You have likely heard recent discussion in the media of religion’s place in New Zealand schools. It’s an old issue for sure, but one of great importance. It has gained a lot of publicity and momentum recently due to the excellent work of the Secular Education Network, supported by the NZARH. The SEN Facebook group is particularly active and a great starting point to get involved.

The NZ Atheist Bus Campaign fully supports their efforts in shining light on these opt-out programmes that exploit a loophole in the law to allow Christian beliefs to be taught, without critique, to young, impressionable minds. All of this in our supposedly secular public schools! One kid was told that dinosaurs never existed…

So what can you do to change the system?

The Secular Education Network are having a public meeting tomorrow, on Saturday 28 July, at 5pm, at Rationalist House, 64 Symonds Street, Auckland City.

If you’re a parent, this is a great chance to meet up with other concerned parents and to get support in tackling these issues at your local school. If you’re a concerned member of the public, interested in whether or not NZ kids are told mythology as fact, then this is a perfect chance to meet other like-minded people and support the cause. If you’re not in Auckland, have a read of the page ‘What Can Be Done?’ on the website.

Some encouraging news in today on prayers in city council meetings via Peter Harrison, spokesperson for the NZARH. Councillor Clive Solomon first raised an objection to the Wanganui Council prayer back in April, and was attacked in the local media for doing so. Now, after a successful challenge, the formal prayer has been removed from the proceedings. A more informal and separate prayer session is still available, although I would imagine it isn’t long before this is naturally phased out too. Here’s the NZARH press release in full…

The New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists (NZARH)
welcomes todays decision by the Wanganui District Council to remove
prayer from the formal proceedings of all Council meetings. We believe
that this is a victory for all the residents of Wanganui and for the
wider New Zealand community representing, as it does, the first step
towards a true separation between church and state. The signal that
this sends to the entire community of Wanganui is that the Council is
not prepared to tolerate discrimination on the grounds of their
religious beliefs or lack thereof.

Following the decision Peter Harrison, spokesperson for the NZARH said
“We are very pleased to hear that the Wanganui District Council has
decided to conduct prayer outside official Council business. This
approach is in accordance with the Bill of Rights, and recognises the
importance of a tolerant multicultural society.”

Annette Main, Major of Wanganui commented on the decision, saying “I
believe that the decisions we have made today are pragmatic and
provide a reasonable compromise. It will allow those who wish to
participate in a prayer or reflection to do so immediately before our
Council meetings start. Those with an alternative view will also be
provided for by removing the prayer from the meeting agenda.” The
NZARH recognises the instrumental work of Clive Solomon in standing up
for religious equality in the face of sometimes emotional resistance.
We also applaud the Councilors of Wanganui for coming to a resolution
that is a credit to their city.

The NZARH sincerely hopes that the divisions caused by this issue will
be quickly healed so that the Wanguanui District Council can continue
it’s good work.

An update on the campaign situation is now long overdue! This post is to update you all with where we’re at. Apologies that it has taken so long, but as you’ll hear, these things take their time.

As followers of our campaign will know, in late 2009 we hit a roadblock when NZ Bus denied us the chance to put ads that questioned belief in god on the sides of their buses. To quickly recap these events, this is what happened…

In December 2009 we were going through the process of organising bus advertising on NZ Bus buses through the agency that handles their advertising. Following initial informal agreement, and once we reached the stage of organising specific details of the campaign, we received unexpected news from NZ Bus via their ad agency. They basically said no, we wont run the ads.

This decision appeared to us to be a case of discrimination under the Human Rights Act 1993. The act states clearly that businesses are unable to discriminate in the provision of services based on certain grounds of discrimination. One of the grounds of discrimination is “ethical belief, which means the lack of a religious belief, whether in respect of a particular religion or religions or all religions.”

In response to NZ Bus’ decision we lodged a formal complaint with the Human Rights Commission (HRC). The first step in the formal process for complaints is for the HRC to try and resolve the issue with mediation between the two parties. However we didn’t get very far with this option with NZ Bus.

The next step available to us in the complaints process was to take our case to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. This now becomes a more formal legal process in that the Tribunal is able to enforce the law to prohibit companies from discriminating. Of course, taking a case to the Tribunal requires legal representation, which as expected is a costly endeavor. There is yet another organisation, the Office of Human Rights Proceedings that provides legal representation and covers all associated costs involved with bringing a case to the Tribunal. They don’t just do this for anyone however – there is a process whereby they assess the worth of cases in terms of legal value and chance of success among other criteria.

We are very pleased to report that the Office agreed to take on our case against NZ Bus. This is a huge win as without their support, it is unlikely we would have found the resources required to represent ourselves.

Now, we must wait. Tribunal cases take a long time, and proceedings are not expected to begin until 2012 at the earliest.

I wish to thank again everyone who donated initially for the bus ads and also for the later billboard campaign. Your support is very, very much appreciated! We still have a pot of money stowed away for a bus ad campaign if/when the ruling is returned in our favour.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/4315606/OMG-did-you-see-that-billboard

A few months old but still a great watch: Stephen Fry provides his very articulate and thoughtful opinion on Catholicism and the Catholic Church at the Intelligence Squared Debate.

http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/07/stephen_fry_on_catholicism_int.php

Hamilton and New Plymouth will feel the presence of No God this November.

Following the success of “No God” billboards in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch in July this year, billboards go up in Hamilton and New Plymouth on 1 November, funded entirely by public donations.

Although a third of New Zealanders are not religious (source: 2006 census) young people are often confused and sometimes quite upset about whether or not to believe.

The billboards display friendly atheist messages, intended to promote thought and spark discussion, and to support people worrying about whether there is a god out there (or up there).

“After the last round of billboards we received messages of gratitude and support, mostly from younger people who had been afraid to question the beliefs they had been brought up with”, says campaign spokesperson Simon Fisher. “The billboards brought some people a sense of relief. We know there is often family or social pressure to conform to a belief system, but this is hard to reconcile with modern science. We want people to know that they won’t suffer in eternity for being thoughtful and rational”.

The signs draw on an international movement supported by prominent atheist Richard Dawkins.

The last round of billboards provoked one complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority, but the Authority ruled that the billboards do not breach the advertising code, which allows for “robust expressions of opinion”.

Campaign organisers are open to sharing the canvases with more towns: “If people wants to put one of our billboards up in their area they can contact us, arrange a location, and we’ll be delighted to lend them the canvas”.

The campaign has been supported by the Humanist Society of New Zealand and the New Zealand Association of Rationalists and Humanists.
LOCATIONS FOR THE CANVASES GOING UP IN NOVEMBER:

- Claudelands Road/Grey St, Hamilton
- Tristam St Southbound, Hamilton
- St Aubyn Street, New Plymouth.

It’s the last days guys! Not in an end times kind of way, but there’s only 1 week to go for you to have your say on which city you’d like to see our billboards in next. If you have already donated towards putting billboards in other cities, thank you – we really value your contribution to this campaign.

We’re raising money to cover the costs of transportation and re-installation of our existing billboards to put them in other cities around New Zealand. It’s important that these messages reach not only the large cities, but those in smaller cities as well.

Currently the most nominated areas are:

1. Napier / Hastings
2. Hamilton
3. Nelson
4. South Auckland

Where do you want to see the billboards? Let us know by donating and then typing in the Comment field what city you’d like to see the billboards in.

We’re keen to show some billboard love to the rest of our fine country, although we need your help. This post will explain how we will handle new donations that are received from today. They will be separate from past donations and will only be used for billboards.

We will collect tax-refundable donations centrally through this website and the Givealittle service, just like before. The goal is to raise enough money to put as many billboards as possible in cities outside of Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

The beauty of billboards is that for a relatively small amount of money it is possible to re-locate an existing canvas to a new site in a different city. This will be the first way we’ll use the donated money – to move existing billboards to different cities. Depending on how much we fundraise, the second way we’ll use the donated money will be to commission the printing of additional billboards so we can cover a wider range of sites and cities.

To let us know what cities are most important to you guys, please tell us through the Givealittle site. After you donate you are able to enter a Comment. In this comment write the city in which you’d like to see billboards. We will tally up each time a city is mentioned and work out a plan to bring billboards to the most requested cities. Our decision will also need to be based on the availability of sites and the costs involved, so we’ll need to reserve the right to choose the cities/towns to go to first.

I look forward to seeing which cities out there require the boards the most! Thanks for all the support guys – it’s very much appreciated.

Without further ado, here are our three awesome new billboard designs that were put up today in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch…