Who remembers the Secular Policy Institute? It still exists, it has a mission statement.
The Secular Policy Institute (SPI) is a think tank organization of thought leaders, writers, scholars and speakers with a shared mission to influence public opinion and promote a secular society. We believe governmental decisions and public policies should be based on available science and reason, and free of religion or religious preferences.
The latest news from SPI is dated 2016; they published a newsletter in 2020. It seems to be moribund.
Who remembers the atheist movement in the mid-2010s? It was crumbling fast, all these different groups were scrambling to stake out a position, and one of them was the Secular Coalition of America, which also still exists, and is actively lobbying the government for secular rights. But for a while it was led by someone named Edwina Rogers.
Who remembers Edwina Rogers? She was a Republican strategist who briefly led the SCA before getting fired in 2014, and then scurried off to found this pointless SPI think-tank.
We’re talking ancient history here, petty derailments of the atheist cause that plagued various groups over a decade ago. You probably don’t care about any of it. I don’t care about any of it. I hadn’t given any thought to SPI or Edwina Rogers for ten years.
But the other day, I got a legal notice from a real lawyer on behalf of Edwina Rogers that I had 14 days to delete two posts, one from 2015 and the other from 2017, claiming that they were in violation of copyright and were defamatory. The merely defamatory page is basically a quote from an SPI representative.
“I’m starting to believe that the reason the secular movement doesn’t have more women is the women. Prove me wrong.”
The quote is accurate, and I agree that it puts SPI in an ugly light, but I didn’t make it up. Don’t complain to me about the fact that SPI had several misogynists on staff.
The other post they want deleted is full of my opinions, and includes a promotional photo publicly posted by SPI, that features Dawkins and Harris and Shermer mugging for the camera. Back then this was something they wanted to advertise, but times have changed and now they’re apparently embarrassed by the situation. Mainly, though, it’s about the unsavory reputation of one Jonny Monserrat, and linked to his history of lawsuits.
I guess you better go check those old posts now, just in case I have to take them down. I don’t know that I will, because there’s nothing factually inaccurate in either of them, but jesus fuck I am tired of these corrupt cowards who now feel enabled to silence anyone who ever criticized them. Of course, most of you weren’t paying any attention to those topics in 2015, or have completely forgotten that period of atheist drama, or think Edwina Rogers and Jonny Monserrat are being really stupid. How many of you have bothered browsing the archives here from over a decade ago? But now I have to deal with lawyers again.
Someone needs to mention Barbra Streisand to those people.
When anyone invokes the Streisand Effect I think of the quotation “uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight”
Do they really think that they’re going to get anything out of this after all this time?
When anyone invokes the Streisand Effect I think of the quotation “uttering loud and continuous cries of apprehension in order to conceal the direction of her flight”
Do they really think that they’re going to get anything out of this after all this time?
Sorry, unintentional duplication .
Sorry, unintentional duplication .
If Edwina Rogers is trying to scrub her online reputation, does that mean she is seeking a new position? Where will she pop up next?
Sorry, intentional duplication.
@5: I hear the Trump Administration has some openings…
I saw the headline and the picture of Barbra and thought that she had died.
Oooph…
I feel you, PZ. I get to go to court next month on two charges that will most certainly be thrown out (because I did not break any law), but now I’m paying 6K to my lawyer to explain it nicely to the jury, instead of my smartass mouth getting me jailed for contempt of court…
I recognize the names, but I forget why they were notorious. Not inclined to revisit them, I guess brain bleach does work sometimes…
On a related issue :
“John Oliver Beats Lawsuit That Tried To Silence Him”
.
The ghouls did NOT like being correctly quoted when they casually dismissed the need to help a celebral palsy person who had been left in his own excrement. Fuck the bastards. If Al Quaeda comes after them, I’ll cheer them on.