BHA

BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson was interviewed on BBC News about the amendment to the Children, Schools and Families Bill (see previous posts), before it was debated. Sadly, the Commons voted for Ed Balls' amendement.

Video courtesy of the BHA

BHA President Polly Toynbee has been cited in the official Iranian media as "One of the great conspirators who wants to overthrow the Islamic regime," according to a contributor to the BBC's Dateline London yesterday.

Polly said this is probably because of her presidency of the BHA, "... and we tend to attack all religions."

You have 6 days to see the programme using BBC i-Player.

Apparently, we've won an award from the British Humanist Association for The Best Group Website, with a certificate and everything! Hooray! Denis Johnston, our secretary, collected it at yesterday's Groups Annual Meeting (GRAM) in London. Thank you Denis.

No acceptance speech from me, but a big thank you to our webmaster, my son Nathan Nelson, who keeps the technical show on the web, as it were.

The BHA now has its own YouTube channel. The latest video is of Daniel Dennett at Conway Hall, providing "A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future".

From the Independent:

Religious broadcasting has taken an unexpected turn at the BBC, leaving secularists last night claiming a breakthrough. An important new committee that the corporation will consult on religious broadcasting is to include a humanist.

Read more about it on the BHA website. The humanist who’ll sit on the Standing Conference on Religion and Belief will be Andrew Copson, the BHA’s Director of Education & Public Affairs.

The latest news update from the BHA – click on “read more” for the whole bulletin.

BHA meets Department of Communities and Local Government

Representatives from the BHA met with officials from the Department of Communities and Local Government on Friday to discuss Humanist involvement in their community cohesion work.  This meeting was part of a follow up from the successful meeting the BHA had with Minister Sadiq Khan in February where Mr Khan agreed that humanist representatives should be involved in relevant discussions on public service delivery and cohesion initiatives. Pepper Harow, Local Campaigns Officer, explained, “All too often the department choose to work exclusively with religious groups.  Initiatives such as ‘interfaith week’ as announced last week are planned and implemented without any non-religious voices being heard.  This meeting is a big step in trying to change this.”

Any of our members and supporters who read the Daily Mail may have been alarmed by the article they published on Friday 20 March headed “How cash meant for promoting faith is going to an organisation that campaigns AGAINST Christianity”. It referred to a grant given to the BHA by The Equality and Human Rights Commission. James Chapman, the Daily Mail journalist, could not have got his facts more wrong. The BHA is seeking a correction from the Mail, and has published its own corrections on its website.

If you are a Daily Mail reader and a Humanist (the Mail possibly thinks the two are incompatible, but we know otherwise), perhaps you’ll write to the editor or comment on their website?