Category: Issues

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Toledo Blade Underplayed Bigotry Toward The Trans Community

SHoWLE President Douglas Berger had a let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished in the Toledo Blade on April 20, 2023, respond­ing to a pre­vi­ous edi­to­r­i­al that seemed sym­pa­thet­ic to a woman who gave a speech against Trans women at the University of Toledo. The edi­to­r­i­al down­played the big­ot­ed fram­ing and rehash of anti-Trans tropes relat­ing to Trans women par­tic­i­pat­ing in women’s sports. The edi­to­r­i­al com­plained about Trans rights sup­port­ers protest­ing Riley Gaines’ speech but didn’t point out the false nar­ra­tive that Gaines used in her speech and the fact that it was spon­sored by the right-wing Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA.

Douglas was also dis­ap­point­ed that even though his let­ter was pub­lished, the heart of it was cut out by the Blade and made it seem, again, that the issue was one of dif­fer­ence of opin­ion and not one of a bat­tle to pro­tect the rights of a mar­gin­al­ized group. SHoWLE doesn’t believe that human rights should be put up for a pop­u­lar vote or be debat­ed like what ice cream fla­vor you like.

Below is the full text of the let­ter Douglas sub­mit­ted fol­lowed by images of the Blade edi­to­r­i­al in ques­tion and the print­ed let­ter.

I sat down to read the Blade and saw yet anoth­er edi­to­r­i­al (“Editorial: Let Riley tell her sto­ry” pub­lished 4/22) claim­ing that some­one with big­ot­ed ideas is being hurt because oth­er peo­ple have called them out on their big­otry. Make no mis­take, Riley Gaines told her sto­ry framed in big­otry against Trans women all because a Trans woman won ONE event at the NCAA tour­na­ment.

Gaines should know that more goes into per­form­ing sports than just body parts and what sex one is but we live in a soci­ety that seems to accept the sta­tus quo for longer than we need. Take bas­ket­ball. When women were first allowed to play bas­ket­ball, they were only allowed to play half court because men assumed that women did­n’t have the sta­mi­na to run up and down a full court. They also had to play in skirts because it was un-ladylike to wear shorts in pub­lic.

Does Gaines feel the four oth­er women that beat her in the 200 freestyle were actu­al­ly “intact males” and why did­n’t Lia Thomas win that race if she won the 500 freestyle? I thought Trans women had an unfair advan­tage?

The sci­ence on the issue isn’t clear yet but unlike Gaines’ anec­do­tal “evi­dence”, the NCAA has had spe­cif­ic rules to include Trans ath­letes for at least 10 years now. One would think the flood gates would be open and there would be only Trans women win­ning every­thing — obvi­ous­ly that did­n’t hap­pen. A per­son­’s genet­ic make-up and inter­nal and exter­nal repro­duc­tive anato­my are not use­ful indi­ca­tors of ath­let­ic per­for­mance.

It is also telling that Gaines’ talk was spon­sored by the Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA, whose founder and President Charlie Kirk, on a pod­cast in 2022, said that the Transgender com­mu­ni­ty was a “social con­ta­gion” and that this “pub­lic mania” would, in 20 years, be likened to “the modern-day equiv­a­lent of lobot­o­mies in the 1920s and 1930s”.

Riley Gaines (like Charlie Kirk) used big­otry to tell her sto­ry, the con­tent of which was under­played in the edi­to­r­i­al. As we move for­ward and the peo­ple who sup­port all humans as hav­ing basic dig­ni­ty and worth become the major­i­ty only then will we be actu­al­ly unit­ed as peo­ple.

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SHoWLE Opposes Senate Bill 49: The Religious Expression Days “R.E.D.” Act.

This ses­sion, the Ohio Senate intro­duced Senate Bill 49 also known as The Religious Expression Days “R.E.D.” Act. If passed it would give reli­gious stu­dents in pub­lic schools three days off each year for reli­gious rea­sons. SHoWLE oppos­es this bill for the main rea­son is it gives spe­cial priv­i­leges to reli­gious stu­dents. We also don’t believe a law is need­ed since many school dis­tricts cur­rent­ly make accom­mo­da­tions for reli­gious obser­vances.

SHoWLE President Douglas Berger sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny to the Ohio Senate Education com­mit­tee. Here is the text of his remarks:

Continue read­ing “SHoWLE Opposes Senate Bill 49: The Religious Expression Days “R.E.D.” Act.”
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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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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.

Continue read­ing “Berger Spoke At Lights4Liberty Vigil”
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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.

Continue read­ing “Toledo Humanists Disappointed Gary Johnson Refused To Vote On Six-Week Ban Resolution”
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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.

Continue read­ing “More To My Letter About The Berkeley Puncher Incident”
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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.