[news] Santa Ana, June 8: An atheist rally against religious freedom?

source:

http://www.examiner.com/article/santa-ana-june-8-an-atheist-rally-against-religious-freedom 

Well, not exactly. The Orange County CA-based atheist group Backyard Skeptics is holding what they are calling an "anti-rally" against the Catholic group Stand Up for Religious Freedom so it's BS against SURF, so to speak. Now to be fair, Backyard Skeptics actually employs the acronym BYS to describe itself. What's no BS though is why Backyard Skeptics feels the need to counter Stand Up's noon 'religious freedom' rally at the Santa Ana Courthouse on June 8th.

They feel the Catholic group is giving the term a bad name.

Here's part of their press release on the anti-rally:

The First Amendment is currently under attack by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other conservative religious groups that are seeking to redefine the concept of religious liberty to guarantee them religious privilege and freedom from accountability…

Religious freedom does not include the right to interfere with the rights of others. Religious institutions have the right to participate in our society on the same basis as all other institutions. They do not have the right to dictate the rules in which they get to participate.

To reinterpret the First Amendment to grant privileges and exemptions to large religious institutions would mean the depriving of the exercise of personal religious conscience by individuals who do not share the religious dogmas of those institutions but who nonetheless are employed by or use the services provided by those institutions.

The exemption would provide religious organizations with a competitive advantage over other non-religious service providers who would still be expected to cover the cost of contraceptive coverage to their employees; and all Americans who work for any of the religious institutions would be denied the ability to exercise their own religious and human right to make their own reproductive choices.

You can find out more about Backyard Skeptics "anti-rally" on their meetup.com site here.

You can read this article for more on Stand Up for Religious Freedom's planned 150 "religious freedom" rallies nationwide.

Your Los Angeles Atheism Examiner will be reporting on the SURF rally scheduled for Friday in Ventura, CA as well as any counter-demonstrations.

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