This is the weekly summary of the Humanist Network News (HNN). The HNN is a weekly publication of The Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS). The IHS promotes nonreligious perspectives on social, political, and ethical issues and serves as a resource for and about the humanist community.
Week of June 6, 2005
Humanist Network News
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- Secular Coalition to hire DC lobbyist, fall 2005 (You can read my diary about The Secular Coalition for America’s plan for a lobbyist HERE).
- Healthy Teens Act passes Assembly
- Canadian humanists rally to support abortion doctor
- Honorary degree with a considerable degree of honor
- Medical marijuana gets smoked by high court
- How many virgins? Eternity would be Hell
- The Karla Homolka problem
- Film Review: Layer Cake
- Sweet Reason, my cousin is gay, religious and conflicted
- Letters to the Editor
- Media Roundup
- Strange Times
- Cathartic Comics
- Humanist Humor
- Poll of the Week
Summaries and links across the bump. As always, feel free to write an in-depth diary on any of these stories.
1. Secular Coalition to hire DC lobbyist, fall 2005
Watch out fundamentalists! The Secular Coalition for America plans to have a lobbyist on Capitol Hill this fall. MORE
2. Healthy Teens Act passes Assembly
The New York State Assembly passed the “Healthy Teens Act” (A6300) on June 7 by the resounding margin of 123-18. The legislation, if signed into law, would provide local organizations with state funds so that they could teach age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education to young people instead of federally-funded abstinence-only programs. MORE
3. Canadian humanists rally to support abortion doctor
Katherine Meidell, 2nd vice president of the Humanist Association of Canada, lets HNN readers know about what Canadian humanists are doing to combat religious anti-choice forces working to prevent Dr. Henry Morgentaler from receiving an honary degree from the University of Western Ontario. Morgentaler is Canada’s leading advocate for women’s reproductive freedom. MORE
4. Honorary degree with a considerable degree of honor
Canadian columnist Doug Thomas provides a short biographical sketch of Dr. Morgentaler. MORE
5. Medical marijuana gets smoked by high court
The recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, giving the federal government authority to criminalize all personal use of marijuana, even to the point of overriding state laws that allow its consumption for medicinal purposes, may have more significance to the humanist community then one might first suppose. MORE
6. How many virgins? Eternity would be Hell
Syndicated columnist Martin Foreman explores the idea of heaven and eternity in this installment of his “God would be an atheist” column. MORE
7. The Karla Homolka problem
Canadian columnist Doug Thomas examines the death penalty and incarceration in Canada. MORE
8. Film Review: Layer Cake
Carolny Braunnius reviews Layer Cake, a sweet film about some unsavory characters. MORE
9. Sweet Reason, my cousin is gay, religious and conflicted
Sweet Reason give advice to a letter writer who has a gay cousin who is religiously conflicted. MORE
10. Letters to the Editor
This week’s letters tackle a variety of topics, including openly atheistic politicians. Did you know that California had an openly atheist assemblyman? MORE
11. Media Roundup
U.N.: Support Creation of Human Rights Council; Does Church threaten secular life in Russia?; Air Force Academy Embroiled in Religious Controversy; AP Poll: Religion Key in American Lives; Secular Europe confirmed by poll; Scotland takes UK lead in rejecting organised religion; Rushdie: Just give me that old-time atheism! MORE
12. Strange Times
Human flesh flavored tofu, 666 is not the mark of the beast — it’s really 601!; gay fruit flies? MORE
13. Cathartic Comics
This week HNN debuts a new freethought comic, “Big Fat Whale” by Brian McFadden. This week McFadden shows us “Atheism’s One Commandment.” MORE
14 Humanist Humor
We have a little quiz for you this week. Enjoy! READ THE JOKE
15. Poll of the Week
The Secular Coalition for America plans to hire a lobbyist in Washington D.C. this fall. What do you think will be the best thing to come from having a secular lobbyist on Capitol Hill? Take the Poll
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About HNN:
Questions, comments, concerns, got a better joke or a story? Send a letter to the editor: http://humaniststudies.org/letter_to_editor.html . The Humanist Network News (HNN) is published every Wednesday via e-mail and the IHS Web site. This diary is a copy of the weekly email, slightly reformatted.
Learn about humanism interactively – explore the Continuum of Humanist Education.
hey mrboma, weeks sure do go by fast. Love the article on having a lobbying group…wonderful idea and about time.
And just to bring me up short and make me realize my own views can be biased when I saw article about atheist assemblyman I just assumed he’d be a democrat or independent.
As always loved the cartoons and think I’ll start a church called ‘don’t be an asshole’.
Yep… I also figure most atheists are liberal. I’m a secular humanist, which doesn’t seem consistent with anything but liberalism, but I guess there are many types of atheists. I guess a lot of them are libertarian.
The atheist assemblyman was “mostly conservative” and “popular even with most liberals.” I guess he was an aberration: an old school Republican who had scruples.
I’ll be posting a diary soon about what it means to me to be a secular humanist. My working title is “I Am The Boogeyman” because of the way O’Reilly, Limbaugh, et al use secular humanism as a punching bag without really knowing anything about it. The diary is actually too long right now, so I am reworking it and should have it up in a couple of days.
Are you sure that ink is really chocolate? It doesn’t smell like chocolate…
That’s a good idea…I do think most people really don’t have any idea what secular humanist really is(certainly not the idiots you mentioned)…I’m still learning myself as I only came out of the closet so to speak about my atheism in the last year or so and never knew some of my ideas really had a name.. although I have considered myself a humanist for 20 years or more..thank god for computers and the internet for making finding out information so much easier for everyone.
That book written for children which I read about sounds like a really good primer actually for anyone-myself included to have.
As for ink not smelling like chocolate…damn if only it did. When looking for a name to use on the internet I just combined my obsession with chocolate and as I like reading and the printed work so much hit upon ink to go with the chocolate part.
Like you, I didn’t realize until recently that my beliefs had a name either. It speaks well, though, that logic and compassion seems to lead a lot of people to the same conclusions. And if your conclusions aren’t exactly the same, that’s fine, too. Part of Secular Humanism is a resistance to dogma, so being dogmatic about it would be really hypocritical.
Your pseudonym reminds me of those scented Mr. Sketch markers I used to love in elementary school. Every time I see it, I want to lean in close to my monitor and take a long whiff.
interesting to mention compassion as it is very true while the the word compassion has been so usurped by conservatives without any real meaning in and to their supposed compassion…do they even know what the word means I wonder at times-or all the time now.
Resistance to dogma is a good way to describe how I feel-any dogma-that becomes such a narrow, narrow box to put yourself in.
ha..thanks for that link..it made me hungry for black licorice though-favorite of my that is non chocolate. I will admit to a few non chocolate fave’s…although it makes me feel slightly heretical to do so.