Tag: social justice

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SHoWLE Bans Weapons At Meetings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2022

Toledo, Ohio — The Board of Directors of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie (SHoWLE) vot­ed to ban weapons from all meet­ings and events it hosts.

The res­o­lu­tion reads in part: “We wish to pro­vide a safe space where, for a short time, peo­ple don’t have to wor­ry about being shot or killed by a dead­ly weapon. Even if the venue where we hold our meet­ings and events allow weapons, SHoWLE will enforce a ban on weapons. We will also try not to use any venue for meet­ings or events that we know allow weapons. People who believe their right to car­ry a gun out­weighs the safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty are not wel­come at our meet­ings or events.”

The weapons ban fits in with the group’s human­ist val­ues.

“This ban aligns with our val­ues of peace and social jus­tice, empa­thy, and ser­vice and par­tic­i­pa­tion,” Douglas Berger, President of SHoWLE said. “We have been con­cerned, for some­time, about the inac­tion of the Ohio leg­is­la­ture to address gun vio­lence and how some polit­i­cal lead­ers wild west ideas of the rugged indi­vid­ual strut­ting down the street pack­ing heat is out­dat­ed and the inac­tion is ter­ri­ble, on a dai­ly basis, for many fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty. We felt we need­ed to do some­thing and the ban is what we decid­ed.”

SHoWLE also sup­ports evi­dence based actions and poli­cies that will address the trag­ic cost of unchecked gun vio­lence.

The ban takes effect imme­di­ate­ly and excep­tions will be made for sworn law enforce­ment offi­cers con­duct­ing offi­cial busi­ness.

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 Contact

Douglas Berger — President
567–302-0209

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The full text of the Resolution can be found on our Policies and Resolution page

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More than half of LGBTQIA+ People are Nonreligious

This week­end SHoWLE will be hav­ing a booth at the Toledo Pride Festival at Promenade Park in Downtown Toledo from 12:30 PM to 7 PM. If we get the rain and storms fore­cast for Saturday after­noon we may leave the fes­ti­val before 7 PM.

The Secular Survey from American Atheists just released a report this week with some insights into non­re­li­gious LGBTQIA+ peo­ple. The report says over half of LGBTQIA+ peo­ple are non­re­li­gious and most of them belong to sec­u­lar groups like SHoWLE.

The top pol­i­cy issues is pro­tect­ing the sec­u­lar pub­lic schools, get­ting rid of reli­gious exemp­tions to dis­crim­i­nate, and fur­ther­ing LGBTQIA+ civ­il rights and equal­i­ty.

If you are cel­e­brat­ing Pride this week­end and are look­ing for a wel­com­ing, inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ty please check us out.

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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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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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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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We’ve Adopted A Family For The Holidays

This year SHoWLE has been giv­en a fam­i­ly to spon­sor for the hol­i­days through Lucas County Children’s Services. We will be help­ing out a 4 year old named DJ and his father Derrick.

If you would like to pur­chase a gift to donate just check out the needs and wants for the child and father and let Bev know what you plan to pur­chase so we can avoid dupli­ca­tion. (send her an email at bevzilla@yahoo.com)

Bev will also be host­ing a wrap par­ty at her house on Saturday December 12 at 1 PM to wrap the gifts in a social­ly dis­tant and safe man­ner. If you can donate wrap­ping paper or rib­bon that would be appre­ci­at­ed. Please con­tact Bev for more infor­ma­tion on the par­ty.

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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 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.

 

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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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