Tag: Toledo

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Now Available: Toledo Humanists You Should Know

Logo for the Toledo Humanists Page

When we do pre­sen­ta­tions to oth­er groups about SHoWLE, we talk about three well known Toledo natives who are or were human­ists. Until today we did­n’t pro­mote them on our web­site. That over­sight is fixed.

Starting today you can find short bios about the three human­ists from the Toledo area we talk about: Gloria Steinem, Edward Lamb, and Madalyn Murray O’Hair.

Each page gives a short biog­ra­phy, their con­nec­tion to Humanism and we tried to add a quote that fits the Humanist phi­los­o­phy.

We hope this is just a start of a big­ger project so if you know of Toledo human­ists who should be added, let us know through our con­tact form.

Click on the image to go to the page:

Logo for the Toledo Humanists Page
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Urge Toledo City Council To Mark Day Of Reason

May 4th is the National Day of Reason in 2024 and into the future. One of the ways we have want­ed to mark the occas­sion is to have the city coun­cil issue a res­o­lu­tion mark­ing the day in the city. We weren’t pre­pared for how hard it real­ly is to get it done. That’s why we start­ed a peti­tion.

Back in 2019, SHoWLE reached out to the Mayor of Toledo about issu­ing a procla­ma­tion but his office declined and then the pan­dem­ic hap­pened and our efforts fell by the way­side.

This year we decid­ed to focus on the city coun­cil since they have issued res­o­lu­tions for a whole host of issues with the most recent being demand­ing a cease fire in Gaza. So how hard could it be?

There is no writ­ten for­mal process but in talk­ing to a long time com­mu­ni­ty activist, they sug­gest­ed email­ing the coun­cil pres­i­dent with the request. We did that and heard noth­ing back. Not even a thank you for send­ing this email. After reach­ing out again, the pres­i­dent respond­ed back that our request had been missed and she declined to spon­sor a res­o­lu­tion from us.

A res­o­lu­tion has to be spon­sored by a mem­ber of coun­cil and this being a res­o­lu­tion from a non-religious group to mark a day about rea­son, there were not many coun­cil mem­bers to approach who would wel­come our request. We iden­ti­fied anoth­er coun­cil mem­ber known for their pro­gres­sive stances on the issues and advo­ca­cy for social jus­tice and reached out to them. Never heard back. Again not even an acknowl­edge­ment they got the mes­sage.

In con­sult­ing our com­mu­ni­ty activist friend again, he men­tioned that coun­cil is innudat­ed with requests like ours all the time, they have no for­mal office or staff at city hall, and most times they won’t act on any­thing unless they know cit­i­zens are request­ing it and will back their efforts.

That’s where our peti­tion comes into the pic­ture.

We’ve start­ed a peti­tion with the goal to ask the Toledo City coun­cil to adopt a Day of Reason res­o­lu­tion. The National Day of Reason is May 4th. so it is most like­ly too late this year to get a res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed but we will share the peti­tion with the coun­cil for next year’s Day of Reason. Won’t you help us out?

*Note* We would real­ly like to lim­it the sign­ers to peo­ple who live in the city of Toledo but if you don’t you can still help us out by mak­ing a dona­tion to SHoWLE.

Sign Our Petition Here

SHoWLE Booth at Old West End Festival

Image showing our OWE booth

June 1 @ 10:00 am — June 2 @ 10:00 am

SHoWLE has returned to the Old West End Festival to meet peo­ple and edu­cate the pub­lic about the group and Humanism. We will be there on June 1st and 2nd from 10 am to 5 pm both days. Stop by and say hel­lo.

Image showing our OWE booth

If you would like to staff our booth, all we ask is a com­mit­ment of at least an hour. No expe­ri­ence is required and you can meet and talk to new peo­ple. Fill out the form at the fol­low­ing link.

Volunteer for the SHoWLE Booth

Old West End Festival

Woodruff and Parkwood Ave
Toledo, Ohio 43620 United States
View Venue Website
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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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Glass City Humanist Coming To Toledo Radio

Glass City Humanist cover art next to WAKT logo

We are pleased to announce that start­ing soon, the Glass City Humanist pod­cast, an out­reach of Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie, will be mak­ing a 1 hour month­ly pro­gram that will be heard on WAKT 106.1 FM in Toledo and on the Internet.

We Act Radio is a com­mu­ni­ty radio sta­tion giv­ing the res­i­dents of Toledo a way to know each oth­er through music, talk, and oth­er forms of pro­gram­ming. The con­tent is gen­er­at­ed by the com­mu­ni­ty and by request of the com­mu­ni­ty. It pro­vides a voice for com­mu­ni­ties that may not have a voice in the media.

Glass City Humanist, pro­duced and host­ed by SHoWLE President Douglas Berger, will use the time on WAKT to intro­duce Humanism and the group to a big­ger audi­ence in Toledo and by exten­tion lis­ten­ers to the radio web­site. The exact con­tent won’t dif­fer too much from the con­tent heard on the pod­cast but GCH will be able to do dif­fer­ent things that might not be pos­si­ble with just the pod­cast.

“We plan on doing things like ask­ing for lis­ten­er ques­tions that will be read in the next episode,” the host Douglas Berger said. “We will also be able to inter­view peo­ple in a prop­er stu­dio instead of just on Zoom or my house.”

There also might be chance at some future point to do a live show.

Details are still being final­ized and we will let every­one know when the shows will start air­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion about Glass City Humanist vis­it https://glasscityhumanist.show and for more infor­ma­tion about We Act Radio WAKT 106.1 check out https://toledoradio.org

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Remember SHoWLE on GivingTuesday

Showing logo for GivingTuesdayNWO
Douglas Berger — President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie

Hello, I’m Doug Berger, founder and President of the Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie. I want to remind you that Giving Tuesday is on November 29th and we would like to be your choice for your giv­ing this year.

SHoWLE is the only active group in Northwest Ohio that is a demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber run group pro­vid­ing a sup­port­ive — diverse — safe space for human­ists and the non-religious. Our goal is Building Community Through Compassion & Reason For A Better Tomorrow.

We know peo­ple are lim­it­ed in how many groups you can sup­port, we know that under our cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate lots of peo­ple are either strug­gling or have had to cut back. I hope we make the cut for your tax deductible dona­tions this GivingTuesday.

The sim­ple fact is there is no orga­nized effort, in Northwest Ohio, to help sup­port the non-religious. We rep­re­sent about 20% of the pop­u­la­tion in gen­er­al. Humanists and the non-religious don’t have the mil­lions of dol­lars or hun­dreds of vol­un­teers that reli­gious church­es and groups have even as they beg for your dol­lars each year.

SHoWLE sup­ports real reli­gious free­dom like strong sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. We don’t think that pub­lic laws and poli­cies should be based on one par­tic­u­lar reli­gious view.

SHoWLE believes Humanism is a pro­gres­sive phi­los­o­phy of life that, with­out the­ism or oth­er super­nat­ur­al beliefs, affirms our abil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty to lead eth­i­cal lives of per­son­al ful­fill­ment that aspire to the greater good of human­i­ty.

We affirm the dig­ni­ty of every human being and asserts that human­i­ty is respon­si­ble for its own des­tiny, hav­ing with­in itself all that is need­ed to improve the con­di­tions of life.

I hope you will donate to us this year and when you can at oth­er points of the year. If you are inter­est­ed in our group check out one of our meet­ings or even join.

Help us cre­ate a com­mu­ni­ty that sup­ports rea­son, sci­ence, and equal­i­ty. Help us build a com­mu­ni­ty through com­pas­sion & rea­son for a bet­ter tomor­row.

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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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Toledo Humanists Disappointed Gary Johnson Refused To Vote On Six-Week Ban Resolution

Toledo Member of Council at Large Gary Johnson (D)

Toledo City Council passed a res­o­lu­tion on June 26th that con­demned pas­sage of the six-week abor­tion ban by the state leg­is­la­ture back in April. The Secular Humanists of Western Lake Erie sup­port the pas­sage of the res­o­lu­tion. The issue we have was the refusal of Council mem­ber Gary Johnson to vote. He fled the coun­cil cham­bers so he did­n’t have to vote on the res­o­lu­tion.

Continue read­ing “Toledo Humanists Disappointed Gary Johnson Refused To Vote On Six-Week Ban Resolution”
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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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Our Pride Booth Introduced The Group To Many New People

Our booth at Toledo Pride festival

SHoWLE had our first infor­ma­tion­al booth at the Toledo Pride Festival on August 18th. Doug, Shawn, Margarette, and Larry had over 50 peo­ple show inter­est in the group.

It was a beau­ti­ful day with a large crowd vis­it­ing all the booths in Promenade Park in Downtown Toledo.

“Having a booth takes a lot of time and effort to pull off,” SHoWLE President Doug Berger explained. “For our first time, we did a great job. I have a lot ideas on how to improve our booth for the future.”

If you be inter­est­ed in help­ing staff our booth at oth­er events let Doug or Shawn know.