Guest Blog from Mike Messina - Thoughts on the Iowa Secular Summit

I had the privilege to attend the Iowa Secular Summit on June 22, 2024.  Three of the four speakers were excellent.  

Dr. Emily Boven presented information about the challenges being faced by reproductive health providers and patients.  We live in the 21st centruy but roadblocks to health care are being thrown up by those who want to live in a delusional fantasy land called religion.

Ryan Dudley, from Freedom From Religion Foundation, presented us with information about the dangerous ideas being put forward by the Republican Party if they win the election in November.  Their plan is called Project 2025 and is a blueprint for dismantling the government of the United States.  They want to fire all, or most, civil servant and replace them with party loyalists who have no understanding of the agencies of which they will be in charge.  All one needs to do is recall the chaos caused by a government shut down to know how dangerous the implementation of Project 2025 would be.

Brooklyn Evan Walker presented an interesting talk about Christian Nationlism based on political science data.  

An hour, or the better part of it was consumed by David Goin from an organization called Ranked Choice Voting for Iowa.  The idea being proposed by Goin’s organization is that primary elections should be open to all candidates.  The voter, who would not need to declare a party affiliation,  would rank each candidate in order of choice.  The top two candidates for each office, regardless of party, would stand for election in the general election.  

In my opinion this is a terrible idea.  

Frankly, I’m not even comfortable with primary elections.  If I had my druthers, all candidates, and platform planks, would be chosen at party conventions.  Neighbors would gather for precinct meetings and elected delegates to a county convention, &c, &c.  At each conventions candidates would either be nominated or delegates elected to the next level.  Who better to decide which candidate best represents the positions of the party than the leaders of that party.  Why should the general public, even those who have registered as members, have a say in the internal workings of the party?  After the party decides what they want to accomplish, and who will best accomplish it, then the general public can cast a ballot on Election Day for the candidate of the party that reflects each voters interest.  Although more than one party may be in the race (in 1948 there were four viable parties) either the Democrat or the Republican will win (the Democrat won in 1948).

My druthers notwithstanding, the parties have elected to choose the candidates in primary elections.  Candidates of the same party campaign among their members and in the primary election the party members choose the candidate who they feel is best able to represent what the party stand for.  To vote in a primary election, therefore, the voter should demonstrate affiliation with the party.  It’s not difficult to— simply indicate on the voter registration you are a member of a particular party.  Why would people who are not party members choose the candidate?  If people are not satisfied with the candidates who run in the general election, they should ask themselves what they did to choose the candidate whose name is on the ballot.  It’s time people in the greatest democracy in history grow up and accept some responsibility for the government of, by and for the people of the United States.  The cliché that “I’m not interested in politics is obsolete.  Politics is the full time job of every citizen.  People are lined up at our borders to be citizens (they should be welcomed in, just as our governor did after the Vietnam war).  People have given their lives for our country.  

Just as in 1863 when it was four score and seven years since the beginning of the American Revolution, that Revolution continues today.  We still have a democracy — will we keep it?  As we get ready to celebrate this Independence Day, let’s resolve, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

Bills of Interest to IAF in the 2024 Iowa Legislature

President Jason Benell and Vice President Bob Cook are registered lobbyists on behalf of IAF and this session has kept us quite busy with so many bills being filed in the first 2024 session. Below is the complete list to date of filings that IAF has taken a stand FOR or AGAINST as these bills move through the legislative process. Unfortunately, IAF finds itself standing AGAINST many more bills than FOR as the current legislature is focused on restricting the rights of women, minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and general unscientific solutions to problems that either do not exist,or are approached in an unhelpful way. Many of these bills are intent on tearing down the wall between church and state by using YOUR tax dollars to further subsidize exclusive and sectarian religious practices and facilities. Make sure you are registered to vote and feel free to reach out with any input you may have to ensure Iowa is a safe and secular state that is welcome to everyone!

SF 2030 HF 2090: Against

These companion bills extend the default time frame for a state-of-emergency proclamation to 60 days and give the Legislature increased authority to rescind, extend, or amend the proclamation. The also include religious exemptions to public safety measures and vaccinations.

SSB 3006: Against

This bill creates exemptions for healthcare institutions, payors, and practitioners related to “a right of conscience, whistleblower activities, and free speech. In other words, healthcare institutions and providers would be allowed to deny care to patients on 1st Amendment grounds. The bill specifically refers to services related to abortion.

SF 2037: Against

An Act prohibiting counties and cities from regulating certain behavioral health and human services — by which they mean conversion therapy.

HF 2034: Against

This act creates an exemption to fire codes for religious school buildings which contain less than 50 students.

HF 2031: Against

The bill requires that the human growth and development curriculum provided by school districts, nonpublic schools, charter schools, include human biology related to pregnancy and human development inside the womb and must an US video at least three minutes in duration, showing the development of the brain, heart, sex organs, and other vital organs in early fetal development, and a rendering or animation, comparable to the meet baby Olivia video developed by live action, showing the process of fertilization and every stage of human development inside the uterus, noting significant markers in cell growth and organ development for every significant marker of pregnancy until birth.

SF 2039: For

This bill would require the Dept. of Health and Human Services to immediately submit a letter of intent to apply for the federal summer electronic benefits transfer for food insecure children program.

HF 2042: For

This bill would require the Iowa Dept. of Health and Human Services to immediately submit a letter of application for the summer electronic benefits transfer program for food insecure students. This bill is similar to SF 2039.

HF 2027: For

This bill would require that a titleholder's property tax statements must disclose how much less funding the local public school district had compared to last year due to students receiving payments through education savings accounts.

SF 2064, HF 2044: Against

These companion bills provide an exception to a minor’s legal capacity to consent to the provision of medical care or services for a sexually transmitted disease or infection. Minors will no longer be able to consent for vaccinations.

SF 2060: For

This bill would require schools to serve breakfast and lunch at no charge to children whose family income is less than three times the poverty level.

SF 2058: Undecided

This bill requires that all vaccine and immunization administrations be reported to the Iowa Health Information Network along with informed consent papers. I suspect the only reason for this is to make it easier for the anti-vax crowd to cherry pick adverse events.

SF 2055: Against

This anti-trans bill would prohibit persons from entering single and multiple occupancy restrooms or changing areas and other facilities in public accommodations that do not correspond with the person’s biological sex, and including effective date provisions.

SF 2053 HF 2059: Against

These companion bills allow for a tax exemption for buildings owned by religious institutions but are being used by a third party to educate children.

SF 2049: Against

An Act relating to trainings, examinations, surveys, and screenings provided by governmental agencies and entities, school districts, charter schools, innovation zone schools, and public postsecondary educational institutions, including racism or sexism trainings, diversity and inclusion efforts, physical examinations, student health screenings, and surveys administered to students.

SF 2048: Against

Modifies provisions related to the social studies instruction provided to students enrolled in grades one through twelve in school districts by creating celebrate freedom week.The bill prohibits such instruction from censoring any religious references in the writings of the founding fathers.

HF 2073: Against

This bill authorizes school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools to hire untrained chaplains or engage volunteer chaplains to provide services to students.

HF 2068: Against

Social studies curricula shall include instruction related to the purpose of state law, the affirmative argument for prohibiting transgender drugs and surgeries for minors, the affirmative argument for parental rights in education and the legal limitations of the doctrine of in loco parentis, the physical and emotional harms associated with exposure to pornography, and the use of overt sexual themes by sexual predators to groom victims.

HF 2060: Against

An Act modifying provisions related to world language instruction in grades nine through twelve by prohibiting the incorporation of gender-neutral language when the world language being taught utilizes a grammatical gender system.

SSB 3073: Against

Filed by Governor Reynolds, this is her attempt to gut the State Area Education Agencies and bring them further under her direct control.

HF 2079: Against

The bill allows public funds to be utilized by an ecclesiastical or sectarian institution for a project or program if it “benefits the public.”

SSB 3092: Against

This bill would allow school districts, charter schools, and innovation zone schools to employ chaplains, or engage volunteer chaplains, to provide services to students.

HF 2097: Against

This bill prohibits the governor from closing, placing a mandate on, or otherwise regulating a place or practice of worship for any reason, including through the proclamation of a disaster emergency or public health disaster.

SF 2084: For

An Act repealing the education savings account program.

HF 2082: Against

This bill would remove gender identity as a protected class under the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

SF 2096: Against

This bill would repeal gender balance requirements for appointive bodies.

SF 2095 HSB 614: Against

Another RFRA.  These bills prohibit a governmental entity from substantially burdening a person’s free exercise of religion.

SF 2093: For

This bill would repeal Code section 147.164 (last year's ban on gender transition procedure-related care for minors).

SF 2080: For

This bill prohibits the sale or transfer of large capacity ammunition feeding devices, provides a penalty, and includes effective date and applicability provisions.

HF 2158: For

This bill would allow students who are at least 17 years old to register to vote during school hours twice a year on March 22 and the fourth Tuesday of September of each year.

HF 2138: Against

This bill requires schools to receive informed consent from parents of students in grades 7-12 before enrolling them in any human growth and development course. Schools must also provide parents with detailed information about the course instruction materials.

HR 2139: Against

This bill would prohibit schools from taking disciplinary action against employees, contractors, or students for using legal names of students or for failure to use personal pronouns in official communications.

SSB 3114 HF 2057: Against

These companion bills would allow the More Options for Maternal Support (MOMS) Program to be administrated directly by the Dept. of Health and Human Services. MOMS provides pregnancy support services for women. It explicitly excludes abortion providers but would include crisis pregnancy centers.

HF 2130: For

This bill requires criminal history background checks on all gun sales with extremely limited exceptions.

HF2129: For

This bill appropriates $75,000 for gun violence prevention research at the U of I Injury Prevention Research Center.

HF 2122: Against

This bill creates an abortion-inducing drug certification program to provide oversight and to regulate the provision of abortion-inducing drugs in the state. It bans the sale or prescription of abortion-inducing drugs through the mail. Certified physicians must maintain hospital admitting privileges with a local hospital. Physicians must report any abortion complications or adverse effects to state and federal agencies. Allows for both civil and criminal penalties against certified providers.

The Baby and the Bathwater

BY Mike Messina

Every year we are expected to observe a holiday that is both meaningless and offensive.  I’m talking about Christmas.  Some pushback is in order.  

Christmas is both a religious and a secular holiday, the baby and the bathwater, if you will.  From a religious standpoint, its a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus.  From a secular standpoint, it about spending money and, I submit, about Christian nationalism.  

Let’s start with the religious — the baby — which is the easiest to dispose of.  If the birth of baby Jesus were such a big deal, you would think there would be some evidence that it actually happened.  We know there isn’t.  The Bible, the only place the story is recorded, is neither historically nor scientifically accurate.  It wasn’t meant to be.  Historical and scientific accuracy were either unknown or unimportant to the the authors of the biblical texts.

We can save scientific accuracy to talk about another day — I know I’m not writing for Christians. If historical accuracy were important,  you would think the authors of the Bible would have got the story straight. There are two versions of of the birth of Jesus in the Bible. One in Matthew and the other in Luke.  Most likely, given the lack of independent corroboration, both were just stories that were ultimately written down, i.e. myth.    

Next question is why was this baby was suppose to have been born, in a manger or elsewhere?  The story is that the only way to atone for the sin of Adam and Eve was for God the Father to send God the Son to die on the cross and then rise again.  Right out of the gate, however, there is a problem (Only one?  No, actually quite a few, but let’s start with one).  Adam and Eve never existed.  Sorry, I had to throw in some science after all.  Humans, like every other living thing on this planet evolved.  Species don’t suddenly appear.  They gradually evolve over vast amounts of time.  There never was a first human just like there never was a first dog or horse or fish or anything else.  “Oh, I don’t believe that!”  “It doesn’t matter what you believe, evolution is a matter of fact, not a matter of belief, so don’t talk nonsense.”  So if there never was a first human to commit an original sin, then the need for divine atonement goes out the window.

As long as we’re talking about problems…. What was this horrible sin anyway?  Does anyone really think that eating an apple was heinous enough to require a divine crucifixion?  Maybe it was the acquisition of the knowledge of good and evil?  As Robert Frost wrote:  “… it was by having been contrasted, good and bad so long have lasted. … we learn from the forbidden fruit, for brains there is no substitute.”  We know how to use our brain.  We don’t need to confuse prescientific myth with reality.  

There, we’ve done it.  We’ve thrown out the baby.  Now let’s move on to the bathwater.  I think most of our secular Christmas traditions developed around the time of World War II.  George Orwell wrote that all art is propaganda.  In the 1930s and 40s, it was necessary for the country to come together to fight the war.  Did you ever wonder why Bing Crosby was dreaming of a white Christmas, or why Jimmy Steward was discovering a wonderful life? Norman Rockwell Christmas cards were the glue that held the nation together through tough times.  A few years later, Christmas was what separated us from the godless commies in Russia.  Likewise, it’s no accident that the arrival of Santa Claus is sponsored by the big New York department stores.  All art is propaganda indeed and Americans swallowed it hook line and sinker.

What about the children?  Sooner or - if they aren’t very bright - later, they’ll figure out the Santa Claus thing. And for those born in the 21st century, most will get a grip on reality and reject everything supernatural.  Why not rescue their young minds from the burden of superstition and the whole dubious experience from the start?  As secular influence continues to grow, we can expect traditional Christmas to seem less like the culture’s default holiday. When secular children view Christmas as “something that some other people do,” not as “something everybody but us gets to do,” the lure of forbidden fruit will lose much of its sting.

If those of us who have thrown out the baby, don’t also throw out the bathwater, i.e. not acquiesce in “harmless” celebrations, we acknowledge, or at least give the impression that we acknowledge, that there is some value in the underlying story.  Its the old story of being an absolutist vs a cimpatatablist.  If we secular humanists are committed to truth and critical thinking, how can we take part in superstitious observances.  Isn’t doing so counterproductive if we wish to be taken seriously as proponents of rational living?  As members of an unpopular outgroup, we should consider the message we send the larger culture if we yield to Christmas. In multicultural America outgroups get respect by highlighting their differences, not by hiding them. Accommodation earns only contempt.

We secular humanists have a stirring, even inspiring view of life. Life in an un-designed, unintended, and unmanaged universe filled with possibility. The only life we have is here and now, and the only meanings we can depend on are the ones we create for ourselves. We embody the ideals of life and love without religion. Yet who will listen to us if we appear as hypocrites because we cannot muster the courage to forgo a holiday whose history and principles we would reject in any other setting?

Many of the ideas for this piece were inspired by an article written by the late Tom Flynn who served as associate editor of Free Inquiry and coeditor of Secular Humanist Bulletin.  Flynn wrote that holidays, in general are a bad idea.  Our ancient holidays developed in a world of mystery and privation quite unlike the world most of us inhabit today. Consider the revolution that science, technology, and the naturalistic worldview has wrought. Today, at least in the First World, most humans die of old age. Most children live to become adults. There is usually enough to eat. Many diseases are curable. Small families are sufficient to ensure that society goes on. Men and women can view the phenomena of nature with understanding and respect, instead of with superstition and uncomprehending fear. Even when a natural disaster is unavoidable, there is often advance warning. Aid comes quickly, and the victims can confront their experience fortified by their understanding of the physical processes involved. Moderns whose homes are destroyed by a storm, earthquake, or tornado are still homeless, but at least they are not simultaneously homeless and mystified as to what hostile spirit has done this to them.  Unless, that is, they are Christians or Moslems who think god will protect, or at least rescue them.  Flynn wrote:

“When we confront the modern world of purpose and possibility, we cannot know for certain what is right. But we can know that almost without exception, our instinctive assumptions, our received social forms, our musty rituals and ancient traditions are wrong. They developed in response to and were superbly attuned to a world of mystery and limited expectations that no longer exists. Consequently, whatever may be the appropriate social and cultural response to the conditions of modern life, it is far more likely to be an innovation yet unthought of than to be any hand-me-down of our past.”

More atheists, freethinkers, and secular humanists need to treat Christmas as “just another day.” Skip the feasts. Sit out the exchange of gifts. Put in a normal day’s work if you can. As Tom Flynn put it, infidelity is hard for believers to take seriously when its advocates so visibly cashier their principles rather than pass up an excuse to eat, drink, and be merry.

So, there you have it.  We threw out the baby long ago.  It’s time now to open the window and toss the bathwater.