Terahertz

After some prodding from friends who read my initial post on the possibility of creating a political party for the 2011 Vancouver civic election, I’ve realized that there is a growing demand for a grassroots secular-based political group.

So with that I’ve created a Facebook goup and WordPress blog (for those not on Facebook), to act as gauges of interest in the project.

The responses that I’ve gotten have fallen into two categories.

First, there’s the people already active in politics who are worried that any new political party will split the vote and give united conservative or religious groups the advantage.

Second, there’s people who are entirely disenfranchised with existing options and see this as a project that they could actually get interested and involved in.

While the first group’s concerns are valid, I have a few responses. First, at the Vancouver civic level, we don’t have to worry as much about splitting the progressive vote, since it represents a large majority of voters. Even further, if we run one (or any number less than a full slate of) candidate(s) for council, then we can still have a progressive voice while also bringing our issues into the discussion. In many cases, third (or fourth) parties are created often as single issue parties just to get their voice to the table (see the Nude Garden Party or the Work Less Party). So I believe there is value in creating these parties.

Of course, even if we don’t create a political party, we can always transform this group into a political lobby group that advocates for secular issues at various levels.

Finally, as I’m already the secretary for both CFI Vancouver and the BC Humanists, the VP External for the Freethought Association of Canada, and the treasurer for the SFU Skeptics (on top of being a full-time masters student in physics), I don’t currently have the time to launch this full time, and will be relying on volunteers coming forward who want to see this project get off the ground.

So with that said, join the Facebook group, check out the blog (and offer to write for it), or email me to help out.

Secularists are fond of complaining about politicians over-endorsing religion and school boards not defending evolution against creationist onslaughts.

So perhaps it’s time to for those who want to preserve church-state separation to go on the offensive.

Actually, Australians have already beat me to it and created the Secular Party of Australia.

However, while national politics involves many pressing issues (including natural health product regulations in Canada), many of the greatest effects are seen at the local level. So perhaps it’s time for a Secular Party of Vancouver.

Vancouver is one of the few cities where municipal politics involves political parties, so it’s prime level for a group of like-minded people to run a slate of candidates for the city council, parks board and school board.

At the council level, Secular councillors can advocate for an end to property tax exemptions for churches which only proselytize. There is already precedent in the BC town of Gibsons for ending such exemptions, and it’s time for Vancouver, with a non-religious population of over 40% to follow suit.

The next civic election in Vancouver is in November 2011, so there’s time to get things organized (provided there’s interest and money). Anyone with me?

Hot on the heels of Marci McDonald’s bestselling The Armageddon Factor, comes another expose on the religious right in Canada. I just finished Losing Control: Canada’s Social Conservatives in the Age of Rights, which was written by gay activist Tom Warner and published by Between the Lines.

Full disclosure: My review copy was provided at no charge by BTL publishing. Nevertheless, take my review as my honest opinion on this book.

Losing Control provides a good supplemental reading to the narratives provided by McDonald. While McDonald provides the detailed look into some of the cast of characters involved in the religious right, Warner adds an academic history in the events that date back to the formation of the modern rights movements in the 1960s.

Warner documents a shift in Canadian thinking from it’s Christian roots to a secular society that prizes individual and minority rights. This shift has obviously come hard for the social conservatives in the country, who have since rallied around various conservative parties, from the Progressive Conservatives to the Reform, Canadian Alliance and modern Conservative Party.

Warner breaks his treatment thematically, treating the abortion debate, repressive sexuality laws, gay rights and gay marriage in successive chapters. He finishes with some discussion about the social conservative inroads in politics.

Unfortunately, he only has passing references to the debates over evolution vs. creationism and school prayer, both of which have been hot topics for social conservatives.

In The Armageddon Factor, McDonald used mostly original research to compose her book, however the vast majority of Losing Control is based on 29 pages of third-party sources. This extensive bibliography provides a valuable resource for anyone wanting to get the dirt straight from the source.

I partially criticized McDonald for minor editorializing at points in The Armageddon Factor, and while Warner uses the mostly neutral term social conservative to refer to Canada’s vast network of religious right figures (which includes evangelical protestants, Catholics, conservative Jews, Sikhs and Muslims), he does end many of his chapters in a more of a warning style.

As an example, at the end of the chapter on regulating sexuality he states:

Sadly, there is no realistic reason to believe that members of Parliament will take the next logical step and actually decriminalize prostitution and repeal the repressive bawdy house sections of the Criminal Code. As has so often been the case in the past, the best hope for progress on those issues rests with the justices of the Supreme Court and their interpretations of the rights guaranteed by the Charter.

This is of course not to say that I disagree with anything Warner has to say, I’m with him almost the entire way through this book. He does come down firmly with the BC Civil Liberties Union and criticizes other gay activists who have used the Human Rights Tribunals to censor hate speech, to which I’m still undecided upon, but otherwise I’m in total agreement.

I think the greatest value in Losing Control is in its framing the battles with the religious right in terms of conflicting societal values. It’s secular rights (which include religious freedoms) versus theocratic ambitions to regulate morality.

One final chapter I was hoping for was for Warner to connect the dots (something McDonald attempted to do) and discuss the main organizations that have been active in the fights against progressive minority rights. Such organizations as REAL Women Canada, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Catholic Civil Rights League and Focus on the Family Canada. At the very least, a brief perusal through the comprehensive index will identify the organizations that routinely come up in church-state separation debates.

Overall, Losing Control is a well-researched book that covers the history of social conservatives in Canada and the battles that have been fought and progress that has been made since the introduction of various Bills of Rights and the Charter. While not an outright replacement for The Armageddon Factor, it does make a good supplement for anyone who wants to dig a bit deeper into these issues.

Coming up this Saturday I’ve offered to moderate a CFI Cafe Inquiry at Harbour Centre on the topic of whether or not religious symbols in public matter.

I’m going to use this post to get my thoughts in order for Saturday, so if you don’t want a spoiler, don’t read the following until after.

This topic is especially topical for myself as this morning I got a call from one of the Wardens from the Corporation of the Seven Wardens – the group that oversees the Iron Ring Ceremony.

First some history. The Iron Ring is a ceremony dating to 1922 for engineering graduates in Canada that symbolizes their commitment to upholding the high standards required of their profession (as in we want bridges that don’t fall down). The process to obtain a ring (upon successful graduation) begins with signing an obligation which features the following lines:

…I will henceforth, not suffer or pass, or be privy to the passing of, Bad Workmanship or Faulty Material in aught that concerns my works before mankind as an Engineer, or in my dealings with my own Soul before my Maker.

…Upon Honour and Cold Iron, God helping me, by these things I propose to abide. [emphasis mine]

In the spring of 2009, I requested the option to strike the words “God helping me” from the obligation. When my request was turned down, I walked away from the Iron Ring. I soon typed a letter about the ceremony and forwarded it to the Corporation and various engineering bodies (including the UofA Engineering Faculty of Engineering who promotes the Iron Ring and provides space for sizings and APEGGA – Alberta’s engineering professional association). The letter made the rounds and the Corporation discussed it at a meeting last October but then I didn’t hear any more from them.

Then this morning, I got an update. The delay was no one’s fault (a medical issue), but I did get some good information. The Warden admitted that adjustments have been made to the obligation in the past (about a decade ago), mostly to respect women in engineering by moving to gender-neutral terminology. And while it didn’t sound like change was planned, the issue will be discussed at their upcoming plenary meeting.

He also stated that the only other time it has really been brought up was when a pair of Muslims objected. Their complaint was withdrawn when they agreed to interpret the God of the obligation (likely Kipling’s Freemason deistic God) as Allah.

I guess the only reason I was privy to a return call after these months was how impressed the Wardens were with my letter and approach to the situation. I guess there is still something to be said for a rational, well-worded letter in some instances.

So, getting back to the topic at hand, why does this symbol, and ones like it, matter? And, perhaps more importantly, is this something that atheists should get up in arms (note: “fundamentalist” atheists are prone to write books when they’re angry, as opposed to some other worldviews) about?

Obviously, given my history, my answer is yes.

My general response is that the invocation of religious language actively alienates a portion of the population. This portion is as high as 1-in-3 among young-adult Canadians (those who would be convocating or earning Iron Rings).

Events like convocation from a university degree, singing the national anthem, or earning an Iron Ring are cultural rituals. The point of these rituals is to unite people and develop a sense of community. While using religious language can strengthen that connection between theists, it prompts reactions from rolling eyes to righteous indignation in non-theists.

Another issue I noticed while attending my fiancées recent convocation, as the Chancellor used her opening invocation to give a little prayer to “our Creator” (perhaps to spite His reduced role later in the ceremony), was that religious language devalues the effort and hard-work of the people who have earned their degrees, rings, or founded this nation. By focussing on the supernatural, we neglect the natural.

I understand that we are supposed to feel humbled by the good graces that are bestowed upon us from up high (whether it be God, the universe, or even just our elders), but in ceremonies that are meant to honour achievements, shouldn’t the focus be on those who have made the achievements?

Some will want to share their moment, and recognizing friends, family, and other support networks, and that’s fine – but it’s worth recognizing that not everyone has the same networks. Some are religious, other are not. By presuming the religiosity of the audience and attendees, those in charge of the ceremony belittling the accomplishments of those who aren’t religious.

Now, what about atheists who just aren’t bothered by God in ceremonies and speeches? The live-and-let-live apatheist type.

For them, at very least, parts of the ceremony or anthem are of little to no value to them – and are therefore a waste of time to repeat.

But more importantly, it’s worth recognizing that members of the Religious Right utilize religious language in public ceremonies as an argument for more public pronouncements of faith, or for scripturally-inspired laws.

Should Canada ban abortions? It says God in the anthem and charter, so Canada must be a Christian Nation, which ought to follow Christian laws.

Finally, on a purely strategic note, going after these symbols nearly always gets press attention, and if utilized properly, can be very positive for a group. The media still loves the God debate and atheists fighting to kill God gets attention. The UofA’s convocation charge received national media coverage both when it was initially brought up, and when the changes were finally approved (convocating last, I chose not to release a statement as I crossed the stage).

With all of that said, I think there are a lot of challenges out there for secularists and atheists. We each have interests and cares, and many campaigns only take a few people (but showing your support for such movements helps) to at least bring attention to the offending language. I can understand the desire not to take on some long established symbols, but in other cases, like the Iron Ring, I could not sign the obligation without violating the very intent of the document.

Symbols are important, but only so long as they are still applicable to the communities they represent. Values progress and change, and our ceremonies and rituals ought to reflect that progression.

Apparently the easiest way to get out of a parking ticket in Toronto now is to claim you were with a religious group at a worship service.

I guess the best way to see if this law is truly discriminatory or not is for humanists meeting at the Centre For Inquiry Ontario (just blocks from the University of Toronto campus) is to try to get parking exemptions.

Parking fines either apply universally (people can walk/ride/transit to church) or they don’t apply to anyone.

What’s the point of a law if you just give exemptions left, right and centre?

(h/t Friendly Atheist)

Sorry for the delay in posting this review, I was hoping to have this piece published in The Peak’s Arts section but they choose to go with a 2,000 word piece about a museum’s shoe exhibit instead, but that’s a whole different rant.

The Christians are coming!

In The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada, Marci McDonald attempts to raise the awareness of our own growing Christian Right. She purports to show how they have quickly and subtly gained an alarming amount of influence in the government.

In the first chapter, McDonald outlines Stephen Harper’s personally religious history, a topic that is not spoken of very much by Harper of the media. Harper became a born-again after moving to Calgary and joining Preston Manning’s Reform Party movement. However, Harper, unlike Manning and much of the Reform Party, was more comfortable keeping his faith and politics mostly separate. McDonald notes that it was only later when, as leader of the new Conservative Party, Harper attempted to reach out to the evangelical communities.

But it was still hard for McDonald to measure the level of influence the Christian Right has had under Harper’s consecutive minority governments. There have been few socially conservative policy changes, and of those most have disappointed the very factions McDonald seeks to expose. Harper has repeatedly turned away from the abortion debate and upon winning his first minority government in 2006 he quickly allowed for his promised free vote on same-sex marriage – a vote that was actually earlier than many evangelicals had wanted, since it provided them less time to mount a defence. Similarly, by breaking his fixed-election date law in 2008, Harper killed several of his caucus’ private members bills, including an unborn victims bill that was called the “first winnable abortion bill” in years.

However, McDonald does point out that perhaps Harper’s greatest success has been in his “incremental” changes, evidenced by his countless appointments of partisans and born-agains to all levels of courts, the senate and the civil service. Within the Prime Minister’s Office, Harper counts many evangelical leaders, including the former leader of Focus on the Family Canada, Darrell Reid.

Similarly, Harper has been able to make many changes by the mere stroke of a pen. In recent months Harper has cut funds to Status of Women Canada and KAIROS, a social justice charity that apparently represented the wrong-type of Christians for this government (like McDonald has been told she is). He has sent tens of millions of stimulus dollars to Bible Colleges and after he cut funding to abortions for overseas aid, a crowd of 15,000 pro-lifers rallied on the steps of the House of Commons.

McDonald also briefly discusses the so-called “Christian Left,” which included Tommy Douglas, the father of Canadian medicare. She points out how both Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff and NDP leader Jack Layton have reached out to various faith communities through acts like the revival of the NDP Faith and Social Justice committee. Contrary to some interpretations, it does not seem to me that McDonald is against these, or even Harper’s, attempts to dialogue with people of faith in principle, but merely that she hopes that such activity is acknowledged publicly.

The Armageddon Factor is an enlightening read, regardless of your personal views, but unfortunately the book strays from neutrality enough that it reads as a bit more than just a who’s who of the Christian Right. My initial hope was that it could have been more like the documentary film Jesus Camp, which, for the most part, just lets the subjects speak for themselves.

Either way, the book does shed light on much of what has been going on in the dark. No democracy is served by secrecy and backroom lobbying. At the very least, this book will hopefully force Canadians to decide what kind of country we want this to be, because if we do not, there are those who have a scripturally-inspired version of what they think it should be.

The rule seems to be that all protests these days form on Facebook from someone’s random idea. There was prorogation, then boobquake and now “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”

Each has its merits and deserved criticisms, but each is also responsible for getting thousands of people thinking about something they hadn’t previously considered.

Tomorrow’s Draw Mohammed Day may have started out as a response to the threats against the creators of South Park for (almost) depicting the claimed prophet in a bear suit, but it is now a defence of free speech and a collective resistance to the bullying of Islamic fundamentalists.

Such bullying can be seen in the murder of Theo Van Gogh or the fatwa’s against Salman Rushdie or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The latest example is the rallies that has caused Pakistan to block Facebook until the end of the month so their apparently overly sensitive Muslim population won’t have to be subject to seeing pictures of their prophet (that is if they go to the effort to look for them).

So tomorrow isn’t about being offensive or racist or derogatory, but rather standing together for our rights because they can’t kill all of us.

Here’s a sample of my artistic skills and the Mohammed I will be drawing:

O-|-<

Only three more days till Marci McDonald’s well-anticipated (at least by me and at least a few others) book, The Armageddon Factor.

From Radom House Publishers:

The Armageddon Factor
The Rise of Christian Nationalism in Canada
Written by Marci McDonald

About this Book

An urgent wake-up call for all Canadians who think that this country is immune from the righteous brand of Christian nationalism that has bitterly divided and weakened the United States.
In her new book, Marci McDonald documents the startling extent of the influence that the religious right already wields in Canada and shows how, quietly, often stealthily, it has provoked far-reaching changes in Canadian policies and institutions, including our public service, our schools and our courts.
In four short years, galvanized by their failure to stop same-sex marriage, not only have conservative Christians developed a permanent infrastructure in Ottawa, designed to outlast whatever party is in power, but they have done so by borrowing the rowdy style of the American religious right to which most of their leaders boast close ties. Their rise has been tied to the election of Stephen Harper and it is no secret that evangelicals have already re-shaped Harper’s foreign policy in the Middle East, guided by what McDonald terms the Armageddon Factor. But few Canadians are aware that a militant band of conservative Christians with a direct pipeline to Harper’s cabinet is also attempting to reshape the country’s social, cultural and even scientific policies, driven by a belief that Canada has a biblically ordained role to play in the final days before Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.

About this Author

MARCI McDONALD is one of Canada’s most respected journalists. The winner of eight gold National Magazine Awards, she is also the recipient of the Canadian Association of Journalists’ investigative feature award. A former bureau chief for Maclean’s in Paris and Washington, she has interviewed Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Bill Clinton, and spent five more years in the United States as a senior writer for US News & World Report. A winner of the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, her study of the backstage machinations behind the free trade deal led to her book, Yankee Doodle Dandy: Brian Mulroney and the America Agenda. Her controversial cover story in the Walrus, "Stephen Harper and the TheoCons,” [link added] inspired this book.

Along with this book, I heard from a friend that Ms. McDonald will be appearing in Calgary on May 18 for the Council of Canadians: Calgary Chapter along with Donald Gutstein, author of Not a Conspiracy Theory. Hopefully we can get them out to Vancouver in the near future.

I had an idea today. Like most ideas, it’s not original, and builds a lot on work that others have done, but it’s one that hasn’t been applied within the freethought movement yet, to my knowledge (at least in Canada).

The idea is, as I’ve now learned, based off the growing social enterprise movement which seeks to have companies run for financial, social and environmental gain – the triple bottom line. In many cases the corporation is actually a non-profit or charitable organization which runs a business to fund its work and expansion. A highly successful model of this sort of idea is the Salvation Army’s Thrift Stores which finance much of their missionary and religious work.

So the idea that I had today was sparked by a desire within the Vancouver skeptical/freethought community to have a place of our own, that is a venue where we can routinely host out discussions, meetings and set up an office or two.

Currently CFI Vancouver meets sporadically in cheap or free spaces that are provided by campus groups or rented at reduced rates (through its charitable status) and the BC Humanist Association meets weekly at the Oakridge Senior’s Centre through a deal they have there.

CFI is committed to seeing something more permanent in the next few years be established and while the Senior’s Centre is a great venue for the BCHA, there is the justified concern both inside and outside the organization that the word “senior” in the venue’s name is a deterrent.

So the idea I had was that these organizations ought to found a coffee shop/cafe, which during regular hours can be open to the public for coffee, cookies, and what-have you, with an extra influence of humanism and skepticism present (such as a resource library for the curious and some science-inspired artwork or something). Then, during evenings, weekends, or whenever it is needed, the shop can close up, move the tables aside (or not) and serve as a meeting venue for the invested groups.

There’s a few bonuses in this format. First, the coffee shop serves as an advertisement and fundraiser for the associated charities. Second, the venue would accommodate the majority of the events being held (the larger lectures and debates will always require large campus lecture halls), and would have coffee and snacks available, and could even be potentially licensed.

The drawbacks are the large initial investment required (likely a few $100,000 which none of these organizations have), and the requirement that someone will actually have to manage the business end of things.

However, with a strong business plan and the right people, it should be possible to raise the requisite funds via government grants, personal donations, and loans if necessary.

It’s also worth noting that under Vancouver’s basic commercial zoning laws [pdf], most of these types of spaces can be used for the categories of cultural and recreational (including clubs and community centres), institutional (schools), offices, retail and services. So there should be no difficulty with this portion.

Now, who has some entrepreneurial experience and wants to get this started?

Lots of controversy in this week’s issue of the SFU weekly newspaper, The Peak.

After my column last week attacking creationism, I sparked two text responses:

Hey Bushfield: know before you speak.

Well said Ian Bushfield!!!

Opinion editor Graham Templeton attempted to defend his editorial record over the past couple terms, trying to emphasize that he had published more left than right wing articles, but he included this nifty quote that will likely incite some responses.

Not everything can be published, of course, and I have certainly received well-written articles that I’ve refused to publish due to the utter inanity of their thesis. This is called editorial discretion, and its inherently arbitrary nature is what leads to these sorts of controversies. I have turned away some creationist articles which are simply full of falsehoods, while I have published others (see: this week’s opinions section,) with which I simply disagree strongly, but which do not contain outright lies. [emphasis added]

Speaking of creationist articles, here’s Isaac Seo’s, international piano-e-competition champion, rant responding to my last article. I won’t respond to it in print (paper’s rarely publish a back and forth between two authors), and his arguments are repetitive and lame so I won’t respond here unless there’s demand in the comments.

There’s also an article by Dan McPeake (yes that’s his real name) about secularism and the burqa in France. I have to grant his thesis to him, although he glazes over the fact that many Islamic women are not making a choice and that it is rather being made for them, but it’s a fine line between secularism and defending an egalitarian society.

Finally, my latest piece is in regards to recent minor vandalism of the SFU Skeptics’ “There’s probably no God…” banner.

Only cowards censor

By Ian Bushfield

The SFU Skeptics have had a banner hanging around campus in various locations for the past month, but on the evening of March 11, someone decided that this banner was so offensive that they had to attempt to censor the student group. The banner was found crumpled under a railing the next morning.

So what phrase was so objectionable that it needed to be suppressed? Simply, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

This is the same slogan that Richard Dawkins plastered across buses in London,which subsequently run in cities across the world from Barcelona to Christchurch. Many other transit authorities and city councils attempted to ban the upbeat message, as though the phrase was as objectionable as “fuck Jesus.” But by trying to block the message, the censors unwittingly gave the atheists a platform to cry foul in the media.

It is almost hard to imagine this phrase as being so offensive. Having an enjoyable life should not be that offensive of an idea, so it must be the fact that there are some of us who are willing to state publicly that we do not believe in a higher power.

Yet we even admit that we may not be right by using the “probably” qualifier; you won’t get honesty like that in a Sunday morning sermon.

Perhaps people take offense to the concept that you can be moral without God. This should be an absurd notion, as countless atheists around the world, including myself, are not constantly murdering and raping. The fact that some theists believe that this is what would happen if they did not have a cosmic babysitter ought to tell you far more about their own personal morality than anything else.

Regardless of how offensive you find the banner or the justification for that offense, it does not change the fact that the banner was approved and sponsored by the Simon Fraser Student Society with a student group grant. The SFSS obviously believes in the right to free speech, and that every sanctioned group has the right to put a message across campus.

The right not to be offended does not exist in this country. The proper response to a message that you disagree with is dialogue, not censorship. This banner serves as a response to the countless religious clubs who are pervasive at this school and in society. It seeks to counter the notion that you cannot be good without God.

Alternatively, when your ideological adversaries are increasingly vulgar, sometimes the proper response is ridicule. My favourite counter-protests to Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps’s picketing of funerals are the ones with absurdist signs with phrases such as “I like donuts,” “God hates shrimp,” or “I have a sign too!”

The only other approach to take with such content is to simply ignore it. Had there been no fatwa against the Danish cartoonist for his portrayal of Mohammed, almost no one would have seen the relatively humourless depictions.

If we permit the silencing of someone’s right to free speech, we risk threatening the core of the democratic ideal. Only when ideas can compete with one another on fair footing do we have any hope of discovering which ones are closer to the truth.

Tearing down posters and crumpling banners is downright cowardly. Most of us come to university with an open-mind, ready to learn new things and hear different ideas. I guess some of us are just not ready for that intellectual challenge.

So to the miscreant who crumpled the banner I ask one thing: would Jesus vandalize?

While I keep saying that I’ll write one thing and then end up submitting another, for next week I had thought of submitting a piece about humanistic ethics to respond indirectly to Isaac’s article and general misconceptions, but instead I’ll likely be hoping to publish a piece defending The Peak from the upcoming graduate student referendum that seeks to cut all graduate funding from the Peak, which would thereby end my writing days as grad students wouldn’t get to publish if they weren’t paying for the paper.

Also, this Wednesday, as a multi-published writer I have the fortune to vote for the Peak’s editorial staff for this summer, so basically this summer I’ll have a hand in the blame if it isn’t remarkable. Leave a comment or email me if there’s any considerations I should be taking into account on this vote (since most SFU students who pay for the Peak don’t get a vote, I’m willing to take any opinions into account that have no influence).