Monthly Archives: June 2012

Ontario passes Anti-Homophobia Law, BC next?

BC, Canada, Gay rights, Politics

Today’s good news is that the Ontario Liberals and NDP cooperated long enough to pass anti-bullying legislation which specifically supports gay rights.

Furthermore, the bill forces Ontario’s publicly funded Catholic schools to permit students to form Gay Straight Alliances.

While those Catholic schools will continue to receive public money, some of which force students to endorse anti-choice petitions, it is a step in the right direction to ensure that LGBTQ students in the Catholic system enjoy the same rights as their secular school peers.

With any luck, BC’s coming anti-bullying legislation, promised by premier Christy Clark, will aim for the bar set by Ontario.

Vancouver’s Freethought Movement Grows

Atheism, BCHA, Scepticism, Secularism, Vancouver

Today was a very good day.

This morning the trend of increasingly successful BCHA meetings continued, with just over thirty humanists gathering at the Oakridge Seniors’ Centre for a discussion on Neuroscience and Memory. Four-year-old Addysen was perhaps one of the youngest attendees to one of our meetings yet – although I think she was too advanced for the discussion and preferred to go to the Lego Store.

Afterwards, I headed to New Westminster for a new Skeptics in the Pub meetup, organized by Peter Naugler. This event was organized on about a week or two notice, yet still brought out another thirty skeptics (with very little overlap from the BCHA meeting) due to the convenient location.

Peter didn’t realize how successful this event would be, otherwise he would have called ahead to ensure that The Met Pub had adequate staff. Still, the one waitress that was working was quite efficient and patient with our large and loud group that descended on her Sunday afternoon without warning.

It was fantastic getting to meet so many new people and I got a number of new ideas for programs and events to try to reach broader and wider audiences in the future. It’s going to be an exciting summer!

Vancouver Secular Parenting Meetup

Education, Humanism, Vancouver

While I don’t have kids of my own (yet), I see the need for a larger secular parenting support within the freethought/humanist movement.

This is why I’m excited to be working with some great parents to start a secular parenting meetup group in Vancouver through the BC Humanists.

The group will kick-off after our Sunday, June 17th meeting (Father’s Day), at which we will be discussing Dave McGowan’s Parenting Beyond Belief. The meeting is from 10am-noon at Oakridge Seniors’ Centre. Following the discussion, we will move to the nearby Columbia Park (42nd Ave and Columbia Street) for a barbecue and picnic.

This informal meeting will help gauge the interest in this type of group and allow us to determine what kind of programming to put on later.

With luck, we can hopefully set up a freethinker summer camp next year and maybe I will get to polish off my DiscoverE science presentation skills.