As the Please Don’t Label Me billboard adverts come down, the British Humanist Association (BHA) has thanked all those who came out and declared their support and gratitude for the campaign, in particular those who shared stories and feelings about the message of the campaign and how it resonated with them.
Launched to coincide with Universal Children’s Day, the campaign quickly received the support of many hundreds of users of Twitter and Facebook, as well as welcoming endorsements from Derren Brown, Philip Pullman, A C Grayling and Tim Minchin. Donations received off the back of the campaign by the BHA have raised over 60% of the total required to fund the campaigner post against faith schools for another year, and the BHA has received hundreds of emails of support and praise.
‘It was the people who told us why they were supporting the campaign, who maybe even got a little passionate about it, that really stood out,’ said Bob Churchill, Membership and Web Manager at the BHA. ‘People wrote us emails, posted messages on Facebook or let off some steam on a blog. We had former students of “faith” schools talking about how they were made to feel small and unwelcome and different because they questioned the religion they were told they “belonged” to. We had parents talking about the resentment of having to send their children to such schools today. We had teachers talking knowingly about the ‘drip drip’ of inculcation that goes on in RE and assemblies in schools they used to work in, or that they still work in. And of course we heard from people whose parents were too strict about religion when they were children.’
‘Two blogs about the campaign stand out for me – both personal blogs. One was by a teenager in Canada, old enough to self-describe as a “teenage atheist”. He spelled out in celebratory terms what the campaign was about, then lay into a critical opinion piece from The Telegraph, challenging its identification of Please Don’t Label Me with fascism! The other was by a writer who said she was “so grateful” for the campaign, because she’d been told as a child that she must believe in a literal Hell, where should would be “tormented for eternity”. She wrote, “The practice of automatically labeling children with their parents’ religious beliefs has a huge impact on so many people’s lives, yet it is rarely discussed or questioned.” I’m very happy we keep raising these questions.’
The BHA’s fundraising campaign to meet the costs of employing the dedicated campaigner for another year is still open at www.justgiving.com/nofaithschools
Notes
The blogs quoted are:
- http://preliatorcausa.blogspot.com/2009/11/saying-that-labeling-children-is-wrong.html
- http://www.mirandacelestehale.net/?p=422
The British Humanist Association (BHA) is the national charity representing and supporting the non-religious and promoting Humanism. In education, it campaigns for inclusive schools with no religious admissions policies, balanced teaching about different beliefs and values, and no ‘collective worship’; the BHA is in favour of the phasing out of state funded ‘faith’ schools and campaigns nationally and locally for this cause.