PA Nonbelievers to Co-Sponsor Ellery Schempp Presentation

PA Nonbelievers will co-sponsor “An Afternoon with Ellery Schempp” with the ACLU on Sunday, June 9th, 2013. It will be at 2pm at the Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg, PA.

Dr. Schempp’s case was one of the two cases decided by the Supreme Court (The other was Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s case) that removed compulsory prayers from the public school system. This event is in honor of the 50th anniversary for that case.

On Monday, June 10th, Dr. Schempp will be at the PA General Assembly. We are hoping that he will have the opportunity to address the Assembly. At 11am, he will take part in a press conference to discuss the “Public School Religious Freedom Month” resolution, honoring the 50th anniversary of the Abington V Schempp and Murray v Curlett cases. The press conference will be in the Media Room at the Capitol, and feature other speakers as well, including David Silverman, President of American Atheists and Brian Fields, President of PA Nonbelievers, and others as we can arrange it.

More information about the case is available here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abington_School_District_v._Schempp

Urge your PA State Representative to Co-sponsor the Public School Religious Freedom Month Resolution

Next month, June 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision banning teacher-led Bible reading and prayer in public schools throughout this nation. PA State Representative Mark Cohen (D-Phila.) is looking for co-sponsors of a resolution entitled Public School Religious Freedom Month which he plans to introduce shortly, commemorating the Supreme Court decision. So far, he only has garnered seven co-sponsors (out of nearly 200 representatives). Six are Democrats and one is a Republican.

This a resolution which PA Nonbelievers drafted, and that all citizens (religious and irreligious, Republicans and Democrats) who respect the U.S. Constitution should be able to support. There is no reason this should not be a fully bipartisan resolution, but we need your help.

Please contact your member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and strongly urge them to contact Rep. Cohen’s office offering to co-sponsor the resolution.

Amidst an ongoing series of right-wing resolutions declaring “Year of the Bible,” “Prayer Month,” “National Fast Day,” “American Religious History Week,” and several Boy Scouts resolutions, as well as a bill that, if passed, would prevent students from
anonymously suing their school districts in state courts if they feel their school is hosting an unconstitutional religious display, this new resolution celebrates the rights of ALL students to be free from coercive school-sponsored religious exercises.

If you know your PA State Representative, call their local office, identify yourself as a constituent, and express your support for Rep. Cohen’s upcoming Public School Religious Freedom Month resolution and ask that they co-sponsor the resolution. This is important even if you know they are an adversary. If the Representative does not take your call personally, ask that they respond to you promptly by phone, email, or letter. (And let us know what their response is!)

If you don’t know your State Representative, go to this page:
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/#address
and look for the “PA House” or “PA Rep” listing for your street address, township, borough, or city. Please do not contact your State Senator regarding this resolution. This is a House, not Senate, resolution.

If you need help identifying your representative, or have other questions, please feel free contact us.

This effort will only require a few minutes of your time, and is very important in letting the legislators know that they have atheist voters in their district and we are watching how they will vote, even if they don’t co-sponsor the resolution. For those of you who are too shy to pick up the phone, look for the “envelope” icon under your representative’s photo, and click on it to send an email.

Please help, and please SHARE this message with your FB friends throughout PA.

Carl Silverman
Capital Area Director
PA Nonbelievers
Camp Hill

The 2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference is now selling tickets!

We are pleased to announce that we are helping to produce the 2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist conference. This will be our second annual conference – We’re working very hard to top last year’s fantastic event!

TICKET SALES ARE NOW LIVE! Go here to purchase tickets for this event!

It will be located at the Embassy Suites Airport Hotel in Philadelphia, and take place the weekend of September 13-15, 2013. We have arranged a special price of $130 per night, and you can use code “113″ to reserve your hotel room at that rate. You can call the hotel at: (215) 365-4500. Your hotel reservation includes breakfast, internet, parking and Happy Hour.

The Freethought Society, Lancaster Freethought Society, PhillyCoR, and PA Nonbelievers are working together to plan this year’s conference.

The Freethought Society will be throwing one of its famous anti-superstition parties on Friday the 13th of September at 7pm to kick off the conference weekend. This party is not part of the ticket price and will cost the small additional fee of $13. General admission to the conference costs $100 for the whole weekend, and includes Saturday lunch and Saturday dinner. You can find out more about our other packages on the ticket page.

You can also help us out by sharing our handout cards on bulletin boards, and by sharing the webpage on social media!

Check out the main website for the event here. You can also catch us on Facebook, and join the event for updates as we get them.

Brian Fields
Co-Organizer
2013 PA State Atheist/Humanist conference
President, PA Nonbelievers

Richard Dawkins is coming to Philadelphia!

The Philomathean Society of the University of Pennsylvania is hosting a Richard Dawkins speaking event, which PA Nonbelievers is proudly sponsoring! The event’s detailed information can be found here.

It is a free event, and the tickets are available here: http://annualoration2013.eventbrite.com/

It will be held at the Irvine Auditorium at the University of Pennsylvania on March 12, 2013 at 6:30pm located at 3401 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA.

Happy New Year, everyone!

This has been a fantastic year for PA Nonbelievers. We accomplished quite a bit in 2012, and 2013 can only be better!

First, this is a reminder that our annual elections will take place on March 2nd, 2013. The election will be held at the Unitarian Universalist church in York, PA at 10am. We have 4 board members up for re-election (3 year seats):

Gail Crow
Paulette Parquette
Jason Fegley
Chris Feaster

Gail and Jason have indicated to me that they do not intend to run for re-election due to obligations in their personal lives, which leaves their seats open for new directors! We also have an empty 2 year seat on our board.

Any member of PA Nonbelievers is welcome to run for our board of directors. If you aren’t already a member, please consider joining us. We are a 501(c)3 educational non-profit organization, and all donations are tax-deductible as permitted by law.

Here’s looking forwards to a great 2013!

Brian Fields
President
PA Nonbelievers

2013 Membership Drive

It’s time once again for our 2013 Membership Drive!

As you may already know, PA Nonbelievers memberships operate on a calendar basis. That means all current memberships will expire on December 31, 2012.

Here is the 2013 PAN Membership Form! We’re working hard to protect your rights in PA – As well as to provide a welcoming community for Atheists, Agnostics, Humanists, and all other non-believers in Central PA. We need your support, however, as we can’t operate without your donations. If you aren’t already a member, please – Join us!

Take time and fill out this form and become a member. Take a stand against religious fundamentalism, and for the Separation of Church and State. We are a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization, and your donations are tax deductible to the extent that the law permits.

Winter Solstice Party Tickets

We are now selling tickets for our Winter Solstice party! You can get more information and buy them here:

http://www.panonbelievers.org/noshow/winter-solstice-party/

ACLU’s Year of the Bible Panel

The ACLU of Pennsylvania has put together a panel to discuss the implications of the Year of the Bible. I’ve been invited to participate in the panel, and I hope to see everyone come out and show your support. The panel will be held at the Midtown Scholar bookstore in Harrisburg, PA on Thursday, November 29th, at 7pm. It will be free to attend.

Hope to see you there!

Brian Fields
President
PA Nonbelievers

Atheists, Boy Scouts and the United Way

It’s always shocking to catch a respected organization or person in a lie. Citizens of York County are having that experience with the United Way of York County.

Both of York’s daily newspapers have written articles about whether the United Way will continue to support the Boy Scouts, in light of their exclusionary policy toward the LGBT community. This issue has received a great deal of publicity recently, and some United Way agencies, such as the Capital Region agency that serves Harrisburg, have decided to stop funding the Boy Scouts.

Not so the York County United Way, according to Robert Woods, its executive director. A story in the York Daily Record on October 11, 2012, written by Tim Stonesifer, includes the following paragraph: “Woods stressed that the two United Way organizations have ‘very different’ anti-discrimination policies, and the York group’s anti-discrimination policy applies only internally, not directly to partner organizations.”

Really? The United Way of York County’s own website (http://www.unitedway-york.org/UnitedWaySystem.html) states their position quite differently:
Read the rest of this entry »

Student Tickets for the PA State Atheist/Humanist Conference now available!

If you are a student, and have a current student ID, and would like to attend the conference, I am pleased to announce that we are offering a ticket price of $10 for students. There are a limited number of tickets, so they’ll go fast. Don’t wait and miss out!

If you haven’t bought your ticket yet, student or not, what are you waiting for? We’ve added a ton of speakers, and there’s more to come – Beat the rush, and buy your ticket now!

The website to go to is http://www.atheistpa.org.