Colorado Secular Conference

This past Saturday I was a part of my state's second annual secular conference. I had been on the planning committee for the last 3 months. The conference committee met once a week, sent hundreds of e-mails, argued about fliers, posters and ad space and almost lost a few friends over this conference. I personally have decided not to serve on another committee with one person in particular.... But that's besides the point.

WE DID IT!!

The location was spacious but blazing hot due to an a/c malfunction. The speakers were awesome- even though there were a few bail-outs and emergencies. The turn out was descent. Most things went off without a hitch. I'm really proud of myself for not only being a part of the planning and execution of such an event but also being one of the speakers. I may have just been on  a panel discussion about the secular community of Denver but, I'm still proud of not fainting off the stage...

Our speakers included Sean Faircloth of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Betsy Weatherhead who is a local scientist who shared in the Nobel Peace Price for her work on climate change, Seth Andrews who created The Thinking Atheist blog, Becky Hale the president of the American Humanist Association and many local secular group leaders like myself.

Our keynote speaker, Katherine Stewart, had to pull out of the conference last minute due to a medical emergency. It cause a small moment of panic but I think we came out of the whole day beautifully.

Katherine's talk was to be about the Good News Club. GNC is a religious after-school program that  has a history of overstepping its boundaries in public schools. Let's be clear: secular people are not upset that these groups exist. Religious programs have the same, if not more, rights to be allowed as after-school programs as other groups. It's the fact that this group will intentionally blur the lines between what they are teaching the children and what the PUBLIC SCHOOL is teaching. Elementary school children are becoming confused as to what is being taught by the teacher and what is being taught by the program. It's causing them to turn on their fellow students and cause problems. This is what secular people have problems with.

And, yes, this group has MORE rights than soccer, arts, and debate after-school programs. Because they felt they needed to sue the school board and create a law for themselves any school can determine that a debate team is too much while they cannot block a religious group. So I don't want to hear about how religion is 'under attack' in this country.... It's clearly the dominant position of all aspects of America. It sucks.  

Anyway..... I'm thrilled to have been part of this conference and I hope to be a speaker at more conferences one day. =)