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The following article is from the Secular Humanist Bulletin, Volume 13, Number 3.
Long needed and wholeheartedly endorsed by the Council for Secular Humanism, a family oriented newsletter, Secular Family News, is in the offing. Until now, the humanist movement has never made sufficient effort to give information, support, encouragement, or coping skills to the secular family. Our culture is so complicated that nonreligious parents, finding no support from humanists, could and have turned elsewhere for nurturing. The support system we will be offering should encourage a new segment of active and involved membership.
I will be the project coordinator for the Secular Family Network, and edit the newsletter. We will start out as a four page insert in the quarterly Secular Humanist Bulletin. The newsletter will contain material for children as well as parents and family covering such matters as: the mythological origin of current holidays, dealing with intrusive family members, secular single parenting, censorship in schools and libraries, coming-out, critical thinking for kids, creative fun stuff relating to art and science ... as well as many other topics. After all every thing that touches humanity touches humanism.
You ... all of you ... have been in the midst of the fray. You therefore understand better than most our need to support our children and our families in their coping techniques, their need for practical advice and approaches to the humanist lifestance.
Last month I spent an afternoon at Charles Dobson's Christian publishing empire campus, Focus on the Family, in Colorado: the experience was chilling. They have slick magazines directed toward parents, teens, preschoolers, preachers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and on and on. I counted forty different magazines that they publish. We must not allow the Dobsonville Darlings to usurp the word or concept of family for their own purposes. I invite all of you to consider joining the writing staff of the Secular Family Network by submitting articles to me ... We have an obligation to provide a rational approach to our "Family". All of us have something to give to this venture; all of us have a great deal to reap from it.
Secularly Yours,
Jan Loeb Eisler
Editor, Secular Family News
FamilyNews@SecularHumanism.org
CFI SUMMIT
OCTOBER 24-27 2013
TACOMA, WASHINGTON
Joint Conference of the Council for Secular Humanism, Center for Inquiry, and Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
The transnational secular humanist magazine
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