Tag: 1st amendment

Bad Faith: How Christian Nationalism Was Born

Imaging describing our meeting in September

September 7 @ 10:00 am — 12:00 pm

On January 6, 2021, Americans wit­nessed an attack on the U.S. Capitol with­out prece­dent in our his­to­ry. Armed mili­ti­a­men and QAnon fol­low­ers made head­lines, but amongst them were a sea of cross­es and Christian flags, rosaries and “Jesus Saves” signs.

Imaging describing our meeting in September

What moti­vat­ed so many Christians to par­tic­i­pate in this vio­lent assault?

Christian Nationalism isn’t a reli­gious belief. It is a polit­i­cal move­ment drapped in reli­gion.

We will watch this excel­lent doc­u­men­tary and talk about it after­ward.

*Note* This meet­ing is the FIRST Saturday of the month which is dif­fer­ent than our usu­al 2nd Saturday meet­ing dates.

We will be meet­ing in the Fred H. McDonald Community Room, which is in the base­ment of the main library branch, just off the park­ing garage. Parking is free. If you are in the park­ing garage we are in the first room on the right.

This is event if FREE and open to the pub­lic

Free

Toledo Public Library — Main Branch

325 N Michigan St
Toledo, Ohio 43604 United States + Google Map
View Venue Website
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Do We Really Need To Teach Young Kids About Human Sacrifice?

Public schools all over the coun­try and espe­cial­ly in Ohio are being invad­ed by a Christian Nationalist group called LifeWise. They claim to be teach­ing char­ac­ter val­ues using Bible sto­ries but in review­ing some of these Bible sto­ries, we have to ask, Do we want to be teach­ing young kids about Human sac­ri­fice for exam­ple?

LifeWise sets up in a local school dis­trict and with parental per­mis­sion take kids off-campus for some Bible learn­ing dis­guised as Character and val­ue edu­ca­tion. They refuse to let the pub­lic review their cur­ricu­lum and is in fact suing some­one who legal­ly obtained a copy and post­ed it online.

Maybe this is why LifeWise refus­es to let peo­ple out­side of LifeWise see their cur­ricu­lum:

In the Elementary cur­ricu­lum, that is not­ed for Kindergarten through 3rd grade, Lesson 8 is about the char­ac­ter trait “sac­ri­fice”. One seg­ment of the les­son talks about God test­ing Abraham. For those who don’t know the sto­ry, God tells Abraham to take his son up into the moun­tain and sac­ri­fice him to show his loy­al­ty to God.

God wants Abraham to mur­der his own son to show much he “loves” God.

Abraham does what God says and takes his son up the moun­tain, builds an alter, and is just about ready to do the deed and an Angel stops him and lets him know that since he was ready to mur­der Isaac he knew he feared God (ie. would do what God Wanted).

Side note: Isaac had no clue his father was pre­pared to mur­der him.

So, not only is LifeWise teach­ing lit­tle kids that human sac­ri­fice can be a good thing as long as it is for God, here is this tid­bit

Example of a LifeWise Lesson about Human Sacrifice

The les­son is to have 2nd and 3rd graders act out the Abraham sto­ry and for the oth­er kids to pro­vide sound effects. Have the kids act out human sac­ri­fice for God? Some kids have issues with what is real and what is not so should we be teach­ing this par­tic­u­lar sto­ry? We don’t think so.

That isn’t the only prob­lem­at­ic sto­ry. Here is a les­son about the trait sub­mis­sion:

Submission means learn­ing to be a good fol­low­er. Instead of doing our own thing, we can do what we are asked. We don’t talk back or demand our way. We choose to “fol­low the leader,” whether that is God, our par­ents, our teach­ers or oth­er good author­i­ties God puts in our lives.

LifeWise Lesson Example

In an iron­ic twist, the title of the les­son is “Jacob’s New Name” and some of the activ­i­ties are kids choos­ing a new name as a game. Yet, Joel Penton, the founder of LifeWise is against kids choos­ing their own name to social­ly tran­si­tion at school. Also LifeWise train­ing doc­u­ments make clear that the order of author­i­ty for chil­dren is God then their Parents.

If this was a sec­u­lar les­son about sub­mis­sion (it would­n’t be called that in the first place), the teacher would also talk about caveats like are you being hurt or ‘has an adult asked you to keep a secret.’ Unlike this Bible sto­ry we don’t teach kids to nev­er ques­tion why an adult or par­ent is ask­ing them to do some­thing. There will be things a kid must do that they don’t want to do — like their home­work or mow­ing the yard, but typ­i­cal­ly they need to “sub­mit” as long as it won’t hurt them in some way that typ­i­cal­ly is ille­gal if uncov­ered.

And what if a child actu­al­ly mur­ders their class­mate and they say they did it because God told them to do it?

LifeWise does­n’t have an answer for that.

If you are inter­est­ed in more infor­ma­tion about the prob­lems with LifeWise, check out our recent episode of Glass City Humanist.

Click on the image for link
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SHoWLE Disappointed By 303 Creative Court Decision

Toledo, July 1, 2023 — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are very dis­ap­point­ed in the rul­ing on June 30 by the US Supreme Court in the 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis case. It is wrong that reli­gious beliefs now trump all oth­er rights to full pub­lic busi­ness accom­mo­da­tions and allow dis­crim­i­na­tion of peo­ple in a pro­tect­ed class.

The court said that requir­ing the graph­ic design­er to make wed­ding web­sites for same-sex cou­ples was an uncon­sti­tu­tion­al vio­la­tion of her first amend­ment rights because the cre­ation would be seen as an endorse­ment of some­thing her reli­gious beliefs pro­hib­it.

We don’t believe requir­ing busi­ness own­ers not to dis­crim­i­nate against cus­tomers in pro­tect­ed class­es makes the per­son or busi­ness endorse some­thing against their reli­gious beliefs. At the end of the day they can still not approve of same-sex mar­riages. If a busi­ness can’t bring itself to serve cus­tomers from the pro­tect­ed class­es then they need not be a pub­lic busi­ness.

We are also con­cerned about the unprece­dent­ed pro­tec­tion the court grant­ed to a reli­gious per­son. They ruled on a case that did­n’t include any actu­al harm. The plain­tiff was­n’t cre­at­ing wed­ding web­sites when she filed the law­suit and there is some ques­tion that the LGBT cus­tomer writ­ten about in her case was made up. Secular peo­ple who claim their reli­gious free­dom was vio­lat­ed, like for exam­ple chal­leng­ing 10 Commandment stat­ues on court house lawns, are dis­missed because the mere pres­ence of the reli­gious item or text isn’t an actu­al harm accord­ing to fed­er­al courts.

The plain­tiff agreed in court that she would sell her ser­vices to LGBTQ peo­ple, just not wed­ding web­site designs. So her reli­gious beliefs are not absolute. How does mak­ing a sign for a gay man not also seem to endorse his sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion?

The deci­sion was capri­cious and arbi­trary and gave spe­cial rights to reli­gious peo­ple that are not allowed by any­one else. The Christian Nationalists have been bent on sub­vert­ing decades of church and state legal deci­sions.

The US Supreme Court set back reli­gious free­dom for many years.

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion on this deci­sion see: Supreme Court rules web­site design­er can decline to cre­ate same-sex wed­ding web­sites

Supreme Court rules web­site design­er can decline to cre­ate same-sex wed­ding web­sites

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.

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PDF of Statement Available Here

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SHoWLE Asks Local Media To Stop Running False Anti-Abortion Ad

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are ask­ing local media in Northwest Ohio to stop air­ing the TV ad by the anti-abortion group “Protect Women Ohio” because it is a false ad.

In that ad that began air­ing March 15th, a nar­ra­tor speaks:

“Your daugh­ter is young vul­ner­a­ble online. You fear the worst. Pushed to change her sex or to get an abor­tion. You have some right to help her through this but activists want to take all that away. Under their pro­posed amend­ment to the Ohio. Constitution the state shall not inter­fere with indi­vid­u­als get­ting abor­tions or sex changes mean­ing you could be cut out of the Biggest deci­sion of her life.”

Audio of Protect Women Ohio: Fear the Worst 3/15/2023

Forcing daugh­ters to get sex changes or abor­tions appears no where in the actu­al text of the pro­posed amend­ment.

FULL TEXT OF PROPOSED AMENDMENT

Be it Resolved by the People of the State of Ohio that Article I of the Ohio Constitution is amend­ed to add the fol­low­ing Section:

Article I, Section 22. The Right to Reproductive Freedom with Protections for Health and Safety

A. Every indi­vid­ual has a right to make and car­ry out one’s own repro­duc­tive deci­sions, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to deci­sions on:

con­tra­cep­tion;
fer­til­i­ty treat­ment;
con­tin­u­ing one’s own preg­nan­cy;
mis­car­riage care;
and abor­tion.

B. The State shall not, direct­ly or indi­rect­ly, bur­den, penal­ize, pro­hib­it, inter­fere with, or dis­crim­i­nate against either:

An indi­vid­u­al’s vol­un­tary exer­cise of this right or
A per­son or enti­ty that assists an indi­vid­ual exer­cis­ing this right, unless the State demon­strates that it is using the least restric­tive means to advance the indi­vid­u­al’s health in accor­dance with wide­ly accept­ed and evidence-based stan­dards of care.
However, abor­tion may be pro­hib­it­ed after fetal via­bil­i­ty. But in no case may such an abor­tion be pro­hib­it­ed if in the pro­fes­sion­al judg­ment of the preg­nant patien­t’s treat­ing physi­cian it is nec­es­sary to pro­tect the preg­nant patien­t’s life or health.

C. As used in this Section:

“Fetal via­bil­i­ty” means “the point in a preg­nan­cy when, in the pro­fes­sion­al judg­ment of the preg­nant patien­t’s treat­ing physi­cian, the fetus has a sig­nif­i­cant like­li­hood of sur­vival out­side the uterus with rea­son­able mea­sures. This is deter­mined on a case-by-case basis.”
“State” includes any gov­ern­men­tal enti­ty and any polit­i­cal sub­di­vi­sion.

D. This Section is self-executing.

Text of pro­posed amend­ment as approved by Ohio bal­lot board March 2023

Sex reas­sign­ment surgery is not men­tioned at all. The pro­posed amend­ment only cov­ers indi­vid­ual repro­duc­tive choic­es. The anti-abortion ad also selec­tive­ly quotes the peti­tion say­ing the state “shall not inter­fere” to fear mon­ger to par­ents who demand tight con­trol on their chil­dren. The “pro­tect women” group is sim­ply lying.

Local media need to stop run­ning the ad. Advocacy ads are not cov­ered by fed­er­al law or cov­ered by the first amend­ment. We aren’t talk­ing about a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion we are talk­ing about a false ad.

Are ad dol­lars more impor­tant than the truth?

Broadcast media are grant­ed a license to use the pub­lic air­ways in the pub­lic inter­est. Passing off a false ad that advo­cates tak­ing rights away from peo­ple is not act­ing in the pub­lic inter­est.

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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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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Pastor Protection Act Not Needed And Wrong For Ohio

Testimony giv­en to Ohio Senate com­mit­tee

TOLEDO, November 28, 2018 — Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny oppos­ing Ohio House Bill 36, also known as the “Pastor Protection Act”. The bill would repeat 1st amend­ment pro­tec­tion giv­en to faith prac­ti­tion­ers but would also allow reli­gious groups to avoid pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws even if a prop­er­ty is used for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.

“This is a very dan­ger­ous change in our civ­il rights,” SHoWLE President Douglas Berger stat­ed in writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny sub­mit­ted to the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee today. “This bill would allow reli­gious groups to dis­crim­i­nate against ANYONE that they feel doesn’t con­form to their reli­gious beliefs. Do we want to see a church food pantry turn­ing away a needy fam­i­ly because they are Mormon, since this par­tic­u­lar church doesn’t believe Mormons are Christians?”

Churches and prop­er­ty owned by reli­gious groups aren’t nor­mal­ly required to fol­low state or fed­er­al pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion laws when used explic­it­ly for reli­gious pur­pos­es. House Bill 36 does­n’t make such a dis­tinc­tion. The bill as writ­ten also would­n’t just affect same-sex cou­ples. A pas­tor per­form­ing wed­dings at the court house for a fee could decide not to sol­em­nize a mar­riage because the cou­ple in ques­tion are mem­bers of the mil­i­tary or a church fel­low­ship hall might require renters to only allow straight peo­ple to attend the event.

“Religious free­dom should be a shield to pro­tect peo­ple from per­se­cu­tion and not a sword to give spe­cial rights to a favored group that ends up per­se­cut­ing peo­ple not in that favored group, ” Berger wrote.

“This bill is a waste of time and tax­pay­er mon­ey for a prob­lem that doesn’t and will nev­er exist. Instead we would like to see the leg­is­la­ture work to make per­form­ing mar­riages more acces­si­ble by con­sid­er­ing and pass­ing Senate Bill 52 that also amends 3101.08 to allow any­one who reg­is­ters with the state to sol­em­nize a mar­riage.”

A pas­tor or priest will nev­er be forced to per­form a cer­e­mo­ny that does­n’t con­form to their deeply held reli­gious beliefs but HB 36 is being used to dis­crim­i­nate against those who don’t con­form to the favored reli­gion — name­ly LGBTQ peo­ple but the vague­ness of the law will allow all kinds of dis­crim­i­na­tion — with the force of the state.

The Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee is meet­ing this week and the hear­ing for oppo­nents of the bill is Thursday with a pos­si­ble com­mit­tee vote fol­low­ing.

“It’s say­ing some­thing when the major­i­ty par­ty is rush­ing to pro­tect pas­tors and priests from some­thing that will nev­er hap­pen while they con­tin­ue to ignore help­ing the vic­tims of cler­gy abuse,” Berger said.

While SHoWLE does­n’t believe a pas­tor or priest should be forced to do some­thing that vio­lates the 1st amend­ment, reli­gious groups should­n’t be allowed to arbi­trar­i­ly dis­crim­i­nate in the use of prop­er­ty it owns not being used for strict­ly reli­gious pur­pos­es.

Link to the  full writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny

About SHoWLE

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.

SHoWLE meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month and all gen­er­al meet­ings are free and open to the pub­lic. The web­site is humanistswle.org

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-Founder
419–266-7945

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SHoWLE Will Not Take St. Anthony Land Bank Pledge

screenshot of Toledo officials and Rep. Marcy Kaptur at a press conference demanding the Diocese of Toledo save St. Anthony church

*For Immediate Release*

Toledo, Ohio, June 22, 2018 — The Lucas County Land Bank, a coun­ty agency, vot­ed to accept the dona­tion of St. Anthony Church from the Diocese of Toledo con­tin­gent on an engi­neer­ing inspec­tion and a call for writ­ten pledges to help in rede­vel­op­ing the build­ing. At this time the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) has decid­ed NOT to make a pledge.

“Although the church and state issues we were con­cerned about seem to be abat­ed. We are still trou­bled with the city and coun­ty tak­ing on this project with­out any con­crete plans,” said SHoWLE President Doug Berger.

“We do feel that the Padua Center and the neigh­bor­hood should not only have a seat at the table but should be tak­ing the lead in any plans for the build­ing. We did­n’t feel it was appro­pri­ate telling them how to reuse the build­ing.”

Berger added that SHoWLE will be mon­i­tor­ing the issue and should it look like out­siders are min­i­miz­ing or ignor­ing neigh­bor­hood input then it is pre­pared to sup­port the neigh­bor­hood.

“Whatever is done with the build­ing has to ben­e­fit the whole neigh­bor­hood and not just the out­siders who ‘saved’ it,” Berger said.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

Shawn Meagley — co-founder
419–266-7945

 

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Humanists Ask Toledo Officials Not To Insert Themselves In Saving St. Anthony

screenshot of Toledo officials and Rep. Marcy Kaptur at a press conference demanding the Diocese of Toledo save St. Anthony church

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) urge Toledo city offi­cials and US Rep. Marcy Kaptur not to insert them­selves in the effort to save St. Anthony Catholic Church on Nebraska Avenue.

“Seeing Rep. Kaptur and cur­rent and past Toledo elect­ed offi­cials stand­ing at a podi­um with the city of Toledo seal, demand­ing the Diocese of Toledo not tear down St. Anthony is trou­bling,” Doug Berger, President of SHoWLE said.

The sep­a­ra­tion of church and state not only pro­tects the gov­ern­ment from reli­gious intru­sion but also pro­tects reli­gion from some intru­sion by the gov­ern­ment.

“It sets a bad prece­dent, espe­cial­ly as orga­nized reli­gion con­tin­ues to lose mem­bers,” Berger said. “The City of Toledo can’t save all the old church­es in the city and when it choos­es not to then that is going to be a no win sit­u­a­tion.”

The Diocese of Toledo, in a state­ment, won­dered where the calls to save the build­ing were for the past 13 years after it closed and as the build­ing con­tin­ued to dete­ri­o­rate.

“The gov­ern­ment offi­cials demand­ing the build­ing not be torn down will stick the Diocese with the repair bills should they pre­vail. The only way for tax dol­lars to be spent on a ren­o­va­tion and/or reuse would require the prop­er­ty be sold to a non-religious enti­ty at a fair mar­ket price,” Berger said.

The mis­lead­ing state­ment by a com­mu­ni­ty mem­ber that demo­li­tion would be a health and safe­ty issue is also a prob­lem.

“If the build­ing were kept, it would still need any asbestos and lead paint removed and it would have to meet mod­ern build­ing stan­dards. I don’t think the Diocese hired a fly by night demo­li­tion com­pa­ny who would­n’t take the required pre­cau­tions in tear­ing down such an old build­ing.”

The build­ing is his­tor­i­cal and sig­nif­i­cant to many peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty but there has­n’t been any spe­cif­ic plans from the peo­ple want­i­ng to keep it.

SHoWLE believes that Rep. Kaptur and the city of Toledo should­n’t pick sides in the issue and they should stay neu­tral as called for in the 1st amend­ment.

Related sto­ry:

Kaptur, Kapszukiewicz call on dio­cese to halt St. Anthony demo­li­tion

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