Couple to Debate Right to Distribute Atheist Material

helvetebrann:

Rene and Anna Chouinard, who have three children, have been fighting with the board for more than two years to have an age-appropriate publication — Just Pretend: A Free Thought Book for Children and Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist — distributed to Grade 5 students.

The couple, who are humanists and follow a religion-free way of life, took their case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario on Aug. 20 and were granted a hearing on the issue. While no date has yet been set for the proceeding, the tribunal allowed the Ontario Human Rights Commission and Canadian Civil Liberties Association to act as interveners in two-days of hearings.

The fight began after the Chouinards’ refused to sign a consent form for their daughter to distribute Gideon International Bibles at her school.

They then unsuccessfully sought to obtain permission to distribute Just Pretend, citing other groups should be allowed to have their publications distributed in Niagara schools as well.

“This is a solid decision by the tribunal that is good for society,” Rene said after being granted a hearing. “We would like to see religion completely removed from the classroom.”

He said the Niagara school board should focus on education and not religion or other issues.

The Chouinards alleged they were discriminated against “due to creed” and that no material from non-Christian religions were solicited or distributed in the district.

“If they allow Gideon Bibles in the schools, then why can’t other groups distribute their material as well,” he said on Tuesday. “This is not fair for people who may believe in other religions.”

He said Jews should be able to leave Torahs and Muslims their Koran in area schools.

It’s funny how as soon as other materials, besides Christian materials, are to be distributed that the school districts clam up and no longer say that they are simply distributing material based on who wants to distribute.

Funny indeed. Kind of like that Louisiana congressperson who flipped out and retracted support for school vouchers after they found out people can use them for Muslim, as well as Christian schools. 

(Source: cnews.canoe.ca)

TN Governor Will “Probably” Sign Anti-Evolution Bill

helvetebrann:

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) will “probably” sign a bill meant to protect teachers who allow students to question and criticize “controversial” scientific theories such as evolution, he told reporters on Monday.

The measure, which has been dubbed the “monkey bill” by critics who claim it’s a backdoor approval of religious teachings in public schools, passed votes in the state Senate and House last month.

Haslam addressed these concerns Monday, saying that his discussions with the State Board of Education had led him to believe that the law wouldn’t affect the current public school curriculum with regards to evolution.

But doubts remain for opponents of the legislation who claim it will allow for a broader denial of other popular scientific debates in Tennessee schools.

“It would open the door to creationism, it would open the door to climate change denial, and to other sorts of pseudosciences being introduced into Tennessee classrooms,” Josh Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education told The Huffington Post last month.

“The concern is that this sends a signal to teachers that certain subjects are controversial — subjects that are not scientifically controversial — things that are subject to political controversy, perhaps, but that in the science classroom are not controversial and shouldn’t be treated that way.”

Critics have also charged that the bill harkens back to Tennessee’s anti-science history of the Scopes trial, the 1925 case that drew national publicity to the issue of teaching evolution in public schools.

“The idea behind this bill is that students should be encouraged to challenge current scientific thought and theory,” said Republican state Sen. Bo Watson, the measure’s sponsor.

Great!  Encourage children to be skeptical.  Encourage them to think using the newest scientific data and studies.  But challenging science for the sake of religion is not educational, it’s dragging our students backwards. 

In short, go fuck yourself Senator Watson.

Looks like Tennessee is going to be spending even more taxpayer money defending this in court in the near future.

US High School Assembly Descends Into Religiously Guided Homophobic Rant

helvetebrann:

Kicking off with a hard rock performance, it was clear this was not to be your average assembly.

At first students at Dunkerton High School, Iowa, seemed grateful for this musical break from the norm - albeit with Christian-themed lyrics denouncing the evils of drugs, alcohol and violence.

But things took a turn for the worse when the event veered into an impassioned and unfocused rant against homosexuality, abortion and sex before marriage.

After his band Junkyard Prophet left the stage, drummer and preacher Bradlee Dean took the microphone, separating the crowd into boys, girls and teachers.

Mr Dean is the president of the ministry You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, which is listed by civil rights organisation the Southern Poverty Law Center as an active anti-gay hate group.

Junkyard Prophet had previously visited the school without incident and staff were expecting them to return last week with a talk on bullying and making the right choices.

But instead, students found themselves faced with graphic images of aborted foetuses, while girls were instructed to obey their husbands.

Parent Jennifer Littlefield told the LaCrosse Tribune: ‘They told my daughter, the girls, that they were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren’t virgins.’

Appalled parentscomplained to the school, which has since accepted responsibility. The district authority is trying to recover the fee paid to Junkyard Prophet, who aresaid to command a rate of $1,500 (£955) per show.

Wow.  Just, wow.

This is why religious groups should NOT be invited to public schools.

(Source: Daily Mail)

Alabama Bill Will Allow Churches to Teach Religion Classes to Public School Students

helvetebrann:

A bill in Alabama would allow churches or ministries to teach a religion class to public school students off campus, so long as parents and school boards give permission and the churches are responsible for transportation and any expenses.

State Rep. Blaine Galliher, a Republican, introduced the bill at the request of Joseph Kennedy, 84, who was fired in 1980 after he refused to stop reading the Bible or teaching creationism at a public school.

Under the plan, high school students could go off campus to study creationism and earn an elective credit. Kennedy said he wants to “give students good sound scientific reasons to support their faith in the seven-day creation.”

LOL  Anyway, continuing the article…

But Thomas Berg, who teaches constitutional law at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, said the elective credits could raise concerns about public school involvement in religious education.

“Anyone challenging it in court will argue the motivation for it was religious,” said Berg. “A court is probably going to look at that suspiciously. There is a certain suspicion in the courts of Alabama legislators trying to promote religion.”

Why don’t we just keep the religion in religious buildings and schooling in school buildings?

It’s much simpler that way, folks.

More Alabama today. What the fuck Alabama???

(Source: The Huffington Post)

Civil Rights Complaint to be Filed Against RI Local Florists for Refusing to Deliever to Atheist Teen

helvetebrann:

The Freedom From Religion Foundation will be filing a complaint with the state after several local florists refused flower orders for delivery to Jessica Ahlquist, the 16-year-old Cranston High School West student who recently won a lawsuit ordering the school district to remove a prayer banner in her school’s auditorium.

Annie Laurie Gaylor of the FFRF said the foundation will be filing a complaint that alleges one of the florists, Twins Florist, violated the civil rights act by denying service to Ahlquist based on her religion or lack thereof.

“We have basic civil rights standards in our society. A business can’t shun you because you’re an atheist,” Gaylor said. “You do not have the right to refuse to do business with someone based on categories and that includes religion. It’s as if they said ‘I will not deliver to a black person.’”

The Civil Rights Act guarantees: “full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.

What these florists did was wrong both on an ethical and a legal level.

Threats Against RI Atheist Teen Being Investigated

helvetebrann:

Police are investigating threats on social media directed at the 16-year-old atheist at the center of a legal battle over a prayer banner at her public high school in Rhode Island.

Cranston police Maj. Robert Ryan said Friday that authorities are questioning people who have threatened to harm Cranston High School West student Jessica Ahlquist.

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the removal of a prayer banner at her school. The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union sued the city and School Committee last year over the prayer.

Ryan says investigators are focusing on five to 10 people, both minors and adults. He says most of the threats are from Cranston residents.

Ryan says police are increasing patrols around the school and Ahlquist’s home. He says Ahlquist stayed home from school on Friday.

People disgust me.  Please help show Jessica our support for standing up for her Constitutional rights.

You can donate to a scholarship fund for Jessica to aid with future college expenses or simply voice your support.

(Source: Boston.com, via sageoflogic)

UK Government Ban Creationism Schools

helvetebrann:

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has welcomed a new revision of the model funding agreement for Free Schools by the Government in order to preclude ‘the teaching, as an evidence-based view or theory, of any view or theory that is contrary to established scientific and/or historical evidence and explanations.’ This highly significant change has been made in order to ban creationism from being taught in Free Schools, and prevent creationist groups from opening schools. The change follows the BHA coordinating the ‘Teach evolution, not creationism!’ campaign, which called for this precise change.

In September, the BHA came together with thirty leading scientists and science educators including Sir David Attenborough, Professor Richard Dawkins and Professor Michael Reiss, and five national organisations to launch ‘Teach evolution, not creationism!’, which called on the government to introduce statutory guidance against the teaching of creationism and garnered significant press coverage. The BHA also launched a government e-petition making the same call, which has now garnered over 20,000 signatures.

In subsequent written correspondence with civil servants, the BHA stated that ‘Our concern is for the government to make absolutely clear that there is no chance it will ever accept [creationist Free School] bids, or allow any state-funded school to teach creationism as science, anywhere in the curriculum, and this is only possible through a change in the law… we would support any adjustment to the model funding agreement to add a statement [to this effect]… Could we request that the next time the [Free School] model funding agreement is reviewed, our desire for this point’s inclusion is considered?’

BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson commented, ‘We congratulate the government for taking this significant step to prevent creationist Free Schools. There is still further work to be done to ensure that all schools, not just Free Schools, are prevented from teaching creationism, to include evolution in the primary National Curriculum, and to ensure evolution’s teaching in all schools. We look forward to working with the government and all those who care about rational and evidence based education to achieve these additional changes.’

Way to go UK!

I’d LOVE to see this happen in the US, but I have doubts it will. Fundamentalists would scream their heads off about how oppressive it was.

Teaching Children the Real Truth About Science

helvetebrann:

”NOT all scientists are good scientists,” Nobel laureate Harold Kroto says when asked what he thinks about the debate around global warming.

”We don’t have a 100 per cent reliable assessment so we can only say - and I would say - that it doesn’t look good.”

Professor Kroto ticks off the warning signs on his fingers, listing rising sea levels and temperatures, the shrinking Arctic and melting glaciers.

But Professor Kroto - based at Florida State University - is not in Australia to talk about climate change. He wants to talk about science and why it is important not to let it drift into the zone of ideology and belief, rather than reason and evidence.

”Science is totally misunderstood … It is the only philosophical construct that we have to determine the truth with any degree of reliability, and that requires evidence, which elevates it to a different plane - it elevates it to something that every child should have,” he said.

A chemist, Professor Kroto was awarded the Nobel prize for his discovery of a new type of carbon in 1996.

Since then he has established a global education initiative - the Vega Science Trust - aimed at giving science students and teachers access to the best teaching tools available, harnessing the internet to share resources and provide a ”vast cache of all of the clever ways teachers are getting students enthusiastic about things, particularly science”.

He said science was at risk of being devalued through contemporary scientific debates, the most obvious being climate change, where the debate had descended into rhetoric, not reason.

”[Science] can’t be a belief system, because belief by definition is to accept something without evidence,” Professor Kroto said. He pointed to the push in some parts of the US to teach creationism alongside evolution in schools.

”There is no theory which is more proven than evolution and the evidence for evolution comes from every discipline within the sciences,” he said. And so he is on a mission to reinvigorate science education and teach the next generation to think with reason to uncover why things are the way they are.

”The world of today for Westerners is very different and so kids grow up and think that things just appear, but they didn’t. It was incredible hard work by people who were scientists and engineers.”

Let me re-emphasize that:

”’[Science] can’t be a belief system, because belief by definition is to accept something without evidence,” Professor Kroto said. He pointed to the push in some parts of the US to teach creationism alongside evolution in schools.

”There is no theory which is more proven than evolution and the evidence for evolution comes from every discipline within the sciences,” he said.

(Source: smh.com.au)