Winning the fight against religious privilege

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After discussing what we’re up against last week, we saw a major change on Thursday when the Legislature agreed to amend its practice of starting each day’s session with “prayers” to “prayers and reflections.”

This change came as a result of your campaigning on this issue. It shows that those challenges – religious privilege and apathy – can be overcome when we do the work and we do it together.

There’s still lots more to do.

The fact that MLAs opted to keep the prayers in prayers and reflections shows that our politicians still feel like they can’t fully end the state endorsement of religion. We see this as well in the words of O Canada, which were recently made gender neutral but MPs were unwilling to touch the religious language in it.

More tangibly, this also shows itself in the handouts given to religious private schools and hospitals, the property tax exemptions uncritically afforded to churches, the immunity from human rights laws for religious groups and who can perform marriages.

In the past year, we’ve shown some of this work and our goal is to continue to expose and confront these privileges in the pursuit of a more secular, just and equal society.

We need your support to make this happen. Please consider joining the BC Humanist Association today for a donation of as little as $10.

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On the About Us page: “The British Columbia Humanist Association has been providing a community and voice for Humanists, atheists, agnostics, and the non-religious of Metro Vancouver and British Columbia since 1982. We support the growth of Humanist communities across BC, provide Humanist ceremonies, and campaign for progressive and secular values.

We are a registered charitable organization. Our mission is:

to promote the ideas and philosophy of secular humanism by all available means of education and communication;
to serve the educational needs of its members and others of humanistic, scientific and naturalistic outlook, in a democratic, non-dogmatic manner free from authoritarian doctrine;
to provide opportunities for fellowship, study and service at all levels of humanistic endeavour, and to advance the values and welfare of humanity in dedication to the continuing enhancement of human life through human effort and understanding;
to offer and provide meaningful ceremonies to members and non-members at significant times such as marriage and death; and
to elaborate and to express publicly Humanist positions on issues of concern to people, including values, morality and ethics.

Find out more about Humanism or the issues we support.

We are run by a democratically-elected volunteer Board of Directors and a small staff. We are funded entirely by donations from individuals who share our vision for a world based on reason and compassion.”

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Originally published on the British Columbia Humanist Association website on December 2, 2019.

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Canadian Atheist Associates: Godless Mom, Nice Mangoes, Sandwalk, Brainstorm Podcast, Left at the Valley, Life, the Universe & Everything Else, The Reality Check, Bad Science Watch, British Columbia Humanist Association, Dying With Dignity Canada, Canadian Secular Alliance, Centre for Inquiry Canada, Kelowna Atheists, Skeptics, and Humanists Association.