tion bill. The claim is it is sav­ing babies or pro­tect­ing the health of the moth­er, but it seems that is lie. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie demand that Ohio politi­cians stop prac­tic­ing med­i­cine with­out a licence as they unfair­ly and unjust­ly reg­u­late women while ignor­ing actu­al med­ical sci­ence.

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SHoWLE Disappointed Ohio AG David Yost Supports LGBTQA Discrimination

image of Ohio Attorney General David Yost smiling
Ohio Attorney General David Yost

Ohio Attorney General David Yost wait­ed until Friday to announce that Ohio will sign-on to a brief for three US Supreme Court cas­es that will decide if the 1964 Civil Rights Act pro­tects LGBTQA peo­ple. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are dis­ap­point­ed in Yost’s deci­sion and reject his rea­son­ing.

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Having A Blast At Skepticon

This week­end I am attend­ing Skepticon 11 in St. Louis, MO with Shawn and Peggy. Skepticon is a free con­ven­tion for sec­u­lars and skep­tics.

Shawn and I are hav­ing a good time, meet­ing new peo­ple, get­ting new ideas, and com­muning with peo­ple who have sim­i­lar world views as we do.

I’ve learned how to make an awe­some pod­cast and how to per­suade peo­ple on issues I think are impor­tant. I also learned about the reli­gious right’s effort to have spe­cial laws passed in state leg­is­la­tures through their Project Blitz ini­tia­tive. Did you know Ohio has a chap­ter of the Prayer Caucus? It lob­bies state leg­is­la­tors in Columbus.

Shawn and I are bring­ing back meet­ing and event ideas for the com­ing year.

The only mis­step to this year’s con­fer­ence is it being sched­uled dur­ing the 5th Anniversary of the death of Michael Brown. He was shot and killed by a white police offi­cer just 10 miles away in Ferguson. Until one of the talks this evening, Skepticon made no effort to acknowl­edge the event. I hope they do bet­ter next time in mak­ing sure there are no con­flicts like that or at least ded­i­cate some time to mark­ing those kinds of tragedies.

Shawn walked around the area where our hotel is locat­ed and men­tioned to me she saw a lot of home­less peo­ple. It made me con­sid­er that a con­ven­tion like Skepticon should include a com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice project so par­tic­i­pants expe­ri­ence life out­side the hotel.

I do want to attend anoth­er Skepticon in the future. This type of con­ven­tion is need­ed by peo­ple in our com­mu­ni­ty.

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Berger Spoke At Lights4Liberty Vigil

On Friday evening, July 12th, at Levis Square in down­town Toledo, the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) co-sponsored the Lights For Liberty vig­il to End Human Concentration Camps.

Lights for Liberty part­nered with inter­na­tion­al, nation­al, region­al and local com­mu­ni­ties and orga­ni­za­tions who believe that human rights are fun­da­men­tal rights, are not nego­tiable, and are will­ing to pro­tect them.

President Douglas Berger was one of sev­er­al speak­ers, at the event in Levis square, who high­light­ed the human rights issue with the immi­gra­tion deten­tion camps set­up around the coun­try.

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Toledo Humanists Disappointed Gary Johnson Refused To Vote On Six-Week Ban Resolution

Toledo Member of Council at Large Gary Johnson (D)

Toledo City Council passed a res­o­lu­tion on June 26th that con­demned pas­sage of the six-week abor­tion ban by the state leg­is­la­ture back in April. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie sup­port the pas­sage of the res­o­lu­tion. The issue we have was the refusal of Council mem­ber Gary Johnson to vote. He fled the coun­cil cham­bers so he did­n’t have to vote on the res­o­lu­tion.

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Toledo Humanists Condemn Passage Of Another Anti-Abortion Law In Ohio

Toledo, April 16, 2019 — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) has issued a state­ment about the recent anti-abortion bill (also called the ‘Heartbeat’ bill) that was signed by the Governor.

The state­ment con­demns in strong terms the leg­is­la­ture for pass­ing the law that has nei­ther pub­lic sup­port nor is it based on any sound sci­en­tif­ic facts.

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More To My Letter About The Berkeley Puncher Incident


Hayden Williams (right) with President Trump at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2nd.

The Berkeley Puncher is a ’cause cele­bre’ in the con­ser­v­a­tive press and social media. Keith Burris, edi­to­r­i­al direc­tor of Block Newspapers (own­er of the Toledo Blade) wrote an op-ed about the ‘war on tol­er­ance’ and used the vio­lent inci­dent in Berkeley as an illus­tra­tion of ‘both sides’ doing it and it should stop. I wrote a letter-to-the-editor in response.

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Toledo And Lucas County Need To Step Up To Save Public Transportation

It was report­ed in the news this week that the Board of the Toledo Area Regional Transit Authority (TARTA) vot­ed to cut Sunday and Holiday ser­vice due to con­tin­u­ing finan­cial prob­lems. SHoWLE sent an email to the city and coun­ty elect­ed offi­cials to step up and save the only pub­lic trans­porta­tion option in Lucas coun­ty.

Some back­ground:

The ser­vice cut, which, with one excep­tion, will take effect Jan. 6, is expect­ed to cov­er most of a $3‑million-plus bud­get gap that TARTA lead­ers had hoped to fill by switch­ing the agency’s local sub­sidy from prop­er­ty tax­es to a sales tax.

But the sales tax failed — for a third time in eight years — to clear a statu­to­ry process for get­ting on last month’s general-election bal­lot in Lucas County, and the tran­sit author­i­ty had no alter­na­tive rev­enue pro­pos­al ready to go.

That process required all of TARTA’s cur­rent mem­ber com­mu­ni­ties’ leg­isla­tive bod­ies to endorse the admis­sion of Lucas County as a new mem­ber. Sylvania Township’s trustees, as they had done twice before, vot­ed that res­o­lu­tion down in July, and sev­er­al TARTA trustees and Mr. Gee on Thursday blamed them for the tran­sit authority’s cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

Among board mem­bers oppos­ing the ser­vice cut was Daniel Woodcock, who said impos­ing it before see­ing how a fare increase might improve the authority’s finances would do a “major dis­ser­vice” to the com­mu­ni­ty.

But agency admin­is­tra­tors said that with each 25 cents of increase gen­er­at­ing no more than $250,000 in rev­enue, and with TARTA already hav­ing exhaust­ed its mon­e­tary reserves, there was no way to put off the ser­vice cut any fur­ther.

TARTA board approves ser­vice cuts

Here is the email SHoWLE President Douglas Berger sent on behalf of the group:

My name is Douglas Berger and I am President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE), a chap­ter of the American Humanist Association. I am con­tact­ing you today with our con­cern about the cur­rent strug­gles of the TARTA sys­tem and the announced end to Sunday and Holiday ser­vice.

I don’t think I need to say that a strong and vibrant city and coun­ty that is able to be inclu­sive of all socioe­co­nom­ic stra­ta needs to have a strong pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem. Toledo and Lucas coun­ty does not have one and the one we do have seems to be get­ting worse.

Cutting ser­vice impacts the peo­ple less able to have or afford alter­na­tives. They may have to work on Sunday or they want to attend church ser­vices. Cuts in ser­vice also impacts local busi­ness­es by reduc­ing the abil­i­ty of some cus­tomers to vis­it their stores.

I watched again as one stake­hold­er com­mu­ni­ty was able to block a viable plan for TARTA to sur­vive and be the pub­lic trans­porta­tion option we can all be proud of. I’m afraid that the block was due to a lack of com­pas­sion and empa­thy for the work­ers and oth­ers who depend on the ser­vice.

We here at SHoWLE would like to know what are you doing or plan to do to fix TARTA for long term suc­cess? I know pub­lic trans­porta­tion isn’t as flashy as a new employ­er or a ren­o­vat­ed hotel down­town, but many peo­ple who make up the back­bone of the city ride the bus and they vote.

One idea I had is to see if TARTA could be dis­solved and a new author­i­ty agency cre­at­ed to take over the assets and this new author­i­ty would start off fund­ed by a sales tax as most mod­ern pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tems are in this coun­try.

The coun­ty might see if a small per­cent­age of the hotel motel tax could be used to sup­ple­ment TARTA fund­ing until a bet­ter fund­ing source could be used.

The oth­er stake­hold­ers in the TARTA sys­tem need to pres­sure the lone hold out to allow a sales tax mea­sure to take place. A sales tax would be bet­ter than a prop­er­ty tax.

SHoWLE real­ly hopes that all mem­bers of the TARTA author­i­ty can work to solve this issue so Toledo won’t lose out future busi­ness­es who see a bro­ken pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem as a neg­a­tive when con­sid­er­ing where to locate.

 

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