While much of the West seems to have turned its back on enlightenment and Humanist values this year, it has still been quite an incredible year for the BC Humanist Association. I think it's a good time to highlight some of the major accomplishments we've had over the past year.

When the Abbotsford School District agreed in June to end its policy of distributing Gideon Bibles and religious materials to students, we thought we'd settled this issue in British Columbia.

Unfortunately, we recently learned that SD 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin) continues to allow the Gideons to use public schools to distribute their bibles.

We challenged SD 27 to end its policy and, just as I was about to hit send on this newsletter, the District called and confirmed they would not permit the distribution of Gideon Bibles in SD 27!

We need to keep up these victories. We've now also asked every other district in BC whether they are still distributing Gideon Bibles. Please consider making a donation before the end of 2016 so we can continue to investigate other districts and start our work on independent schools.

By Patrick Hudson

Upon returning to campus following a brief Thanksgiving break, Ohio State University students were subjected to an attack, the fourteenth terrorist or terrorism-related attack this year in the United States. While the only fatality was the attacker himself, a troubling connection emerged between this attack and the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, the Chelsea bombings in 2016, and the Fort Hood shooting in 2009: all were carried out by young men who were radicalized in part due to the influence of Anwar Awlaki’s sermons.

I'm writing this week's newsletter to ask for your help.

At our latest Sunday meeting, one of our members told us about one of the new participants in her single mothers' support group. This woman is a single mother with a one year old child.

The young lady in question has just escaped an abusive relationship and has had to move into a bare apartment. She requires furnishings but she obviously can't afford it.

At the meeting we raised a bit of money to help but she's really looking for the basics to furnish her new apartment. If you have something you can spare, please email me at [email protected].

In Humanism


Gord Leslie
Vice-President

Editor's note: While Canada's latent blasphemy law isn't explicitly mentioned in this article, we must continue to fight for it's repeal as these stories highlight how, under the right political climate, it could be used to censor opposition.

By Rafiqa Qurrata A'yun, University of Indonesia

The Indonesian police recently named the Chinese-Indonesian and Christian governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaya Purnama, also known as Ahok, a suspect in a blasphemy case. This came after Muslim groups, which accuse Purnama of “insulting Islam”, staged an enormous street protest (and warned that they plan another).

President Joko Widodo stepped in and ordered the police to quickly investigate the allegation against Purnama, who is running for re-election in next year’s Jakarta gubernatorial election.

Muslim groups had reported Purnama for alleged blasphemy after a video went viral showing Purnama criticizing his political opponents who tried to dissuade people for voting for him by referencing a verse in the Koran.

Around one-quarter of the world’s countries, both in developing and developed economies, have anti-blasphemy laws. But these laws punishing speech or actions seen to be contemptuous of religion are highly controversial.

The implementation and application of these laws is politicized and prone to be influenced by public pressure. Purnama’s blasphemy investigation is a clear example.

By George Michael, Westfield State University

In recent months, far-right activists – which some have labelled the “alt-right” – have gone from being an obscure, largely online subculture to a player at the very centre of American politics.

Long relegated to the cultural and political fringe, alt-right activists were among the most enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump. Earlier this year, Breitbart.com executive Steve Bannon had declared the website “the platform for the alt-right.” By August, Bannon was appointed the CEO of the Trump campaign. In the wake of Trump’s victory, he’ll be joining Trump in the White House as a senior advisor.

I’ve spent years extensively researching the American far right, and the movement seems more energized than ever. To its critics, the alt-right is just a code term for white nationalism, a much-maligned ideology associated with neo-Nazis and Klansmen. The movement, however, is more nuanced, encompassing a much broader spectrum of right-wing activists and intellectuals.

How did the movement gain traction in recent years? And now that Trump has won, could the alt-right change the American political landscape?

We wrote last week about the CRA's ongoing consultation into charities political status and it's something that's important enough that we want to highlight it once again.

Please take a moment and read through the response we've just published and if you feel strongly about these issues, then please write to the CRA as well.

To respond to the consultation email [email protected] by December 14, 2016 or use the send-a-letter tool at protectcanadiansfreespeech.ca. Feel free to use elements of our submission in your response.

For decades, Canadian charities have given voice to concerns of Canadians who want social progress, better health and a clean and safe environment. From laws banning smoking in public places and the creation of anti-drinking and driving laws, to reducing acid rain, these important measures and more were a result of charities voicing Canadians’ concerns.

But the rules around what charities can and cannot do are open to abuse due to ambiguous guidelines. This ambiguity led to the launch of harassing and costly audits of charities. If the laws aren’t changed, this could happen again.

What this means for us is that, according to the CRA, we must censor comments on our blog and Facebook page by our supporters that could be construed as partisan.

This isn't just about our freedom of speech, it's about yours.

You can help! Take action here.

Tell the federal government to keep its promise of creating a new law to protect your right to be heard through the charities you support.

The Minister of National Revenue is reviewing the rules under which charities can speak out in Canadian society. And the Minister wants to hear from you! But you only have until December 14th to make your voice heard.

Tell the federal government a new law is needed to give citizens a voice through charities they support and to enable charities to continue critical public policy work on issues that impact Canadians.

Doing so will ensure Canadians like you continue to have an avenue for voicing your concerns on issues that impact your daily life.

Will you stand with us and ask for a better and more just Canada?

Send a letter now

We're working on our own submission now, which will also challenge the fact that the CRA continues to privilege religion by relying on a 17th century definitions of charity that assumes the promotion of theistic religions benefits society.

For more about these issues, listen to our podcast.

The BC Humanist Association affirms that in a secular country like Canada, the state has a clear duty of religious neutrality, meaning it must neither endorse nor prohibit any belief or non-belief.

As part of our Secular Schools campaign, we have fought against the distribution of Gideon Bibles in public schools as it suggests a state endorsement of a religious belief and discriminates against those who do not share that belief. Similarly, we’ve supported our allies in Alberta and Saskatchewan who are fighting to end the practice of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which still happens in some public schools in those provinces.

At the same time, I’ve spoken in support of the importance of teaching about religious and secular worldviews in an objective way, as is mandatory in the Quebec curriculum. Our own polling has found strong support for the idea of teaching about religion and strong opposition to encouraging students to practice a specific religion.

Our ultimate aim is that individuals – particularly vulnerable children – should be able to practice any religion or none, free from coercion.

So naturally, we were concerned when we learned that a Port Alberni mother claimed her child was forced to participate in an indigenous spiritual ceremony at school and that she has since sued the district over it.

Editor's note: This article was originally published on October 23, 2016 on The Conversation but it's points about the power of hate speech and hate spin are more relevant than ever.

The curious power of hate propaganda in open societies

Cherian George, Hong Kong Baptist University

This article is part of the Democracy Futures series, a joint global initiative with the Sydney Democracy Network. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.

When George Orwell contemplated trends toward tyranny in 1984, he saw a world where truths were violently obliterated to leave Big Brother’s lies unchallenged. This negation of knowledge and erasure of human experience, he mused, was:

… more terrifying than mere torture or death.

But something curious has happened in the post-totalitarian world, which even Orwell’s penetrating gaze did not foresee.

Today, demagogues don’t actually need to silence or censor their opponents. It turns out their followers are quite happy to succumb to wilful blindness, believing what they want to believe even as contradictory evidence stares them in the face.