The Freethought Society (FS) is pleased to host author Katherine Stewart on Saturday, January 23, 2021 via Zoom. The event starts with a pre-event chat session at 11:45 AM PST/2:45 PM EST. The formal presentation begins at Noon PST/3:00 PM EST.
Stewart’s presentation is entitled “The Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.”
For too long the religious right has masqueraded as a social movement preoccupied with cultural issues such as abortion and anti-LGBT equality. Stewart reveals a disturbing truth: this is a political movement that seeks to gain power and impose its vision on all of society. America’s religious nationalists aren’t just fighting a culture war, they are waging a political war on the norms and institutions of American democracy. By pulling back the curtain on the movement’s inner workings and leading personalities, Stewart explains how Religious Nationalism works — and how to fight back.
After a break, plan to stay for a post-event happy hour/social.
Stewart is an American journalist and author who often writes about issues related to the separation of church and state. Her books include The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children and The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.
Please RSVP at the below Meetup link to participate in this event:
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The Freethought Society (FS) is pleased to co-host a speech by Annie Laurie Gaylor with the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia (EHSP).
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Freethought Society (FS) and the Ethical Humanist Society of Philadelphia (EHSP) are honored in hosting a presentation by the noted and acclaimed co-founder and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation,Annie Laurie Gaylor. Gaylor’s presentation — “Why Women Need Freedom From Religion” — is based on her books Woe to the Women: The Bible Tells Me So and Women Without Superstition: “No Gods, No Masters”. This event takes place on Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 7:00 PM. Please join us in the beautiful auditorium of the EHSP building located at 1906 South Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia.
Annie Laurie Gaylor
“The Freethought Society is happy to offer an alternative activity during the Pope’s visit,” said Margaret Downey, founder and president of The Freethought Society. “We are asking that people attend to learn more and think about the tough questions on how religion affects women. With Pope Francis being in Philadelphia at the same time, Annie Laurie’s presentation couldn’t be more appropriate.”
Gaylor has traveled the world and the United States to give her many presentations at highly-respected gatherings, including one event with over 4,000 attendees. Her Philadelphia presentation takes place the night before the city goes into lock-down due to the weekend activities of Pope Francis, who is attending the World Meeting of Families 2015 forum and whose excursions around the city will cause much disruption and many restrictions in transportation for residents and businesses throughout the city and suburbs. However, this will not affect Gaylor’s Thursday night presentation as the lock-down does not take effect until after Gaylor leaves, so those wanting to attend her presentation do not have to worry about any transportation restrictions.
Annie Laurie Gaylor is a co-founder and co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is a national 501(c)3 educational, legal and activist organization based in Madison, Wisconsin and is the largest association of atheists and agnostics in North America, as well as a state/church separation watchdog. She co-founded FFRF in 1976 as a college student with her mother, Anne Nicol Gaylor, who was asked to go national with FFRF in 1978. A 1980 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Journalism School, she was an award-winning student reporter. After graduation, she founded, edited and published the Feminist Connection,a monthly advocacy newspaper, from 1980-1985. She joined the FFRF staff in 1985. She was editor of FFRF’s newspaper, Freethought Today,from 1984 to 2009. The paper is published 10 times a year. Her book Woe To The Women: The Bible Tells Me So, first published by FFRF in 1981, is now in its 4th printing. In 1988, FFRF published her book Betrayal of Trust: Clergy Abuse of Children, the first book documenting widespread sexual molestation of minors by clergy. Her 1997 anthology Women Without Superstition: “No Gods, No Masters” — The Collected Writings of Women Freethinkers of the 19th and 20th Centuries,is the first collection of writings by historic and contemporary women freethinkers.
In 1976, Gaylor’s complaints ended prayers at graduations at UW-Madison, an abuse of more than 130 years. She has been a plaintiff in many successful FFRF lawsuits, starting in 1984 when she stopped the University of Wisconsin from recruiting for churches on its registration forms; the 1997 federal lawsuit ending Good Friday as a state holiday in Wisconsin; and, currently, FFRF’s litigation to overturn the parish exclusion, a federal law favoring clergy and churches that permits them to be paid with a housing allowance which is excluded from taxable income. She is married to Dan Barker, who became co-president of FFRF with her in 2004, and they have a daughter, who is college age.
Annie Laurie Gaylor’s presentation is free and open to the public, and begins at 7 PM, Thursday, September 24, in the auditorium of the EHSP Building at 1906 South Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia. It is sure to be one not to be missed.
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In his presentation Separation Anxiety: The First Amendment at Risk Lynn will provide updates about the newest events in church-state separation. Some of the topics he will discuss are same-gender marriage license refusals, upcoming Supreme Court cases, memorials on public grounds, and his interactions with the Religious Right.
Please plan to attend this informative presentation on Monday, May 18, 2015 at the Ludington Library, 5 South Bryn Mawr Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA. The event begins promptly at 7:00 pm. A SEPTA stop is located across the street from the library.
The Freethought Society (FS) is very pleased to present noted author, blogger, feminist, and secular and human rights activist Sikivu Hutchinson on Thursday, July 24, 2014 at 7:00 PM at the Ludington Library (5 South Bryn Mawr Avenue, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania). Hutchinson is a dynamic speaker and the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Value Wars and Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles. Her latest book, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels has been a huge success. Hutchinson will speak on “Feminism, Freethought, and the 99%” at the event, which is free and open to the public.
Much of Hutchinson’s work focuses on the cultural and social history of African American secular humanist thought and its role in black liberation struggle.
“As part of the most religious ethnic group in the nation,” Hutchinson states, “African American nonbelievers are a tiny minority in a community which has borne the brunt of the economic downturn. While white atheist and humanist organizations go to battle over church/state separation and creationism in schools, black nonbelievers face a racial and gender divide precipitated by rollbacks on affirmative action, voting rights, affordable housing, reproductive rights, education, criminal justice, wages and job opportunities.
“Similar to the race/class schisms within feminism,” Hutchinson notes, “when progressive black atheists look to atheist and humanist organizations for solidarity on social justice there is a staggering disconnect. In a nation where whites and people of color are still separate and decidedly unequal, culturally relevant humanism challenges colorblind myths of meritocracy.”
Hutchinson is a senior intergroup specialist for the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission. She received a Ph.D. from New York University and has taught women’s studies, cultural studies, urban studies, and education at UCLA, the California Institute of the Arts, and Western Washington University. She is a contributing editor for The Feminist Wire and was named 2013’s “Secular Woman of the Year.” In 2010, she founded Black Skeptics Los Angeles, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing outreach, advocacy and education for nonbelievers of color and their allies. She is also the founder and project director of the Women’s Leadership Project, a feminist, humanist high school mentoring program based in South L.A. In addition to her three nonfiction books, Hutchinson is currently working on a novel based on the 1978 Jonestown massacre, where the 918 dead were overwhelmingly people of color.
Hutchinson’s presentation is free and open to the public and begins at 7 PM on July 24 in the main level large meeting room of Ludington Library. The library is located at 5 South Bryn Mawr Avenue, Bryn Mawr.
For more information, contact:
Tom Melchiorre Freethought Society Board Member and Event Host Email: Publish@TomMelchiorre.com Phone: (610) 960-2558
