Get ready….
Mark your calendars….
The 9th annual Secular Summit is coming soon!
Join us in-person or over Zoom on January 6th from 1-4pm AZ time. Watch this space for our speaker list; our theme this year is The Encroachment of Christian Nationalism in Rural Arizona. We can’t wait to gather with you for a day of activism, education, advocacy and community building!
Hey there, Secular Fam, I hope y’all are hanging in there during this era of late-stage capitalism.
For many of us, this time of year can overwhelm us and bring in a flood of emotions, some of them not great. This is true of the winter months in “normal” times, but if anyone understands that all the sh!t we’ve been going through for the last several years is FAR from normal, it’s you – the folks that read these columns.
It seems that we are both in the Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud (SQPOL?) phase AND the Fuck Around and Find Out (FAFO) phase in this Era of late-stage capitalism. Continue reading
Hey, hey, hey, Secular Fam, it’s October, and the scents of pumpkin spice, fall leaves, and christofascist bullsh!t are heavy in the air. So much has happened in the past week, I don’t even know where to start! I’m about to break down the Deer Valley (DVUSD) board meeting, but before that, a quick recap of school board happenings is in order.
Happy September, Secular Fam! We are one month into the school year here in Arizona, and the school board meetings for this 2023-2024 school year have thus far consisted of conspiracy theories, racism, bad boardsmanship, and bigotry.
Today, I’m offering up a recap of a study session in Deer Valley (DVUSD). For those who may not be up to snuff on all things School Board, a study session is a public meeting where school boards and staff can discuss issues happening in their district to learn more about them (hence the word “study”). Continue reading
You know, I have friends who basically only focus on national and international politics, and sometimes when they share the latest headlines with me, they’re surprised at my ignorance of whatever said headline was.
But that’s because I’m HYPER focused on what happens in my own backyard.
I believe we all should be. Continue reading
Join us for a conversation with Kate Cohen, Washington Post contributing columnist and author of the upcoming We of Little Faith: Why I Stopped Pretending to Believe (and Maybe You Should Too). Of the upcoming We of Little Faith, our friend Andrew Seidel says: “We of Little Faith is a must-read for every American, whether atheist or Zoroastrian or somewhere in between. Cohen’s witty, compassionate take on America’s religious culture is atheism as it should be, as it truly is: fulfilled, happy, and true to one’s self. This is the quotidian atheism your friends and family may be too timid to discuss, but which Cohen illuminates with absorbing eloquence. If you think about religion, you owe it to yourself to read this book.”
Phil Zuckerman says: “An engaging, enjoyable, and very timely book. As more and more Americans shed their religion, it is essential that the voices and values of atheists are well articulated and better understood. Cohen’s work is a warm, wonderful addition on this front.”
Kate is from Albany, N.Y. and has a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature from Dartmouth. Her essays distill observations of family, politics and culture into moments of clarity and insight. She also writes nonfiction documentary scripts, including the Emmy Award-winning “Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero” and the Gold Panda award-winning “How China Works.” She is the author of two other books, “A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding” and “The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival Through My Italian Family.”
Kate wrote her first book, The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family, which tells the stories of a family of Jews who suffered under Fascist racial laws in Italy and went into hiding to survive the Nazis. It also explores Kate’s own perspective as a post-Holocaust, non-believing Jew at the end of the twentieth century. In A Walk Down the Aisle: Notes on a Modern Wedding, she chronicles her wedding and examines the American wedding ritual.
The state of women’s rights today is pretty grim. One woman in Nebraska has gone to jail for self-aborting. Nineteen Republican attorneys general are seeking women’s medical records to ascertain if they sneaked out of state to have an abortion.
But this isn’t exactly new: Treating women badly has a long legacy. Continue reading
It’s the Monday after a Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) Governing Board meeting, so you know what that means… That’s right! I am reliving the hellscape that has become the biweekly meeting happening in the West Valley.
Buckle up, Buttercup, because it was one wild ride of procedural missteps, white supremacy, and fake electors (OH MY!). Continue reading
The Supreme Cult has continued its attack on the underpinnings of democracy in this just finished session. We dodged a fatal bullet in the “independent legislature” nonsense and got unexpected positive rulings in the Indian Child Welfare Act and gerrymandering cases.
But we got the expected negative rulings on affirmative action and student debt. Two religious privilege cases were on the agenda, and both gave special privileges to those who claim religion as an excuse to harm other people.
In Groff v. DeJoy a rural postal carrier argued that he should be able to take all Sundays off because of his religious practice as an evangelical. To allow him to do so meant that other employees would be forced to take Sunday shifts to cover for him.
A written agreement outlined how employees are chosen to work on Sunday to deliver Amazon packages. He fell into the third category of employees compelled to work on a rotating basis.
To accommodate him, others — including the postmaster who normally did not deliver mail — did the work or it was assigned to the regional hub for other carriers. Several grumbled; one filed a written complaint. Groff received progressive discipline for failing to work and then in 2019 he resigned.
I know I’ve been focused on the Peoria Unified School District (PUSD) meetings lately, and that’s because the repeated violations of the Establishment Clause by sitting board members warrants the attention of Secular AZ.
But! Whether scripture is explicitly being read at meetings by board members or not, there are a lot of Christofascists who are elected or who are showing up at school board meetings all over Arizona. Continue reading
Peoria… I wish I knew how to quit you.
But there are just so many reliably WRONG things happening at your meetings every other week, and our members deserve to know about them. So buckle up, throw some Bailey’s in your coffee, and let’s break it all down.
Because this last meeting was a doozy. Continue reading
Dr. Phil Zuckerman, author of Living the Secular Life, What it Means to be Moral: Why Religion is Not Necessary for Living an Ethical Life, and the upcoming Beyond Doubt The Secularization of Society, professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College, regular affiliated professor at Claremont Graduate University, and guest professor at the University of Aarhus, Denmark joins us to discuss how secular values will save the U.S.
