How to win - against religious privilege and against scammers

Published: Tue, 01/09/24

RSA Daily

For atheists, rationalists and secular humanists in Australia

Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Rationale, the magazine of the Rationalist Society of Australia

Good morning ,

Organised religion is so used to enjoying their traditional privileges that they find it horrifying when they are challenged. In our lead article, read how local councillor Victor Franco finally won against the majority of his colleagues to remove the recitation of Christian prayer at the opening of council meetings. And in the UK, the RSA's equivalent - the National Secular Society - is also challenging the charity law's assumption that "The advancement of religion" should be automatically considered a charitable purpose.

Sigh. It's a long fight, but worth it in the end.

Oh, and for a bit of light relief, another Youtube video on challenging the scamming industry. Thanks to my brother for this one.

Lead stories

Next steps in campaign to remove prayers from local government - Rationale Magazine

Victor Franco is a councillor with the City of Boroondara, in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. After 3 years politely asking his council to update the traditional practice of privileging one religion over others and over non-religion, he finally succeeded in having Christian prayers removed from the opening of council meetings. But it did not come easily. His colleagues resisted and descended into personal vitriol. Read how he finally won out!

For those of you who watched the video the other day about people who undermine scammers, here's another one. Jim Browning exposes the psychology of scamming - fascinating!

Other stories of interest

Time to bring policies on religion in line with public opinion

The National Secular Society is the equivalent of the RSA in the UK. Here, NSS president Megan Manson writes of their campaign to update UK charity law to end the centuries' long privileging accorded institutionalised religion.

"Registered charity status confers tax benefits as well as public trust. But because charity regulators do not check whether religious charities truly benefit the public, we see dozens of charities promoting not only anti-scientific ideas, but also homophobia, misogyny and extremism. As recently as November, the National Secular Society had to report over 40 charities to the Charity Commission over concerns about antisemitic and anti-western sermons they were hosting. The sermons were all rooted in Islamic theology."

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Write to me at president@rationalist.com.au