Tag: Ohio

How is the American Humanist Association team working to empower humanists across the country? with Jake Via

October 11 @ 10:00 am — 12:00 pm

We will be joined by Jake Via, the new orga­niz­er for the American Humanist Association. He will be talk­ing about the new ini­tia­tives and oth­er activ­i­ties the AHA is doing to empow­er human­ists across the coun­try.

You can watch the meet­ing on our YouTube chan­nel start­ing at 10 AM

The speak­er will be join­ing us via Zoom and we will try to livestream it on our YouTube Channel. Questions and com­ments will be from those who attend in-person.

Also this is a change from our usu­al meet­ing place — we will be meet­ing at the Heatherdowns Branch Library Community Room B

Our Speaker

Jake Via

As the Organizing Director for the American Humanist Association, Jake Via is ded­i­cat­ed to build­ing and mobi­liz­ing a strong grass­roots net­work to advance human­ist val­ues across the coun­try. With near­ly two decades of expe­ri­ence in com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment, pro­gram devel­op­ment, and lead­er­ship at the YMCA and Playworks, Jake has a deep under­stand­ing of how to bring peo­ple togeth­er around shared val­ues.

A firm believ­er in the pow­er of con­nec­tion, Jake spe­cial­izes in empow­er­ing indi­vid­u­als and local groups to take mean­ing­ful action, whether through com­mu­ni­ty build­ing, advo­ca­cy, or acts of ser­vice. He is cur­rent­ly lead­ing efforts to expand and acti­vate AHA’s mem­ber­ship base, ensur­ing human­ists have a strong net­work and voice in their local com­mu­ni­ties and on the nation­al lev­el.

Jake holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Thomas Edison State University. He is pas­sion­ate about the pow­er of play, believ­ing that shared play expe­ri­ences fos­ter empa­thy, strength­en com­mu­ni­ties, and break down bar­ri­ers. Throughout his career, he has cham­pi­oned play as a tool for engage­ment, inclu­sion, and per­son­al growth.

Jake lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife, Anabel, and their three dogs. When he’s not work­ing to orga­nize human­ists, you can find him explor­ing new ideas, writ­ing, or dream­ing about sail­ing.

Free

Heatherdowns Branch Library

3265 Glanzman Rd
Toledo, Ohio 43614 United States + Google Map

If you are a SHoWLE mem­ber and logged in on this web­site the Zoom link should be seen below:

We will be joined by Jake Via, the new orga­niz­er for the American Humanist Association. He will be talk­ing about the new ini­tia­tives and oth­er activ­i­ties the AHA is doing to empow­er human­ists across the coun­try …

Would you like full access to this con­tent? Then Join our Group

If you are a mem­ber then log-in to see the con­tent.

For In-person, in-door meet­ings and events, feel free to wear a mask. Speakers can wear them if they choose while speak­ing. Click more infor­ma­tion about our In-person Meeting Policy. SHoWLE has a No Weapons pol­i­cy. Unless you noti­fy us in advance, atten­dance at one of our meet­ings or events gives us per­mis­sion to take pho­tos of you to use to pro­mote our group. We will ask to use your name if need­ed.

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Petition Gathering has started to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1

Petitions to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 1 have start­ed to be dis­trib­uted. SB 1 as it is known that was quick­ly passed at the start of the year, over the objec­tion of many uni­ver­si­ties and protests by stu­dents, would cen­sor uni­ver­si­ty class­es and is anti-union. It is also known as the high­er edu­ca­tion destruc­tion act and many of the points in the law scratch con­ser­v­a­tive bias­es about col­leges such as the pow­er of unions, not teach­ing how great cap­i­tal­ism is, and hate towards diver­si­ty, equal­i­ty, and inclu­sion.

For a break down of what is in SB 1 check out this explain­er sheet from AAUP Ohio and Honesty for Ohio Education:

Substitute Ohio Senate Bill 1 — Bill Breakdown

Upcoming Signing events:

Our friends at Toledo Troublemakers is host­ing a peti­tion sign­ing event on May 14th from 5:30 to 7 :30 PM at Earnest Brew Works Westgate 3134 W. Central , Toledo.

Findlay Forward Together will be hold­ing a SB1 Repeal Petition Signing Drive-Thru Thursday May 15th from 5 to 7 PM at 111 3rd St in Findlay.

When we hear about oth­er sign­ing events we will share them on social media accounts.

The con­ser­v­a­tives will be very picky about sig­na­tures so here are some basic rules:

  1. You must be a reg­is­tered vot­er to sign
  2. Make sure you sign the peti­tion that match­es your coun­ty
  3. You are only allowed to sign a peti­tion once

“With the title and sum­ma­ry lan­guage approval, peti­tion­ers can now start gath­er­ing sig­na­tures. About 248,092 sig­na­tures are need­ed — 6% of the total vote cast for gov­er­nor dur­ing the last guber­na­to­r­i­al elec­tion. The sig­na­tures must be from at least 44 of Ohio’s 88 coun­ties. The sig­na­tures would like­ly be due at the end of June. ”

For more infor­ma­tion check out this web­site:

OH SB 1 Petition

*Update 06/30/2025* - Even with a strong effort, the peti­tion dri­ve fell short by 50,000 sig­na­tures. The group behind the effort ran a tru­ly grass­roots dri­ve and did­n’t use paid peti­tion sig­na­ture col­lec­tors. SB 1 is a very unpop­u­lar law so hope­ful­ly those opposed to it will try again soon.

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Judge Rules Against Catholic Families in Sylvania Bus Dispute

Images of Sylvania school bus

On Tuesday 3/19, Lucas coun­ty Judge Stacy Cook ruled that the Sylvania City School District bus trans­porta­tion plan for stu­dents of non-public schools does­n’t vio­late Ohio law or con­sti­tu­tion.

Back in 2022, a cou­ple of fam­i­lies that send their chil­dren to a catholic school in Sylvania, filed a law­suit because their chil­dren had to be picked up hours before their school start­ed, trans­port­ed with old­er stu­dents, then dropped off at a high school to trans­fer to anoth­er bus, to arrive at their catholic school. The par­ents thought it was unlaw­ful and vio­lat­ed the equal pro­tec­tion and reli­gious free­dom claus­es of the Ohio con­sti­tu­tion.

From the rul­ing:

“The evi­dence sub­mit­ted by plain­tiffs con­sist of sev­er­al affi­davits by the par­ties and a non­par­ty spouse. These affi­davits recite that they choose Catholic edu­ca­tion because of their per­son­al Catholic faith. The affi­davits also recite the var­i­ous incon­ve­niences the Plaintiffs and their chil­dren face because of the District’s trans­porta­tion scheme. However, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have offered no evi­dence of any coer­cive effects on their reli­gious prac­tice: there is no evi­dence that the trans­porta­tion plan has com­pelled Plaintiffs to do any­thing for­bid­den by their reli­gion or that it has caused them to refrain from doing some­thing required by their reli­gion. Plaintiffs have also not offered any evi­dence that the trans­porta­tion plan has com­pelled them to affirm or dis­avow a belief for­bid­den or required by their reli­gion. Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have failed to demon­strate any coer­cive effect upon their reli­gious prac­tice. The Plaintiffs have there­fore failed to show that Defendants’ trans­porta­tion plan vio­lates their right to free exer­cise of reli­gion under the Ohio Constitution.

The Court finds against Plaintiffs as to their claim that Defendants’ trans­porta­tion plan vio­lates their right to free exer­cise of reli­gion under the Ohio Constitution. Again, the pre­sump­tion that a leg­isla­tive act is con­sti­tu­tion­al applies to the Board’s trans­porta­tion plan. With this pre­sump­tion the Court finds in favor of Defendants as to Plaintiffs’ free exer­cise claim.”

JENNIFER A SWIECH, et. al., v. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE SYLVANIA CITY SCHOOL DIST., et. al.,

Both par­ties had asked for a sum­ma­ry judge­ment since the facts in the case weren’t in dis­pute. In the orig­i­nal law­suit the fam­i­lies asked the court for an injunc­tion to order the school dis­trict to “fix” the trans­porta­tion plan. Judge Cook said the court could­n’t do that, it could only rule if the dis­tric­t’s act was law­ful and not uncon­sti­tu­tion­al.

The orig­i­nal law­suit was dis­missed by the par­ents on August 30, 2022. Parents refiled on September 16, 2022 and asked for class action sta­tus and removed all ref­er­ences to the 1st amend­ment to keep it out of Federal court. The class action was nev­er cer­ti­fied.

A lawyer for the fam­i­lies, who was one of the plain­tiffs when the law­suit had been filed in August 2022 but dropped out in September of 2022, stat­ed they were prob­a­bly going to appeal the rul­ing.

Additional infor­ma­tion on this sto­ry is in the Toledo Blade behind a pay­wall. Images of the arti­cle is below.

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SHoWLE Disappointed Some Local Legislators Want To Subvert The Will Of The Voters

Image showing districts that have pro-life members

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are dis­mayed and dis­ap­point­ed that sev­er­al local mem­bers of the Ohio House of Representatives signed on to a let­ter to announce their inten­tion to sub­vert the will of the vot­ers who passed State Issue 1 on November 7th.

Continue read­ing “SHoWLE Disappointed Some Local Legislators Want To Subvert The Will Of The Voters”
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Humanists Respond To Proposed Laws

The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie has sub­mit­ted writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny to the Ohio Senate Government Oversight and Reform Committee con­cern­ing two bills before the com­mit­tee. One would allow the leg­is­la­ture to over­ride exec­u­tive orders issued by the Governor and the sec­ond would add more reg­u­la­tions to peo­ple need­ing pub­lic assis­tance. SHoWLE oppos­es both bills.

Senate Bill 17

Makes sev­er­al changes to the SNAP (aka Food Stamps) and Medicaid pro­grams. It pro­hibits the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services from adapt­ing SNAP eli­gi­bil­i­ty rules for sit­u­a­tions like hav­ing a pan­dem­ic. It also changes SNAP to a report­ing sys­tem where the per­son get­ting the benifit would have to report ANY change in their income. For exam­ple, most peo­ple on SNAP work. They would have to report any extra shifts they pick up even if the income over­all would­n’t put them over a thresh­old.

Another bad change is requir­ing able body peo­ple on Medicaid to work at least 20 hours a week. A good num­ber of peo­ple on Medicaid work so this change would hurt those, while not dis­abled, still should­n’t be work­ing. There is also a ques­tion about if a work require­ment is allowed since the Biden Administration just recent­ly rescind­ed all waivers for the require­ment.

Click HERE if the embe­d­ed let­ter can’t be seen above

Senate Bill 22

This bill would allow the General Assembly to rescind any exec­u­tive order made by the Governor or any emer­gency order by any state agency such as pub­lic health orders deal­ing with a pan­dem­ic that come from the Ohio Department of Health.

Even if there was­n’t a con­sti­tu­tion­al ques­tion about this pro­posed law, SHoWLE believes that allow­ing the leg­is­la­ture to ignore sci­ence and med­ical experts to end pub­lic health orders is a dan­ger to all Ohioans. The leg­is­la­ture has under­mined the response to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic that has killed at least 12,000 peo­ple in the state and almost half a mil­lion in the US. It is sim­ply wrong to politi­cize the lives and safe­ty of the cit­i­zens of Ohio.

SHoWLE believes Ohio would be in a much bet­ter posi­tion had the state con­tin­ued to do the right thing in address­ing the pan­dem­ic rather than giv­ing in to the self­ish and sci­ence deny­ing mem­bers of the leg­is­la­ture. SB 22 will make things much worse now and in the future.

Click HERE if the embe­d­ed let­ter can’t be seen above

SHoWLE will con­tin­ue to keep track of and respond to pub­lic laws and poli­cies that are of inter­est to the group or fits our mis­sion state­ment and pur­pose. Laws and poli­cies that not only effect church and state issues but also social jus­tice issues will be respond­ed to as well.

If you feel as we do about these two bills, we ask that you con­tact your state Senator and let them know how you feel about SB 17 and SB 22.

*Update* SB 22 passed the com­mit­tee and the Senate on 2/17. The bill now moves on to the House.

House Bill 90

A com­pan­ion to SB 22 was intro­duced in the Ohio House and is now in the State and Local Government Committee.

Here is the let­ter I sent to the com­mit­tee oppos­ing HB 90:

Click HERE if the embe­d­ed let­ter can’t be seen above

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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.

Continue read­ing “Ohio Politicians Need To Stop Practicing Medicine Without A Licence”
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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.

Continue read­ing “Toledo Humanists Condemn Passage Of Another Anti-Abortion Law In Ohio”
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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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We Are Disappointed Ohio House Passed ‘Heartbeat’ Anti-Abortion Bill

Toledo, Ohio, November 15, 2018 — The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie are extreme­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the Ohio House passed the so-called “Heartbeat” anti-abortion law, HB 258, on Thursday.

The Republican par­ty claims to be about pro­tect­ing our rights but it seems they want to deny basic bod­i­ly auton­o­my to the women of Ohio, a right that seems to be the default for male cit­i­zens of Ohio. There are no laws restrict­ing men’s acces­si­bil­i­ty to health care.

This same Republican dom­i­nat­ed state house, in the name of rights, stripped away reg­u­la­tions on the 2nd amend­ment, end­ed Ohio cities abil­i­ty to use Red Light cam­eras for traf­fic enforce­ment, and sup­port­ed the Reagan Tokes Act and “Sierah’s Law.”

Yet instead of work­ing to bet­ter the lives of all Ohioans equal­ly, the Republican lead­er­ship decid­ed to waste tax­pay­er mon­ey to pass a law that lacks any ratio­nal sci­en­tif­ic basis and most like­ly vio­lates pre­vi­ous fed­er­al court rul­ings. It is a law that would restrict the rights of at least half the pop­u­la­tion.

Humanists believe that pub­lic laws and poli­cies should not be based on reli­gious ide­ol­o­gy but should be based on sound objec­tive rea­sons.

SHoWLE has trou­ble rec­on­cil­ing a polit­i­cal par­ty that claims it wants to “make America great again” with the con­stant effort to inject them­selves into the med­ical deci­sions of women and their Doctors.

This needs to stop.

SHoWLE will con­tin­ue to sup­port women in Ohio who want to make their own med­ical deci­sions with­out reli­gious inter­ces­sion.

Media Contacts

Douglas Berger — President
419–356-8568

Shawn Meagley — Vice President
419–266-7945

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.

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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