Category: Press release

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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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SHoWLE To Host Demonstration on World Humanist Day

*** For imme­di­ate release ***

Toledo Humanists Sponsor Demonstration at Courthouse for World Humanist Day

State and local politi­cians need to stop ignor­ing sci­ence in pan­dem­ic response

Toledo, June 15, 2021 -

Last week the sto­ry about the Doctor who told an Ohio House com­mit­tee about how they believed the covid vac­cine made one mag­ne­tized made Ohio the laugh­ing stock of the world. But this is just anoth­er instance where ignor­ing sci­ence has made this pan­dem­ic last much longer than it should.

Politicians in the state house have for years thought they knew more than sci­en­tists and med­ical pro­fes­sion­als as they hacked away at the rights of women to make their own repro­duc­tive choic­es. During the pan­dem­ic many of these same polit­i­cal rays of light have under­mined the state’s response to the pan­dem­ic and put eco­nom­ics over peo­ple.

The ger­ry­man­der­ing that put the Republican par­ty in a super major­i­ty in Columbus against the actu­al num­ber of votes they got in recent elec­tions is an exis­ten­tial threat to the peo­ple of Ohio. Politicians make sure that Amazon, which pays lit­tle in tax­es, gets tax­pay­er fund­ed infra­struc­ture and tax breaks while Average Joe arbi­trar­i­ly gets $300 of pan­dem­ic unem­ploy­ment funds tak­en away to force him to work a job that pays less than what he got from unem­ploy­ment.

Enough is enough. June 21st is World Humanist Day and one guid­ing prin­ci­ple of Humanism is to not ignore sci­ence and med­ical experts dur­ing a pan­dem­ic. Humanists believe that we should put peo­ple ahead of prof­it and we need to stop find­ing ways peo­ple strug­gling eco­nom­i­cal­ly don’t deserve help.

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie will be host­ing a demon­stra­tion on Monday June 21st at Noon in front of the 10 Commandments mon­u­ment at the Lucas County Courthouse at the cor­ner of Adams and Erie St. Bring your signs and ban­ners to show your views.

We are demand­ing politi­cians stop ignor­ing sci­ence and hurt­ing peo­ple by strip­ping away their rights. We also want our elect­ed offi­cials to wor­ry more about peo­ple and less about par­a­site busi­ness­es that pay lit­tle to no tax­es. We all need to pay our fair share and the leg­is­la­tors in Columbus need to stop enact­ing laws through the state bud­get to avoid our right to peti­tion the gov­ern­ment for redress of griev­ances. If the politi­cians in Columbus are wor­ried so much about law and order that they need to make protest­ing a felony maybe they need to get their own house in order and start hold­ing peo­ple account­able.

Ohio needs a seri­ous change in behav­ior if it does­n’t want to con­tin­ue to lose res­i­dents. This is 2021 not 1951. Enough is enough.

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
567–215-2694

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A Response to Richard Dawkins Transphobic Tweet

**** For Immediate Release ****

April 12, 2021 — Toledo, Ohio:

We are extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the recent trans­pho­bic Tweet by Richard Dawkins who is a well known sci­en­tist and spokesper­son for those of us in the freethought com­mu­ni­ty.

Mr. Dawkins wrong­ly equat­ed a white woman who com­mit­ted fraud by claim­ing to be black with trans­gen­der peo­ple as if they are lying about who they are and should expe­ri­ence back­lash.

Mr. Dawkins also wrong­ly attempt­ed to make his views on trans­gen­der peo­ple as some­thing that can be debat­ed like a ques­tion about cul­ture or fla­vor of ice cream.

Mr. Dawkins demeaned and dehu­man­ized an entire sub­set of peo­ple and this is not the first time he has expressed a con­trary view about whole groups of peo­ple based on noth­ing but his own bias­es.

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie can’t stand by with­out respond­ing. Richard Dawkins does­n’t speak for SHoWLE or any of our mem­bers.

Going for­ward SHoWLE will not pro­mote or sup­port any project or event that involves Mr. Dawkins. We will ask the Center for Inquiry to remove him from their board of direc­tors and spin off the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science housed at CFI. We would like CFI to make a strong state­ment against Dawkins remarks.

Richard Dawkins has ben­e­fit­ed from his fame and sta­tus in our com­mu­ni­ty and the things he says can effect oth­er peo­ple for good and bad. Degrading any humans is total­ly against our Humanist val­ues and we feel Richard Dawkins needs to apol­o­gize and step away from the pub­lic eye com­plete­ly.

For ref­er­ence: Richard Dawkins is Still Denying the Basic Humanity of Trans People

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
567–215-2694

#

Copy of press­re­lease

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Ohio Attorney General Wrong To Insert State Into Religious School Lawsuit

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) have issued the fol­low­ing state­ment on the brief filed by Ohio Attorney General David Yost in sup­port of a law­suit brought by three reli­gious schools against a Lucas coun­ty pub­lic health order clos­ing all schools in the coun­ty to in-person instruc­tion.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 29, 2020

Ohio Attorney General Wrong To Insert State Into Religious School Lawsuit

Toledo  — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) is extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that Ohio Attorney General David Yost has decid­ed to insert him­self and the state into a Federal law­suit by three Lucas County reli­gious schools over the Lucas County Health Board’s order to close all schools in the coun­ty to in-person instruc­tion until January 11, 2021 due to the cur­rent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Like the orig­i­nal law­suit, Attorney General Yost makes the same argu­ment that was reject­ed by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey J. Helmick on December 14th, that the reli­gious schools should be treat­ed like non-education sec­u­lar busi­ness­es that were allowed to stay open.

Judge Helmick stat­ed in his deci­sion:

“While, as Plaintiffs note, TLCHD has not ordered gyms, tan­ning salons, or casi­nos to close, (Doc. No. 1 at 5–6), these are not the rel­e­vant “com­pa­ra­ble sec­u­lar activ­i­ties.” Instead, the com­pa­ra­ble sec­u­lar activ­i­ties are edu­ca­tion­al class­es offered by all oth­er schools in Lucas County. These spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ments have sub­stan­tial­ly sim­i­lar group­ings and move­ments of indi­vid­u­als. Emmanuel Christian, St. John’s, and Monclova Christian are pro­hib­it­ed from offer­ing in-person instruc­tion to grades 9–12 (or grades 7–12) along with all oth­er Lucas County schools “because the rea­sons for sus­pend­ing in-person instruc­tion apply pre­cise­ly the same to them.””

Judge Helmick also not­ed that if we were to take the school’s argu­ment to the log­i­cal con­clu­sion, the state would not be able to reg­u­late any­thing involved with a reli­gious group.

“Plaintiffs’ argu­ments, there­fore, would extend to pro­hib­it the gov­ern­ment from reg­u­lat­ing any aspect of a Christian’s pub­lic life because, as Plaintiffs’ mis­sion state­ments make clear, the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing “a bib­li­cal foun­da­tion for … stu­dents” is to pre­pare stu­dents “to exem­pli­fy Christ [and] make Biblically-based deci­sions” through­out an indi­vid­u­al’s life, and not only dur­ing the schools years. Thus, a Christian busi­ness would be exempt from min­i­mum wage and max­i­mum hour laws,9 while Christians in states where offi­cials have issued Covid-19-related orders clos­ing restau­rants for in-person din­ing could not be pro­hib­it­ed from gath­er­ing to share a meal in one of those restaurants.10

More close­ly to the issue at stake in this case, Plaintiffs’ argu­ments would mean States could not man­date that stu­dents attend­ing parochial schools receive the equiv­a­lent num­ber of hours required of public-school stu­dents or require that parochial schools pro­vide cours­es in spe­cif­ic sub­jects.”

The law­suit, instead of try­ing to pro­tect the right of the schools to be treat­ed equal­ly, is try­ing to force the coun­ty to treat reli­gious schools dif­fer­ent­ly than oth­er schools that have com­plied with the order. They want a court to force the coun­ty to give them pref­er­en­tial treat­ment just because they are reli­gious.

This is the com­plete oppo­site mean­ing of the 1st amend­ment which is meant to keep reli­gious activ­i­ties from being sin­gled out by the gov­ern­ment for being reli­gious.

“The fact remains, right­ly or wrong­ly, that the Lucas County pub­lic health order specif­i­cal­ly exempts in-person reli­gious activ­i­ties,” SHoWLE pres­i­dent Douglas Berger said. “We believe that church­es and reli­gious groups, includ­ing reli­gious schools, should put the long-term health of their mem­bers above the need to gath­er togeth­er for their reli­gious activ­i­ties since those activ­i­ties aren’t restrict­ed to hap­pen­ing out­side the home. It is for this rea­son the pub­lic health order, that explic­it­ly exempts reli­gious activ­i­ties of the schools, isn’t an undue bur­den on them.”

It appears that Attorney General Yost has decid­ed, after claim­ing he would defend state pub­lic health orders, and against the facts of the case, that pref­er­en­tial treat­ment for reli­gious schools is in the state’s best inter­ests.

We strong­ly dis­agree with his deci­sion to insert the state in this case with his brief to the court.

Reference:

Ohio AG files brief sup­port­ing reli­gious schools’ return to in-person instruc­tion

Monclova Christian Academy et al v. Toledo-Lucas County Health Department 12/14/2020

SHoWLE President Douglas Berger dis­cussed this case in Episode 16 of the Glass City Humanist pod­cast start­ing at the 08:34 mark.

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.

*Update* - On December 31, a three judge pan­el of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals grant­ed an injunc­tion to the schools against the pub­lic health order pend­ing an appeal hear­ing.

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