Humanists of Minnesota

by Norma Adams

(Norma Adams is a member of Humanists of Minnesota.)

Becoming a Guardian ad Litem for Juvenile Court in Hennepin County was one of the best decisions I made after retiring. I thought this type of volunteering was a way to do something productive with my time. However, it has turned out to be so much more.

Here is the official explanation for what a Guardian ad Litem (GAL) is: A GAL is a trained volunteer that advocates for abused and neglected children to ensure that their needs do not go unheard. Different from a legal guardian, Guardians ad Litem have no control over the person or property of the child and do not provide a home for the child. The Guardian ad Litem does not function as the child’s attorney and does not provide direct services to the child.

The term “ad litem” means “for the suit” or “for the court case”. It is an old concept –in the Anglo Saxon times, at common law, the king appointed a guardian ad litem to speak on behalf of the child or incompetent person. Today judges appoint community volunteers who have been trained as a GAL to advocate for abused and neglected children so that they can thrive in a safe, permanent home. continue reading…

by Dale Handeen

One of our humanist movement’s quite prolific contemporary writers, Ed Doerr, has been articulate and passionate about his view that as freethinkers working to improve society we might best regard those of liberal faith traditions to be potentially excellent allies in working toward specific shared social change goals. He challenged liberal thinkers of every stripe to spend less of our energies squabbling amongst ourselves over philosophical differences, and to invest more of our energies in building practical working relationships with people “of faith,” so that, together, we can achieve more of the important social changes we do envision.

Roy Speckhardt, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, has shared with all of us in print that he makes an effort to be present at interfaith gatherings in the Washington, D.C. area, expressing humanist values, and exploring common ground. Furthermore, I was pleased with Doug Haddon’s suggestion that Humanists of Minnesota begin our program year examining white privilege. continue reading…

During the 3rd week of August 2009 the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, held one of their biannual  conferences here in Minneapolis.  The convention was tasked to deal with dealing with issues of sexuality, specifically issues related to homosexuality.  Homosexuality has been a big issue in a number of Christian denominations.  Now the ELCA is one of the more “more liberal” mainstream denominations.  They have been discussing sexuality for a number of years.  This year the decision needed to be made about allowing what the religious like to call clergy who are “practicing homosexuals”.  This curious term is what they call gay couples who have sex.  Now from a Humanist point of view, this is not a big deal for adults who are gay in a relationship.  However we Humanists are not homophobic religious believers.  Now I know that there are a great many religious people who are not discriminatory.  What makes this interesting is that the ELCA did decide to allow gay clergy, but leaves the actual calls to parishes up to individual congregations.

Now this is a step forward, but what really makes it interesting is the weather.  Yes, the weather.  Just a the time the conference was getting ready to take a vote a tornado went through downtown Minneapolis, damaging the Minneapolis Convention Center, as well as Central Lutheran Church.  Now Humanists would not consider this anything but severe weather.  Well not to the religious right types.  This tornado was not sever weather but, wait for it, a message from God.  John Piper of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, wrote on his blog at “Desiring God”:  “Conclusion: The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners.”  http://www.desiringgod.org/Blog/1965_the_tornado_the_lutherans_and_homosexuality/

Piper is not the only one.  The whole KKMS Saturday line up and a number of callers also said the same thing.  So weather apparently can be changed by God because of “the gays”.  If we pursue the apparent logic of this, it seems that we can cause severe weather with gay people gathering.  Now how God missed the Pride celebration at the end of June, I’m not sure.

Our work is cut out for us.  It seems that people have made it to the 21st century still believing that invisible beings control the weather.  It seems that the best approach here is to point out that this really quite stupid to think that a God is going to use a tornado to send a message.  Why God couldn’t use the big screens and Powerpoint to send his message, I don’t know.  Apparently manipulating the weather is much easier. It’s too bad that magical thinking is so tough to get rid off.

-Scott Lohman