Tag: bigotry

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Resolution In Support Of The LGBTQ+ Community And Opposing Bigotry

The SHoWLE Board of Directors adopt­ed the fol­low­ing state­ment in sup­port of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty and to oppose big­otry. This state­ment can be found in our Policies and Resolution page of the web­site.

The Board of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie vot­ed on January 21, 2025, to “sign on” to a state­ment issued by a major­i­ty of the sec­u­lar, Humanist, and freethought groups in the coun­try affirm­ing our com­mit­ment to sup­port and pro­tect the rights of the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty in this coun­try.

In a state­ment titled “Statement from American Atheist, Humanist, Freethought, and Secular Groups Affirming Commitment to Protecting LGBTQ+ Rights” 16 nation­al sec­u­lar groups affirmed:

“We will not per­mit reli­gious extrem­ists to foment a moral pan­ic, encour­age harass­ment or vio­lence, and enact dan­ger­ous poli­cies that seek to force LGBTQ+ Americans generally—and trans Americans in particular—out of pub­lic life and out of exis­tence. Nor will we sit silent­ly or ignore when the talk­ing points, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and out­right fab­ri­ca­tions of anti-LGBTQ+ extrem­ists are laun­dered and giv­en a veneer of legit­i­ma­cy or accept­abil­i­ty by those who hold them­selves out as voic­es of rea­son or sci­ence.”

The SHoWLE Board agrees 100% with the state­ment and we intend that our group will con­tin­ue to be a wel­com­ing place for all peo­ple no mat­ter who you are or who you love. Our Humanist val­ues demand it.

We need more com­pas­sion and under­stand­ing and much less irra­tional hys­te­ria. We need laws and poli­cies based on data and actu­al real­i­ty and not bias­es, reli­gious indoc­tri­na­tion, or tabloid anec­dotes.

SHoWLE also will not tol­er­ate big­otry from our state leg­is­la­ture, gen­er­al com­mu­ni­ty, or our mem­ber­ship. We will call out that big­otry when need­ed. We will not sup­port or work with any group that sup­ports big­otry of any kind espe­cial­ly toward the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty.

Some peo­ple have said that recent attacks on the Trans com­mu­ni­ty have been only about dis­cussing sci­ence and biol­o­gy and that by not allow­ing that dis­cus­sion we are cen­sor­ing sci­ence. We reject that argu­ment.

Free speech argu­ments should nev­er be used to jus­ti­fy hurt­ing peo­ple and whether a group should have basic dig­ni­ty, and worth should nev­er be debat­ed.

No one should live in fear for sim­ply exist­ing.

Adopted January 2025

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SHoWLE To Move Away From Facebook

Facebook logo

Starting on February 1st, 2025, SHoWLE will reduce our use of Facebook. We will put in a sta­t­ic post point­ing vis­i­tors to our web­site but we will not update our pub­lic page, boost any posts, or cre­ate any new events.

We don’t make this deci­sion eas­i­ly but the change in polit­i­cal views of the CEO and oth­er actions tak­en by Meta, the own­er of Facebook, make our con­tin­ued use of the plat­form prob­lem­at­ic. If you are not aware of these issues check out the links at the end of this post for some details. In gen­er­al:

  • Donated $1 mil­lion to Trump’s inau­gur­al fund, while Zuckerberg dined with Trump at Mar-A-Lago
  • Ended its fact-checking pro­gram to cater to the right-wing
  • Relaxed its rules on hate speech to allow hate­ful rhetoric against LGBTQ peo­ple, includ­ing as part of “reli­gious dis­course”
  • Deleted Facebook Messenger themes that used the col­ors of the trans­gen­der and bina­ry flags
  • Ended its DEI work and elim­i­nat­ed its chief diver­si­ty offi­cer posi­tion
  • Called for com­pa­nies to dis­play more “mas­cu­line ener­gy” (Zuckerberg) despite the over­whelm­ing dom­i­nance of men in the tech indus­try.

The fact-checking mod­er­a­tion was put into place a decade ago because Facebook was used to facil­i­tate eth­nic cleans­ing in a cou­ple of coun­tries. Not to men­tion now there will be more irra­tional posts about the harm of vac­cines and oth­er pro­mo­tion of woo.

We will keep our pri­vate group page for now but we intend to pro­mote a more open com­mu­ni­ty forum in the future off Facebook.

We rec­om­mend that our mem­bers also move away from Facebook but that deci­sion should be left up to each indi­vid­ual. In the links below is an arti­cle from EFF.org that shows how to block use of your data for prof­it mak­ing by Meta.

If you have any ques­tions about this new pol­i­cy, feel free to reach out to Doug or oth­er Board mem­bers.

For further information:

Meta ends its DEI pro­grams as Zuckerberg blasts Biden on Joe Rogan

Mark Zuckerberg Preps for More Ethnic Cleansing

Mad at Meta? Don’t Let Them Collect and Monetize Your Personal Data

You can also find us on Bluesky as Toledo Humanist Community

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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

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