Freethought isn't always easy. Earlier this month, the Women's Discussion Group was renamed to the Women-only Discussion Group with attendance limited to a narrow definition of woman.

While PFC respects the right of individuals to have differing opinions, and we understand that some communities may prefer to have a safe space where attendance is explicitly restricted to only certain types of people, PFC as a whole would rather err on the side of inclusivity rather than exclusivity.

The current policy of PFC is to have inclusive events, and all people who identify as women are welcome in the Women's Discussion Group.

All scheduled events have been returned to their former status with non-exclusive names. We sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by the recent event.

Read Banned Books!

Pittsburgh Freethought Community is proud to celebrate Banned Books Week during September 18–24, 2022. Banned Books Week is the annual celebration of the freedom to read.

A coalition of organizations dedicated to free expression, including the American Library Association, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, Freedom to Read Foundation, Lambda Literary, National Council of Teachers of English, PEN America, and the People For the American Way Foundation, sponsors this event.

As an organization in Southwestern Pennsylvania dedicated to freedom of thought, PFC endorses the event's motto: “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.”

A book challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of an individual or group. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view. They are attempts to remove material from a curriculum, library, or bookstore because of its content, ideas, or themes, thereby restricting other people's right to read it.

A book ban is the successful removal of those materials. The commitment of librarians, educators, parents, students, and citizens prevents most challenges from succeeding and ensures that most materials remain in school curricula, public library collections, and bookstores. Book banning is a form of censorship.

Anyone or any group can initiate a book challenge: parents, library patrons, political and religious groups, educators, elected officials, and students. The vast majority of challenges occur in school libraries, public libraries, and individual schools.

Although books are the most frequently challenged material, films, graphic novels, textbooks, library programs and displays, music, artwork, and electronic databases also face challenges.

The most frequently stated reasons include alleged explicit sexual content, violence, child abuse, LGBTQ content, profanity, religious or political viewpoints, race or ethnicity viewpoints, unsuitability for children, lack of literary merit, or claims that material contains “harmful,” “hurtful,” “hateful,” “hate speech,” or “problematic” themes. Both the Left and the Right, liberals and conservatives, can be censorious.

The American Library Association tracks the annual number of book challenges across the country and compiles an annual list of the most frequently challenged books.

In 2021, the Top 10 titles were Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson, Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, This Book Is Gay by Juno Dawson, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin.

These books contain many of the themes mentioned above. However, ALA emphasizes that its annual Top 10 lists are only a snapshot of book challenges. Surveys indicate that 82–97% of documented requests to remove materials from schools or libraries remain unreported and receive no media attention.

We are not alone. According to surveys from ALA and other groups, at least two-thirds of eligible voters oppose censorship in libraries and schools.

PFC encourages all of us to fight book challenges and bans. You can contact local, state, and federal elected officials to oppose censorship in any form. No individual, group, or government has the right to determine what everyone else is allowed to read, hear, and watch.

Most importantly, read banned books! Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin wrote, “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

If someone wants to ban a book, it probably contains information that we need to read. The more familiar we are with challenged material, the more effectively we can fight challenges when they occur.

PFC stands with all organizations fighting for our freedom to read, write, and think for ourselves.

Sources and action resources

• American Library Association: Banned Books
• ALA: Intellectual Freedom
• Banned Books Week
• National Coalition Against Censorship
• Lambda Literary resources
• Unite Against Book Bans

Pittsburgh Freethought Community strongly condemns the attempted murder of author and atheist Salman Rushdie. PFC endorses freedom of speech, press, and expression in all forms, with the few exceptions established by the Supreme Court.

Each of us has the right to speak, read, and write freely. No individual, group, or religion has the right to deny it.

Squirrel Hill's own Bari Weiss wrote a forceful defense of Rushdie and freedom of expression:

We live in a culture in which many celebrated people occupying the highest perches believe that words are violence. In this, they have much in common with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who issued the first fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, and with the man who attempted to fulfill that command by attacking the author on a stage in Western New York.

The first group believes it is motivated by inclusion and tolerance—that it is possible to create something better than liberalism, a society where no one is ever offended. The second group we recognize as religious fanatics. But indulging the belief that words are violence empowers people who respond to ideas with actual violence.

As shocking as the attack was, it was also decades in the making. The Satanic Verses is a book with a bloody trail.

Freedom From Religion Foundation and Center for Inquiry also issued statements defending Rushdie and freedom of expression.

PFC promotes science, reason, and humanist values. Freedom of expression is vital to a free and democratic society. The attempted murder of Salman Rushdie is an attack on authors, artists, and freethinkers everywhere.

We renew our call for an end to violence against freethinkers.

The original statement also referenced Bill Moyers, Salman Rushdie on the Politicization of Religion.

Pittsburgh Freethought Community is on the record opposing both SB 956 and HB 2252, the “No Right to Abortion” Amendment to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

If passed, these bills would make Pennsylvania's state policy to “protect the life of every unborn child [sic] from conception until birth.” As demonstrated by policies in states such as Mississippi and Arizona, these bills could have dire consequences for prenatal care, contraception, IVF, ectopic pregnancy, and even how a pregnant woman decides to give birth.

If these bills passed the state legislature, they could have appeared on the ballot as early as November 2022. If Pennsylvania voters approved them, they would be enshrined as amendments to the state constitution. A governor cannot veto a constitutional amendment.

These bills are catastrophic for all women, especially those who already suffer under existing abortion restrictions: low-income, rural, and young women; women of color; and survivors of domestic violence and rape. Violence in intimate relationships often begins when a woman becomes pregnant.

Domestic violence affects nearly one-third of women in the United States. Survivors are more likely to be forced into unintended pregnancy, need abortion care, and risk being trapped in violent relationships if they are unable to obtain a safe abortion.

The consequences of such entrapment range from heightened abuse during pregnancy to murder.

Rape frequently co-occurs with domestic violence. Survivors raped by intimate partners are more likely to suffer multiple rapes and acute or chronic physical and reproductive injuries. Approximately one in four women raped by male partners becomes pregnant, a rate five times the national average for rape-caused pregnancy.

These consequences are preventable when women have the right to safe and legal abortion and contraception.

SB 956 and HB 2252 were insults to human dignity. We must reaffirm to all women, especially abuse and rape survivors, that their bodies are their own.

If we deny women the right to make important decisions about their own bodies, we violate their bodily autonomy yet again. With Roe v. Wade then in jeopardy, women in Pennsylvania urgently needed guarantees that their fundamental human rights would be respected.

Throughout United States history, court decisions and constitutional amendments have expanded and guaranteed individual rights and liberties. These proposals would instead have used a constitutional amendment to remove a fundamental right from 51% of Pennsylvanians.

Amendments should be progressive, not regressive. We must move forward, not backward. Passing SB 956 and HB 2252 would endanger every woman and girl in the state.

PFC strongly urged members and supporters to contact their Pennsylvania state legislators and oppose SB 956 and HB 2252.

Find your Pennsylvania legislators

Russian President Vladimir Putin's unprovoked attack on neighboring Ukraine violated the humanist values that Pittsburgh Freethought Community affirms:

• We believe in an open and pluralistic society and that secular democracy is the best guarantee of protecting human rights from authoritarian elites and repressive majorities.
• We cultivate the arts of negotiation and compromise as a means of resolving differences and achieving mutual understanding.
• We attempt to transcend divisive parochial loyalties based on biological sex, race, religion, gender identity, nationality, creed, class, sexual orientation, or ethnicity, and strive to work together for the common good of humanity.
• We believe in the common moral decencies: altruism, integrity, honesty, truthfulness, responsibility, empathy, and compassion.

Vladimir Putin employed a campaign of disinformation and fictionalized history to justify a brutal assault on the sovereign nation of Ukraine, which had worked to strengthen its democracy, reduce corruption, and move closer to the West.

Russian military attacks targeting medical facilities and civilians, including children, raised allegations of war crimes investigated by the International Criminal Court.

The war created a massive humanitarian crisis, forcing millions of people to flee their homes, including millions of refugees who crossed into Poland and other neighboring countries.

We at PFC stand with the Ukrainian people.

The original statement also highlighted support from the Freedom From Religion Foundation for the “Humanists Across Borders for Ukraine” relief campaign, sponsored by the Atheist Foundation Kazimierza Lyszczynskiego in Poland.

PFC welcomes the celebration of Women's History Month and International Women's Day.

PFC has always honored the truth that women and girls are human beings and that women's rights are human rights.

Read the original statement ↗

In collaboration with PFC's LGBTQIA+ Initiative, this statement affirms PFC's support for LGBTQIA+ equality, Pride Month, acceptance, understanding, and positive change.

Read the original statement ↗

Thomas Paine, the influential Enlightenment philosopher whose 1776 pamphlet Common Sense inspired Americans to declare independence from Great Britain, lacks a fitting memorial in Washington, D.C.

Paine's later work, The Age of Reason, challenged institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible.

Representative Jamie Raskin, a founder of the Congressional Freethought Caucus, introduced H.R. 6720 to authorize a Thomas Paine memorial.

“Tom Paine was a person so far ahead of his time that his work still challenges us in significant ways today to build a more democratic society,” Raskin said.

He described Paine as a patriot of the Enlightenment and American Revolution who inspired the colonies not only to overthrow monarchy but also to found a nation on democratic self-government, the rights of men and women, reason, and science.

Despite Paine's catalytic role in founding the United States and its constitutional republic, he remains too often on the outskirts of history. A memorial would give Paine a central place of respect in the nation's capital.

PFC urged members to ask their congressional representatives and senators to support and sponsor the legislation.

Find your federal elected officials

January 22, 2022 marked the 49th anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion.

According to Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates, Pennsylvania legislators proposed nine anti-abortion bills in 2021.

PFC condemned attempts to restrict women's dignity and reproductive autonomy. We urged everyone to contact their state legislators, especially people living in the districts of bill sponsors, and strongly oppose the proposals.

Legislators tell constituents that personal contact and telephone calls are among the most effective ways to communicate about proposed legislation. Personal letters can also be effective.

Constituents may also use legislators' official contact forms and social media channels.

PFC expressed concern about the unconstitutional use of millions of dollars in Commonwealth funds allocated to two Baptist churches.

Read the original statement ↗

PFC members raised concerns about religious exemptions during the COVID-19 pandemic and the public-health consequences of large in-person religious gatherings.

Read the original press release ↗