Three men in Myanmar have received two and a half years in prison for publishing a photo to Facebook. The offending photo, which was an advertisement for cheap drinks at a bar,┬áis so ridiculous in nature that Myanmar’s government must truly be seeking opportunities to be offended.

The consequences this has for freedom of religion in Myanmar, which is over 90% Buddhist, are significant. Myanmar’s┬áparliament┬áis due to debate laws in religious repression and interfaith marriages in the near future – laws that even include restrictions on interfaith marriages.

Find a discription of the picture, and read more, at af.reuters.com

The weekly report on US and World public policy
by Edwina Rogers

Employers Stifling Employees

The United States is exceptional in that most of our health care comes from employers instead of provided by the government or purchased privately. Leaving aside the question of whether a business, which is not a person, can even have a religion, can corporations with deep faith impose their choices on their employees? The Supreme Court said yes, unfortunately, in a recent ruling that Hobby Lobby, a chain of craft stores, can refuse contraception in their health care packages for staff.

To secularists, this is religious discrimination at the workplace and this week I attended a debate on the topic hosted by The Federalist Society, Was Hobby Lobby Wrongly Decided?.

We Join Coalitions Too

Our Secular Policy Institute has the world’s largest secular coalition, now with 300 members from around the world, but it’s not all about us, and it’s not all about secularism. We have joined several other coalitions, some with secular angles and some more tangential but synergistic.

For example, this week I’ll represent the SPI at the Inter-Coalition Religious Refusals Working Group, which is part of (or related to) the National Women’s Law Center. We’ll discuss the recent US Supreme Court ruling that the University of Notre Dame, a Catholic school, may withhold birth control from its health insurance, and recent anti-LGBTQ cases involving religious discrimination.

US Congress Embraces the Ignorance of Abstinence-Only Sex “Education”

Can you really call it “education” when it misinforms teenagers and fails to fully inform them? Teaching that avoiding sex is the only approach to sex is a religious viewpoint that’s not very practical. Although 100% of Texas teen students or taught abstinence or not taught at all, Texas has the third highest teen birth rate in the nation: 50% higher than the national average.

Yet the US House of Representatives is now pushing a package of healthcare funding legislation that actually increases spending for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education by a whopping 50 percent. This brings the total funding of such programs to $75 million annually. Although all research shows that teaching abstinence is totally ineffective, and poor sex education leads to venereal disease, religiously-motivated legislators continue to force taxpayers into subsidizing legislation that actually hurts, not helps, American youth.

This week, the House and Senate passed nonbinding budget proposals for the 2016 fiscal year. The next few days will see much voting on the budget amendments proposed by various congresspeople.

Greenhouse Gases: If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Executive Order ‘Em

This week, President Obama issued an executive order mandating the federal government to cut greenhouse gas levels by 40 percent from its 2008 emissions. Although the mandate left unspecified how this goal was to be achieved, it paves the way for other nations to set similar goals.

They Hated Obamacare. Were They Right?

It’s hard to believe that five years have passed since the Affordable Care Act was put into action. Religiously motivated arguments played and continue to play a large part of conservative objections to Obamacare. Now that the law has a track record, were the haters right? This week the White House released a Here’s What Five Years of the Affordable Care Act Means for America, a video report on the impact the ACA has made. It’s good stuff but the self-congratulatory clapping is over the top.

Netanyahu Wins Reelection

Benjamin Netanyahu has won another term as Prime Minister of Israel. Despite his success abroad, Israel’s relationship with the US has been rapidly deteriorating, thanks in large part of Netanyahu’s current refusal to allow ┬áa two-state solution with the Palestinians. Read in-depth analysis of the current situation, and projections about what Netanyahu’s next steps might be.

New Members

This week the Secular Policy Institute coalition leapt to 297 groups, with 64 at the national or international level!

We welcome:

• Association of Atheism (Ateizm Dernegi) (Turkey)
• ARP Society for the Advancement of Critical Thinking (ARP Sociedad por el Avance del Pensamiento Cr├¡tico) (Spain)
• Norwegian Society of Heathens (Hedningsamfunnet)
• Union of Atheists (Russia)
• Humanists Atheists and Agnostics of Manitoba (HAAM) (Canada)
• Humanists and Atheists of Las Vegas (HALV)
• Atheist Community of San Jose

Boy Scouts

Two weeks ago we reported that Margaret Downey of The Freethought Society is speaking out against the Boy Scouts of America, whose troops campaign on school ground yet are arguably a faith group because they refuse nonbelievers. This week she gives us a full update with five documents showing the progress of this issue. Anyone who can help should email Margaret at margaret@ftsociety.org.

Humanist House

Palo Alto, California is getting a dedicated space for secular activities! The facility will be called Humanist House, and it’s a joint project of The Humanist Community in Silicon Valley (HCSV), the American Humanist Association, Jerry DeWitt, Author of ÔÇÿHope after FaithÔÇÖ, Bay Area Humanists, and the Greater Sacramento Chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. As well as serving as a meeting space, it will be the continual host to charitable projects that benefit the community. For now, the HCSV, led by Executive Director Julie Wedge is renting a space to test out the community concept, but they will soon look to purchase a building. For more, see humanists.org.

Interview: Discrimination Against the United Church of Bacon

The United Church of Bacon was formed in 2010 both in good fun and to prove a point: that a church with a funny name can expose discrimination, showing that legal and societal privileges are really for mainstream religions, not for everyone regardless of beliefs. The Secular Policy Institute was able to interview Bacon Prophet John Whiteside about an example of this discrimination.

SPI: You were a fighter pilot in the Marines, and won the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in combat. Is flying a jet as thrilling as it sounds?

John Whiteside: It’s like a drug I guess you might say. I always wanted to be an airline pilot, so the reason for joining the Marine Corps was not to fly fighters, but to get training for the airlines, and I fell in love with the sheer thrill. If you like riding roller coasters, or you like amusement parks, this is a government paid amusement park. I’m one of the few fighter pilots that is lucky enough to hold both Air Force Senior Command wings and Naval Aviator carrier wings, so that’s neat. If you like adrenaline, if you’re an adrenaline junkie, there’s nothing greater than flying a fighter.

SPI: How did you form the United Church of Bacon? What is the concept?

John Whiteside: The concept was actually thought of at movie night at Penn Jillette’s house

[the internationally known magician and outspoken Atheist] . Bacon is real. If you’re a skeptic, you can prove bacon exists in a court of law. We view bacon as God the same way you could call your daughter or son, “my little god or goddess”, or your pet, my godly pet. Even though there are some religions that don’t like bacon because it’s pork, we make an exception for that. We say vegetarian bacon is fine. So is turkey bacon.

SPI: You don’t take donations, but you do raise money for others?

John Whiteside: What I do is I go to conventions and sit at a table next to an organization that’s taking donations. I say, “I’ll give you a free t-shirt if you give money to, say, the Secular Student Alliance, which is the last one we did at TAM. And so people give money to the Secular Student Alliance. Then I say, “I’m also going to match whatever donation you give to them!” So at this particular convention it was TAM, [ The Amazing Meeting, each July in Las Vegas ], so between the James Randi Foundation and the Secular Student Alliance we raised close to $25,000. The same thing happened at the American Atheist convention with the Secular Coalition for America.

SPI: It’s so rare for an incident of religious discrimination to be well documented, blatant, and out in the open. Tell us what happened in April 2014.

John Whiteside: The United Church of Bacon was recognized as a church that does weddings… Nevada is very strict about becoming a wedding officiant. An official in the church says, [ written in an affidavit which must be notarized ], “this person is in good standing”, and they authorize this person to do officiant services. Then the State of Nevada does a background investigation.

United Church of Bacon wedding,
Red Rock Canyon near Las Vegas, October 2014

SPI: So you brought an affidavit for a new officiant into Wells Fargo, because that was your personal bank, and you were looking for a notary.

John Whiteside: Correct. As long as I show my bank card and ID, I’ve never had a problem getting anything notarized at Wells Fargo. Never. I’m making a sworn statement, and they’re the state’s witness. And that’s the only job of a notary. The notary has to verify who you are and understand the contents of the documents.

John Whiteside: The notary, the only question she asked was, “Where is your church banking?”

John Whiteside: And I said, “Are you asking if we have a Wells Fargo bank account?”

John Whiteside: She goes, “No, anywhere. The church has to have a bank somewhere.”

John Whiteside: And I said, “No, our church is set up to never take donations. We pay taxes as a church, but we don’t claim taxes so there’s no reason for a bank account anywhere.”

SPI: I understand that she refused to notarize your document, because she claimed she needed proof that you actually ran the church. But that isn’t the job of a notary, to act like a lawyer or government official. You had your ID with you, and that’s really all a notary needs to check. But you played along, offering her proof that you run the church?

John Whiteside: I sat there, directed her, trying to show her proof, but she’s refusing to do anything to verify that I am the founder and leader of this church. I asked her to google my name: John Whiteside Las Vegas. Not gonna do that. So after 20 minutes of this, with my explaining to her, “You’re just a witness for today. Here is my website. I’ll show you my personal membership roster, with 4,000 members…” Nothing worked!

John Whiteside: After 20 minutes of this, I finally said, “This is a real church. And I’m starting to smell like this is religious discrimination. I suggest you go get a legal opinion.” So she left, and while she was gone I thought that the only thing that she can really claim is that she thought that maybe my license is fraudulent.

SPI: But she didn’t claim that. In fact, you cashed out your personal Wells Fargo account, so she must have believed it was you.

SPI: What are you hoping Wells Fargo will do? Are you looking for an acknowledgement and apology?

John Whiteside: Yes. I am. Absolutely. I’m asking Wells Fargo to address this.

John Whiteside: This wasn’t every Wells Fargo employee. This was an individual in a Wells Fargo. And I proved that the next day. I had it notarized at 9:05 am, by a person who had the same position, a customer service manager, at another Wells Fargo location.

John Whiteside: So it’s not discrimination by Wells Fargo. It’s the tolerance of discrimination by Wells Fargo by not even starting an internal investigation. And Wells Fargo is doing nothing about it, even though they have a zero tolerance policy towards harassment and discrimination. So the issue now is with Wells Fargo and also the State of Nevada. When I contacted the State of Nevada, they never even talked about what her actual duties were as a notary. All they said was, “She said she couldn’t verify that you had authority in the church to do this.”

SPI: But that’s not the job of a notary. If you have your ID, you are good to go. Notaries don’t vet transactions. They notarize identities.

John Whiteside: Even if she did, I had the proof. I’m the pope of the church. I am the church. All she had to do was google John Whiteside Las Vegas. When I told her to go get a legal opinion, she went and came back, and said, “I’m not going to do it.”

John Whiteside: So I said, “Well then, I want you to close my personal accounts here at Wells Fargo.” She did close my checking account and instantly gave me a check, so she knew who I was. This was religious discrimination. This is the State of Nevada and Wells Fargo ignoring an individual employee that did discriminate religiously… We have the right to believe what we want to believe. This is about freedom of thought and the ability to go into some place and not be treated on the same level as rapists. There’s a recent survey, [ a 2011 study by the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ] that shows that people trust atheists at the same level they trust rapists. And that’s just wrong.

SPI: Now you have a petition up for people to sign. Do you think you can get a response from Wells Fargo or the State of Nevada if you get the 50,000 signatures you’re looking for?

John Whiteside: Yes. I’d like to get at least 50,000 signatures and I think it can be done.

For more, visit the United Church of Bacon website and watch their 2-minute video with a petition to sign! What’s better than a rally? The United Church of Bacon is planning two rallies! They are tentatively scheduled for Wednesday April 15 and Saturday April 18, 2015. Contact John through the website to help.

The weekly update on the Secular Policy InstituteÔÇÖs Fellows
by Madeline Schussel

SPI welcomes several new members this month: Ayanna Watson, founder of Black Atheists of America, is a new Advisory Board member; and Greg Stikeleather, expert in Experimental Psychology and entrepreneur in Learning Sciences. Christine Shellska, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Calgary, is a new SPI Advocate, and Hugo Estrella, Professor in Peace Studies at the University of Pisa, is a new Special Advisor on Latin America. More information on all of our team members is available on our website.

SPI Fellow Wendy Kaminer is a lawyer and social critic who writes about law, liberty, feminism, popular culture, and religion. Her latest book is┬áWorst Instincts: Cowardice, Conformity and the ACLU.┬á A recipient of the Smith College Medal and a former Guggenheim Fellow, she is the author of seven previous books, including Free for All: Defending Liberty in America Today, which just this week earned her a mention on About.com. In the book, Kaminer explains that individuals ought to house their own human rights, rather than giving them over to a governing body. Otherwise, she articulates, citizens support the faulty notion that ÔÇ£we’re a nation of children (while the government is staffed by adults).ÔÇØ On issues of ÔÇ£rightÔÇØ and ÔÇ£wrongÔÇØ, ÔÇ£goodÔÇØ and ÔÇ£badÔÇØÔÇöoften involving topics such as religious practice and principlesÔÇöKaminer and the About.com article author agree that, within reason, the government cannot have the final say.

SPI Fellow Elizabeth Loftus, cognitive psychologist and expert on false memories, made the Huffington Post this week on the topic of the social media meme #TheDress, and how differently it was perceived by all different color camps. In a TED Talk, Loftus discusses the error of basing criminal convictions solely on eyewitness testimonyÔÇöan error that stems from flaws in our belief system about our perceptions and recollections.

ÔÇ£

The 300 coalition members of the Secular Policy Institute come from 27 countries. We are proud of our global monthly coordinating call and now we’re seeking secular leaders to manage country-specific or region-specific calls!

• Set the strategy for advocating secularism to government, other decision-makers, and the public
• Energize local and national resources and assign tasks
• Define what projects should receive Secular Policy Institute funding and resources

We’re also proud of our Public Policy Recommendations for US Politicians, much of which is non-specific enough that it is relevant globally, and now we want to write a public policy guide for each country in the coalition.

If your group allows you to be involved with lobbying, or if you want to help as a private citizen, as the national coordinator you’ll identify studies that show the promise or flaws in existing laws. You’ll track and recommend reforms. You’ll orchestrate fresh research or identify existing academic research and demographic studies that add science and reason to the policy debate. Your final product will be a booklet of recommendations that we will pay to get printed up and sent to your country’s politicians!

Would you like to be your country’s representative to the influence and connections of the Secular Policy Institute? Email johnny@secularpolicyinstitute.net to learn more!

Exclusive infographic for SPI by Atheists of Florida

Even as social and fiscal policy around the globe continues to be influenced more and more by science-based conclusions rather than religious beliefs, it remains important to recognize trends in religious movements. Although the Secular Policy Institute advocates for strict separation of church and state, freedom of religion is a fundamental aspect of free speech – a value critical to a just and fair government. SPI closely follows global trends on religious freedom in order to assist coalition members in countries that might be lagging behind in this area.

One of the best ways to track and understand this information is through the valuable data provided by the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life. Once a year, Pew publishes data on social hostilities regarding religion, and government restrictions on religion. Pew compares this yearÔÇÖs data to previous years, drawing conclusions about global and national trends, as well as providing helpful graphs and hard numbers. One of most shocking things about the PRC’s findings are that such a relatively small number of oppressive governments impact such a large majority of the world’s population.

Discover which countries are improving, which are getting worse, and prepare to be surprised by just how many members of the global population live in countries that are perennially notorious for oppressing freedom of religion.

Read more at pewforum.org

The weekly report on research in secular demographics
by Julie Esris

This week, an op-ed piece in The Washington Post openly speculated about the possibility of atheists running for US president, reminding atheists of a harsh reality: they are the least trusted group in America. Many surveys indicate that more than half of Americans would not vote for an atheist presidential candidate. A 2014 Pew poll sought to find out what Americans think the most desirable qualities are in a candidate and how these qualities would impact their voting decisions. The poll indicates that Americans would be most likely to vote for a presidential candidate if he (or she) has military service (43%), once served as a governor (33%), has been a business executive (33%), attended a prestigious university (19%), or is a woman (19%).

Although all of these numbers are below 50%, it is important to realize that this is due to more people declaring that these qualities would not┬áimpact their voting decision┬áone way or another. Only a small percentage said that these qualities would make them less likely to vote for the candidate (4% if he or she served in military, 5% if he or she served as a governor, 13% if he or she has been a business executive, 6% if he or she attended a prestigious university, and 9% if the candidate is a woman). In contrast,┬áa whopping 53%┬ásaid the candidate’s atheism would negatively impact their┬ávoting decision. Only┬á5% of respondents said they would be more likely to vote for a presidential candidate who was an atheist.

Why should┬áit be so difficult for an atheist candidate to get elected? Because many see the fact that atheists don’t inherently subscribe to a particular ideology as a problem. There is a popular misconception that without religion to guide them, atheists lack a moral compass, making them untrustworthy. Former president George H. W. Bush once commented that he does┬ánot consider atheists American citizens. Given these perceptions of atheists, is there any hope that this could ever change? Is it possible that┬ásomeday an atheist candidate could get elected as President of the United States?

Perhaps. While appalling, the statistics regarding distrust of atheists┬áonly tell part of the story. 62% of respondents of one┬ápoll┬áindicated that they would prefer that presidential candidates not use religion to make policy decisions. And the 2014 Pew poll that┬áindicated that 53% of Americans would not have voted for an atheist┬ácame only 7 years after a┬á┬á2007 poll that indicated the percentage┬áof Americans who say they would not vote for atheists was even higher: 63%. In 2007, 32% of those polled said that a candidate’s non-belief did not matter to them one way or another; in 2014, 41% of voters responded in kind. These are substantial changes in less than a decade – and they are trending in atheists’ favor.

So while┬áit is true that atheists are still the least trusted group in America, it is clear that this mistrust is beginning to decline. Much of this movement towards acceptance of secularism can be attributed to the works┬áof famous atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett, that have helped the public understand what atheism is and that atheists are more common than many people realize. Perhaps even more can also be attributed to the massive “coming out” of secularists in recent years, which has reduced much of the us-them mindset surrounding atheists.

Whatever the cause, these seemingly small personal changes have had a big impact on public policy and social trends in nations around the world. Many countries are becoming increasingly secularized, or at least more accepting of atheists. South Korea, which has a huge Christian population, has elected an atheist president. Even Uruguay and Chile, historically Catholic countries, have also elected atheist presidents.  It is becoming clear that America is headed in a similar, more secular direction.

The United States has a unique healthcare system where employers are required to provide health insurance for their employees. Employers are not allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion – but they are allowed to choose their healthcare plans.

What happens when the employers and the employee disagree on the healthcare – especially when that disagreement is based on sincerely held religious beliefs? Recent judicial decisions have gone in both directions – and now the Supreme Court is remanding a controversial case back to a lower court to be re-decided in light of recent rulings.

Read more at npr.org.

by Johnny Monsarrat

Margaret Downey of SPI coalition member The Freethought Society has been campaigning against the Boy Scouts. The organization does not permit boys to join unless they have a religion, and so the Boy Scouts are sort of a religious organization, which means they have no business recruiting in a public school. (Just imagine by extension if Jehovah’s Witnesses were allowed to gather outside schools talking with students waiting for their bus.)

Margaret has sent us some more information about her campaign and the response!

• Boy Scouts of America Announce New Levels of
  Acceptance but Still Exclude Nontheists: September 2015
• The People in the Outfits, by Amber Barnhill
• Octorara School Board and Residents Defend BSA Public School Assemblies: July 2015
• Boy Scout Assemblies in Public Schools Protested: November 2014
• School District Under Fire for Hosting Scouts Assembly: December 2014
• Protesting BSA Assemblies in Public Schools: March 2015
• Open letter the Brevard County School Board, August 2009
• DonÔÇÖt let BSA recruit in your local public school! September 2010

Can you help? Even if you don’t live in Pennsylvania, Margaret is sure to find a way to put your energy to good use. See the Freethought Society website and contact her directly at margaret@ftsociety.org or (610) 793-2737.

We’ve also learned that in the United Kingdom that the National Secular Society (NSS) and the British Humanist Association have campaigned against the Boy Scouts with its mandatory religious oath, and the UK Boy Scouts agreed to make the oath optional.

The weekly report on US and World public policy
by Edwina Rogers

Surprise for North Korea

South Korean activists plan to drop 10,000 copies of the movie The Interview via balloon into North Korea.

United Nations

In recent remarks at the UN Human Rights Council, UN Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights Flavia Pansieri asserted that global warming violates economic, social, & cultural human rights such as “the rights to health, to food, to water and sanitation” and “to adequate housing.”

US Senate

The Senate has resumed consideration of S.178, the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015. The Senate will go in recess next Thursday. There will be a vote-a-rama on Thursday since the Senate will recess for two weeks. This is a good time to secure a vote on a variety of measures.

Next weekÔÇÖs floor time is reserved for consideration of the FY 2016 budget resolution.

Looking Ahead

Legislative items that are possible during this work period include: Anti-Trafficking legislation, Nominations, and Budget Resolution.

US House

The House is working on a physician Medicare funding permanent fix in SGR. There have been 17 temporary corrections in the past. The Medicare Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is a method currently used by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in the United States to control spending by Medicare on physician services.