One of my myriad duties at the AHA is maintaining our Facebook page. Normally this isn’t very difficult; I try to post twice a day and check the page at the same time. The holidays, however, have been tricky.  I’ve happily plugged the humanist holidays—HumanLight and the winter solstice (although what makes the solstice a specifically humanist holiday, I’m not sure)—but totally ignored the major holidays, Christmas in particular.

Talking up the humanist holidays is easy; but ignoring Christmas is really hard. The simple fact is the vast majority of our members celebrate Christmas, albeit with all the necessary disclaimers: secularly, culturally, etc. So while I’m busy plugging a worthy holiday few have heard of (HumanLight is on the same day as Festivus and more people are familiar with that) AHA members are preparing for Christmas.This was brought home today when members reacted negatively to a “Happy HumanLight” post.

I get that people come to humanism for something different and that some feel berated by “Merry Christmas” and “the Reason for the Season.” But the AHA’s decisive and deliberate silence on the topic is not a good status quo; we clearly aren’t adequately and accurately representing the views and practices of our membership. We are, instead, actively ignoring the elephant in the room.

Now we can’t run around saying “Merry [secular] Christmas;” we would look confused. How then to straddle the line between being a Grinch and being sensitive to nontheism? I guess this is the quandary retailers, governments, and everyone else faces at the holidays. Who knew we would face it in the secular camp too?

I get it, we’re humanists and it would be inappropriate for me to post “Merry Christmas” on our Facebook Christmas morning. But I can’t ignore it any longer. So I will say it here, in a personal capacity: MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL.

On Friday Mayor Adrian Fenty signed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the signing ceremony and witness a moment in history of what has become one of the most important civil rights issues of my generation. “We knew this day would come,” Fenty said at the ceremony. “I say to the world: an era of struggle ends for thousands in Washington, DC.”

Unless Congress decides to step in during their review period, same-sex couples will be able to marry in the District starting in mid-spring.

However, although the ceremony  moved me--and it moved me greatly--I couldn’t help but be uneasy about where it took place: All Souls Unitarian Church. I need to start off by saying that I have the utmost respect for the Unitarian Church and All Souls in particular. The Church has long been a proponent of civil rights in DC and has done a lot of great work in the community. But however much good the church has done, it is a church never-the-less. And holding such a ceremony in a place of worship is misguided in that it serves to further blur the distinction between civil marriage and religious marriage--a distinction that is crucial for gaining acceptance for civil marriage across the United States.

Religious marriage is based on scripture and tradition. Different churches may have different qualifications for which couples’ marriages they will solemnize (many, of course, will refuse to perform or recognize a same-sex marriage) and have varying ideas about the purpose of a marriage and the duties and roles of those entering into it. However, civil marriage is a legal contract in which the state affords the couples certain benefits, rights and privileges. Religious and civil marriage are, in other words, very different things and defined in very different ways. But it’s partly the confusion about the differing roles of the two that have caused much of the opposition to gay marriage and the misconception that a change in who can enter into a civil marriage will disrupt the “traditional” definition of religious marriage many people of faith embrace. And in fact, a lot of the work I’ve been doing through the AHA to advocate for equality in marriage has centered on education about the difference between the two--particularly emphasizing that granting same-sex couples the right to enter into a civil marriage does not mean religious congregations will be forced to solemnize or recognize them as well.

Holding the signing ceremony in a government building rather than a church would have been much more appropriate and would have helped to stem fears that granting gays and lesbians the right to civil marriage would not force churches or other houses of worship that don’t recognize gay marriage to change their own, religiously-based definitions of marriage.

The above title is the title of a Legal Times blog that appeared on December 9 (“God” was in quotes).

The blog is about an emergency motion Mike Newdow and I filed asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to refrain from starting its session on December 15 with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”

That’s the date Newdow will argue on behalf of 250+ plaintiffs in Newdow v. Roberts that the infusion of religion into the presidential inaugural ceremonies — the oath administrator appending the presidential oath with “So help me God” and the invocation and benediction — violates the Constitution.

We based our motion on the issue of the appearance of justice. How can our clients expect justice when the U.S. Court of Appeals is engaging in similar religious practices?

While we lost the emergency appeal, Mike and I continue to explore alternatives to being coerced into listening to the court’s endorsement of religion.