Wear them fans that y'all, I don't know, but the boots on the ground decide to boots. A secular leaning organization from a Pride event, Flabergastic has the story Flabbergasted.
Recovering from Religion, an organization that provides peer support and resources for people who are questioning and deconstructing from their religious beliefs, had their attendants at a Pride event and Saint John's Canada rescinded. Recovering from Religion originally had their
attendants approved in early June. Than a month later and less than two weeks prior to the event actually taking place, they were informed that their attendance was rescinded, citing concerns that Recovering from Religion was not in strong alignment with the focus of their event. In response, Recovering from Religion reach out multiple times to clear up what they saw
as a misunderstanding of their intent and mission. Saint John's Pride responded to a singular message expressing concerns with what they saw as combative language and refuse have any direct communication with Recovering from Religion from that point on, and still giving little to no meaningful explanation for why Recovering
from Religion was no longer welcome. Despite that, the co chair of Saint John's Pride found time to have an interview with a local radio station once the situation became public, in which they stated that RfR was not part of their community and did not have a connection with their community. Language being used by Saint John's Pride had led people to be concerned the RfR was disinvited because their attendants may not have been seen positively by religiously affiliated groups
and organizations. The story is from the Friendly Atheists. I haven't met that on July fifteenth, twenty twenty five.
Oh what a tangle web we weave when we practice.
Stuff and stuff?
Yeah, I mean things, stuff and things, things and stuff. This is insane. Oh MG. You know I have to say this because, like you know, Recovering from Religion is a foundation that partners with the ACA a lot, and I know that we refer to them a lot, especially on people on callin shows where people are calling in looking for resources, especially in the process of their deconversion.
And you know, URFR has like great, wonderful different resources that people can utilize in order to kind of help them through the process, I mean a secular therapy project also their call in line that they can do to talk to people who are trained to work with folks
who are you know, going through their own deconversion. And I know that one of the things that really hits hard to meet specifically since I am you know, part of the LGBTQI plus community as far as like an allies concern and I work with them like in a
professional manner as a social worker. You know, I know that, you know, just being privy to people who have you know, come out to family and friends and all of a sudden, you know, have been told just because they happen to identify as lesbian, as gay, as trands, non binary and the like, that you know, they have lost homes, they have lost sheltered, they have lost you know, community, and a lot of times, like you know, coming to a space that is you know, secular was more inviting than
the ones who happened to be religious. Now I understand that there are religious organizations and churches and things of that nature who do embrace lgbt QY post community.
And I'm grateful for them.
But if we're going to be honest, that is not in the majority, right, So it's kind of like sad that, you know, a organization that has been around for a long time, that has like multiple partners and also resources to help people, you know, basically not only come out of religion, but even like come out of the you know, triggers that actually are against their own personal nature be in this particular space with the point where they're disinvited
to a Pride event is actually appalling. And I do apologize that I had to take some moments to say that, but that was on my mind. Guys, I'm so sorry, but no, I'm not sorry, but I just had to get that out. Thank you for allowing me. But you know, Fibergast that you introduce this segment, so I am curious to get some of your thoughts on the story.
When you first, could you please.
Elaborate, So, I mean, yeah, basically, it's a situation where a Pride event has looked at an organization and has decided at first to include them and then to take that inclusion away. And generally, in that kind of situation, you would expect some sort of explanation and the biggest
problem here is that there hasn't been one. There's lots of very good reasons to exclude someone, even if they're a good organization, but the way that it was done is suspect, especially that in a lot of the communication that has been made public that the language around why they're not included is out of concern of religiously affiliated people not being happy about it, and that's a problem. And then they also talk about things like, oh, well,
you're not part of the community. Well, who gets it, aside is part sufficiently part of the community. I'm a member of the queer community, and like, do you get to say that I'm not because I don't fit into your bubble? And but bud Light does apparently because one of their sponsors was bud Light. Bud Light is a more queer affirming organization as far as they're concerned than recovering from religion. So like, it doesn't make any sense.
It's like they're post talk justifying it to make a particular group or people or organization happy, And that's problematic because no one is no group is more harmed by really well, there's lots of groups hard by religion, but religiosity harms the LGBTQ community far more than almost anyone else does. There is so much harm caused to the
queer community as a result of religiosity. And if you have an organization that focuses on helping people with the trauma that explicitly comes from religion at a pride of it, you're like, nah, we don't need you here. Like, are you actually serving the best interest of that community? I would say you're probably not.
I totally agree.
I mean, like we have seen, like you know, I've I've participated in a few pride events, especially with another oral nonprofit organization that I used to work for, and I've seen, like you know, the religious sell its gather to say that hey, you attendees who are LGBTQI plus affirming or even.
Part of that community are all going to hell.
You know, I don't feel like I say, it's like people like yelling and screaming at you and all this other stuff. And they said, well, the Bible says, and I said, yeah, the Bible also says to dash baby's heads against stones.
How do you feel about that? Right?
So, like, let's not even go there about what the Bible says. But you know, but at the same time, it doesn't give anybody creatives to be hateful. So like, when you actually have like this like organization that is like geared to really help people like like navigate through these particular things, it's just like absolutely crazy that a Pride event wouldn't even allow them to be there for reasons that make no sense. I don't know you, I helped me out. What were your thoughts.
When you actually write this particular article.
Firstly, it was surprising to me that they don't know who RfR is because I'm not specifically familiar with any examples of their work, but I know generally what they're about, and I, like the author of the article, would think, would assume that that's exactly who you would want at such an event, because like how many people and I'm asking genuinely because I don't know, but like how many people are attending their first Pride event every year, like
after first coming out or after first leaving religion or being kicked out of their home and having their entire like religion and their community and their support never gripped away from them, and they are like literally in a progressing sense or in an ongoing sense, I mean to say.
Recovering from religion.
And I would think that that's ex exactly who you would want these types of events. That being said, Pride events aren't for me. Like I've been to one and it was a pretty gucci time, but like I was there to like support like my friends and my partner at the time, So like, I don't form an opinion about who should and shouldn't be there.
I didn't form one and and I won't.
But I think about it, like if I was organizing an event for like secular veterans, which is like a label that I would claim, I would want RfR there because I think that they do good work for people that are secular that belonged to any other demographic. So that's sort of where I landed it. They Perhaps it seemed to the like organizers that RfR was coming off as a sort of like do you have any idea who we are? Sort of attitude, and that's that's unbecoming of anybody.
It's not a good look. But at the same time, like do they have any idea who RfR is? Like that was that's how I felt like.
Reading, Yeah, I don't know, I don't I don't know if they do. To be honest with you, like I think this like a. I don't know, like a cursory research would have just been like oh wow, these these this organization is like really about, you know, affirming people who happen to be part of the queer community, because.
I know that they are. I mean like I had, like.
A had gnawsy long conversations with doctor Darryl rhyd and and also talk to Gail Jordan and Glenda her daughter, and and you know, like and I mean like like these they are super affirming when it comes to you know, the LGBGQQ plus community, and they are They take a lot of pride in that. So for like Saint John's to say no, you're uninvited is like ridiculously But you know, Fola Gas, I'm going to come back to you. I'm going to ask a question and I want you to answer.
How can communities balance protecting vulnerable members from perceived harm while uvoiding exclusion or gatekeeping then they hind your ally shit.
Yeah, I think it's just like any other relationship, any good relationship. Anyways, It's about communication, right. You can't treat situations like this as a tender profile where you just like skim through when you're doing your investigation and skip or pass right. The kicker here is that the initial communication here really did seem to go well. Like they accepted them, they were excited about it. There was even conversations between the religious organizations that were part of the
Pride event and RfR. They were fine. So what could RfR really have done better when they were seemingly ghosted out of nowhere? So like it's when you're asking the question, how do we balance these things? We balance them by making sure we're communicating properly, to make sure we understand where people are coming from. If there's you know, doubt, when sometimes doubt can be valid. And that is actually an issue with with rfrs. As those who are familiar
with RfR knows how affirming RfR is. But if you don't know RfR, that might not be so easy to find out. And that's fair, that's valid. So you have the communication, you have conversation, you ask them, you look into it. You don't just swipe left or right or whatever one it is on tender. I don't know how spen enough time on it.
Apparently means left, I left right, aft.
Left or no whos left right?
I agree though, I think because the organizer that did the radio interview that I think we're going to talk about a little bit, Like he mentioned, like the way the way he's talking, it sounds like he's just doing the best his best to protect like queer entrance people in I think his local physical community is how I interpreted what he was saying, whether or not from our community.
So I think it's just true that, like he wasn't sure who they were, he would rather like the consequences of being cautious and being wrong and like getting a false positive, Like just like when our ancestors were watching for predators in the bushes, the consequences of a false positive are a lot more dire than the consequences of a false negative. So I think that's just what it was. Like, if you don't know who they are, just say that that's fine. Ignorance is no problem. But when you make
decisions virtuous of that ignorance. Hi, the Vatican, I'm looking at you, that's when we have the problem.
You know, I see a lot of looking at the Vatican slot.
You know what was almost like it's justified or something.
You know that far.
Right there, you know, don't don't give me star talk by folicism, I get triggered real quick, like cringe anyway, But like I want to ask this question to both of you, like ELI want to start with you and then flabbergasts that I want to come to you.
But what does transparency.
Look like and dialogue clay when difficult decisions like this are made in the community spaces, especially during events centered around inclusion and support.
Well, I think that undoubtedly there are people that live in that area that we'll be attending that Pride event that know who RfR is and because it was mentioned that they're going to have their booth like off the premises of the Pride event, but still nearby so that people can get in touch with them if they happened to be happened to come across them and want to so they'll still be available. But I think there are undoubtedly people who will be attending to know who they are,
and they are gonna want to know. They are gonna want that transparency about like what actually happened here, Because I agree with flabberg Acid that like it's it's super strange if they just if they had initially like denied their request to attend as a vendor because they didn't know who they were fine that. I think that probably would have been a lot less like turbulent if it
had just been an outright denial. But they approved it and then came back later and was like, you know what, nevermind. And I don't remember when it was mentioned, but it was the.
The idea of being off putting, I think to.
Queer and trans led religious groups that might be attending. They didn't want to be alienating to those groups, and that was like, I think a primary justification given.
So I think the transparency is going to be important. What does it look like?
I don't know because the two versions of the community of the interaction that both RfR and Saint John's Pride organizers are telling, these versions are already slightly different from each other, so it's really difficult to tell at this point what really actually was said or.
Have that's fair, What do you have? What are your thoughts flabbergasted?
I think whenever we're talking about transparency, full transparency always is the best transparency, and a pride event is meant to represent the community as a whole, and so you should be able to justify to that community why anyone is or is not included, especially especially in a situation like this, right, you should be able to demonstrate and explain thoroughly. And it's interesting because in the article they say that, oh, well, all of our board meetings minutes
are available, we have full transparency. You can go to our board meetings. You need to read them. Well I have. I've read all of their board meeting notes going back nine months, seven months, eight months roughly, and no, they don't have full transparency. Not only do not have full transparency, RfR is the only organization that they actually name specifically
as a vendor. They mention when before they approved them, like, oh, yeah, RfR is an organization, do some investigation before approving them. Then they get approved a month later, they just state RfR had their stuff rescinded it. That's all they said. No justification, no explanation, And they're going to point to their board meeting minutes like they have full transparency. They don't.
And that's part of the problem, right, Like if it was in there and there was a justification or an explanation that you could point to and explain and be like, oh, this is why this is a conversation we had, This is what someone said specifically that made us concern. They don't have any of that. So what kind of transparency
should you have? You should have full transparency because you should be able to justify these decisions on behalf of the people that you are supposed to be representing, which is in this case, the entire Pride, the entire queer community of your area, and you did not provide them that.
Well, uh, chech and mate, may I say.
I thought about or something?
Yeah, like something like that.
Well, you know, guys, if you're interested, I do have a final reflection about this whole shindik, if you will so.
As a secular humanist, we champion open dialogue, inclusion, and freedom of conscious It's troubling to see an organization like Recovering from Religion an ally that supports the LGBTQ plus community, excluded from Saint John's Pride event without a clear evidence face rationale. As Flabbergasted aptly pointed out, rfr's mission is not to evangelize atheism, but to offer support to those recovering from religious trauma, something many individuals have painfully experienced.
Their presence at Pride could have been healing and affirming for attendees navigating identity and belief instead of the decision to exclude them. It suggests a discomfort with non religious voices, even when those voices advocate for equity, dignity, and compassion. Pride is meant to be celebrated of authenticity and shared struggle, a space where all who genuinely support the LGBTQ plus
community can come together. That includes people of faith, and it must include those without it to do otherwise replicating the very exclusion that Pride exists to overcome. How can we ensure that exclusion inclusion rather at Pride isn't limited to certain beliefs, but instead extends to all those committed
to equality, healing and human dignity. And I just want to also point out to you, dear viewer, that if you are looking for resources coming out of religion and also need a space where it's safe and then you can talk to people, especially if you are experiencing exclusion because of non belief or even exclusion because you're part of the LGBTQIA plus community, please visit Recovering from Religion
dot org. They have resources, they have support groups, They even have a phone line that you can call in and talk to a volunteer, and they can even point you out to other resources that can assist you with navigating the process.