Tag: social justice

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Toledo Blade Underplayed Bigotry Toward The Trans Community

SHoWLE President Douglas Berger had a let­ter to the edi­tor pub­lished in the Toledo Blade on April 20, 2023, respond­ing to a pre­vi­ous edi­to­r­i­al that seemed sym­pa­thet­ic to a woman who gave a speech against Trans women at the University of Toledo. The edi­to­r­i­al down­played the big­ot­ed fram­ing and rehash of anti-Trans tropes relat­ing to Trans women par­tic­i­pat­ing in women’s sports. The edi­to­r­i­al com­plained about Trans rights sup­port­ers protest­ing Riley Gaines’ speech but didn’t point out the false nar­ra­tive that Gaines used in her speech and the fact that it was spon­sored by the right-wing Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA.

Douglas was also dis­ap­point­ed that even though his let­ter was pub­lished, the heart of it was cut out by the Blade and made it seem, again, that the issue was one of dif­fer­ence of opin­ion and not one of a bat­tle to pro­tect the rights of a mar­gin­al­ized group. SHoWLE doesn’t believe that human rights should be put up for a pop­u­lar vote or be debat­ed like what ice cream fla­vor you like.

Below is the full text of the let­ter Douglas sub­mit­ted fol­lowed by images of the Blade edi­to­r­i­al in ques­tion and the print­ed let­ter.

I sat down to read the Blade and saw yet anoth­er edi­to­r­i­al (“Editorial: Let Riley tell her sto­ry” pub­lished 4/22) claim­ing that some­one with big­ot­ed ideas is being hurt because oth­er peo­ple have called them out on their big­otry. Make no mis­take, Riley Gaines told her sto­ry framed in big­otry against Trans women all because a Trans woman won ONE event at the NCAA tour­na­ment.

Gaines should know that more goes into per­form­ing sports than just body parts and what sex one is but we live in a soci­ety that seems to accept the sta­tus quo for longer than we need. Take bas­ket­ball. When women were first allowed to play bas­ket­ball, they were only allowed to play half court because men assumed that women did­n’t have the sta­mi­na to run up and down a full court. They also had to play in skirts because it was un-ladylike to wear shorts in pub­lic.

Does Gaines feel the four oth­er women that beat her in the 200 freestyle were actu­al­ly “intact males” and why did­n’t Lia Thomas win that race if she won the 500 freestyle? I thought Trans women had an unfair advan­tage?

The sci­ence on the issue isn’t clear yet but unlike Gaines’ anec­do­tal “evi­dence”, the NCAA has had spe­cif­ic rules to include Trans ath­letes for at least 10 years now. One would think the flood gates would be open and there would be only Trans women win­ning every­thing — obvi­ous­ly that did­n’t hap­pen. A per­son­’s genet­ic make-up and inter­nal and exter­nal repro­duc­tive anato­my are not use­ful indi­ca­tors of ath­let­ic per­for­mance.

It is also telling that Gaines’ talk was spon­sored by the Christian Nationalist group Turning Point USA, whose founder and President Charlie Kirk, on a pod­cast in 2022, said that the Transgender com­mu­ni­ty was a “social con­ta­gion” and that this “pub­lic mania” would, in 20 years, be likened to “the modern-day equiv­a­lent of lobot­o­mies in the 1920s and 1930s”.

Riley Gaines (like Charlie Kirk) used big­otry to tell her sto­ry, the con­tent of which was under­played in the edi­to­r­i­al. As we move for­ward and the peo­ple who sup­port all humans as hav­ing basic dig­ni­ty and worth become the major­i­ty only then will we be actu­al­ly unit­ed as peo­ple.

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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 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”