I was informed last week of a panel tomorrow night, hosted by newly elected Chilliwack NDP MLA Gwen O’Mahony. The title is Beyond Secularism and will see three Christian scholars discuss the role they believe that faith should play in government.
As secularists, most members of the BCHA feel strongly that people of faith ought to leave their religion at the door when it comes to passing legislation that affects over four million people in BC of various beliefs and non-beliefs. As few as 1 in 2 people in this province profess to be Christian and a growing number have no religious affiliation.
Religion divides people into unquestionable dogmatic camps. Instead we should be governing from the best available evidence in a way that promotes the prosperity and flourishing of every person.
Finally, this panel demonstrates that attacks on science and secularism are not the sole domain of any one political orientation. While we are used to fighting the Religious Right, in this case it’s coming from the NDP and features more moderate political commentators, like Ron Dart – famous for documenting the Canadian Red Tory phenomena.
Hopefully some secular voices will make it to the event tomorrow and in the future our politicians will make efforts to include a diversity of voices that actually represents our province.