For the sixth consecutive year, the BC Humanist Association marched in support of Vancouver’s LGBTQ2+ community. This year, we were one of the many organizations to sign a pledge calling for federal and provincial legislation to ensure gender identity and gender expression are protected by human rights laws.

Darwin Toivo, a member of the BCHA, forwarded me the letter he recently sent to the Mayor of Philadelphia. Darwin argues that the city shouldn’t have paid for a Catholic mass during the Pope’s recent visit to the city to investigate the city’s issues with homelessness. You can read his letter below.

Christian summer camps, parenting workshops and the Gideon Bibles are being advertised through Abbotsford schools, despite neighbouring Chilliwack having recently ended the practice.

Iceland’s parliament agreed today to abolish the blasphemy provision of the Criminal Code. The Pirate Party’s parliamentarians submitted the proposal in January, which received broad support from all other political parties in Parliament and the matter was unanimously supported by the committee examining the proposal. Icelanders have now taken an important step in guaranteeing human rights and joined other nations which respect freedom of speech and expression.

Gord Leslie, Vice-President of the BC Humanist Association, gives the following report on the BCHA at Car Free Day 2015 on Commercial Drive in Vancouver.

The Chilliwack School District has officially ended the distribution of Gideon Bibles to students in its district, a Freedom of Information request has confirmed.

This is a great legal victory in the battle to push back against those who would drag Canada back to the dark ages of religious domination of politics, and hopefully will serve as a precedent in to get similar situations in other jurisdictions around the country to stop inserting their religious biases into government functions from schools to government meetings of all kinds and at all levels.

“We actually aren’t distributing the Gideon Bible,” she said. “It is not being distributed to Grade 5 students or in our schools.” Novak said she wouldn’t authorize permission slips to get either the Gideon book or the Dawkins book at public district schools.

The following obituary was written by Glenn Hardie, a long-time friend of Gerard and Trudy.