On February 10th I attended Secular Summit 4.0 at the Ohio State House in Columbus. It was hosted by CFI NE Ohio. It was the second lobby day I attended and this time I tried to as prepared as I could be to speak to my representatives. Secular people need to do more in person lobbying of our elected officials in addition to phone calls, written messages, and blog posts.
The Secular Summit is a chance for secular people around Ohio to get together for a morning meeting then in the afternoon we have appointments with our state representatives and senators.
Tag: lobbying
On January 28th, a bitterly cold Tuesday morning, approximately 20 people gathered for the second annual Secular Summit in the Museum Gallery in the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus. The summit was organized and hosted by the Center for Inquiry Northeast Ohio (CFI NE Ohio) but included people from the various secular groups in Ohio. In the morning we had several speakers, some training in lobbying, and then the afternoon was when participants visited their Representatives and Senators to introduce themselves and the issues of importance to seculars in the state. The extreme cold couldn’t keep us from talking to the legislature, most of whom have completely opposite views.
The Secular Summit was held in the Museum Gallery on the ground floor of the Ohio State House.
The Secular Coalition For America (SCA) is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that lobbies our elected officials in Washington and now they want to expand into Ohio to cover state and local political issues of interest to secular Ohioans. I have volunteered as co-chair to form the Ohio chapter. We need your help.
A new group looks to complete a census of secular Americans who are usually under-counted by religious-centric demographic surveys. American Secular Census is an independent national registry of demographic and viewpoint data recorded from secular adult Americans covering those who are skeptical of supernatural claims. One reason such a census is needed and why secular Americans should participate is what happens in a Washington D.C. that is overly influenced by the religious right.
On this National Day of Reason, it was announced that Edwina Rogers, whose previous experience is as a Republican DC lobbyist, who also had worked for President George W Bush and former Senator Trent Lott, was hired as the new Executive Director of Secular Coalition of America. Naturally I was a bit concerned but after reading some of what she had to say about her new job, I think she will be fine as long as she sticks to the SCA agenda.