Written by Barbara Smith,
Blogger and social justice advocate,
https://www.facebook.com/HWdemocrats/
Concerned Hamilton Citizen and Activist Blogger for transparency in government.
The following shares the video, transcript and my analysis of the Hamilton Human Rights Commission discussion at the 1-3-22 Board of Selectman (soon to be renamed Board of Select) as pertains to definitions of protected classes. It is lengthy, so I provide the option of scrolling down to my photo with comments in purple.
Note: The computer transcriptions are not always accurate, so I did my best to correct confusing sentences and the language will reflect conversational speech and punctuation and grammar are imperfect. I took the liberty of deleting filler words such as “um” and “er” and repetetitive words “the, the etc…”
Please watch the complete video at the following link:
Hamilton Select Board 1.3.22 – YouTube
I, (Barbara Smith) , fervently request that the classes of “women” and “atheists” be included as specific marginalized and vulnerable protected classes in the policy. Two of the Board of Select members abstained from approving the policy last spring because they believe that the policy should either
1. include ALL protected classes OR
2. remain non-specific by not naming specific classes.
Ommission of these 2 classes, harms the very people who the Commission is supposed to help !! The Commission is supposed to exist to educate people who do not understand the ramifications of discrimination. It is ironic that the very people who are writing the policy refuse to be inclusive. Providing definitions may be a helpful band aid but it is not a substitute for inclusing atheists and women as a class in need of protection. This blog post is focused on the human rights of atheists. and if readers cringe to learn that atheists live in our town and deserve human rights protection, that is a demonstration of why I need to be protected in the first place.
Let’ get the human rights policy RIGHT so that we can protect all the marginalized groups that we all care so much about!!!
Video time: 50:24 Selectman, Bill Olson,: thanks for picking this up so the next part of the agenda is recommendations for an amendment to the policy and definition so that was also part of our packet so and when you walk us through what your changes are required .
video 50:55 Hamilton Human Rights Commision Chair, Ann Brady: If there needs to be more discussion I may turn it over to Jared as he really took the lead on this but this grows out of a presentation that we made to you back in May when we explored how necessary it was to change the protected classes that were listed in the policy that formed the HRC and at the time you took a vote (Two Select Board members abstained) that we did not need to change the listing of protected classes but you asked us to create this definition section to show what made up all of the protected classes and clearly define each of the protected classes and any other terms that might not be easily understood so that people could see the range of everything that we were trying to work toward so that’s what this represents you should have the policy there in front of you showing footnotes or endnotes that would show you how the definition section would be referenced as well as an attachment with the complete definition section that gives you the entire set of definitions that has been researched and developed by the right so i said well
Video 52:11 Bill Olson: so i see the three footnotes and what i didn’t see until recently because you said was the appendix A so i saw that later because it wasn’t with the original packet but i have seen it now so okay i have not had a chance to go through it because it came a little bit later and i didn’t actually look for it in a separate email but no this is what we asked to do and but we can just go through real quick and Joe maybe show John if you have both in front of you we can share first the notes from the packet the three notes the bottom so it says that regardless of race color ancestry national origin sex sexual orientation gender identity age, religion disability marital family status military status. social economic status and or ex-offender status there’s three notes the first note is sex refers to sex assign at birth is the classification of male female or intersex based off of anatomy chromosomes and hormones ,
Number two was religion, religious creed means the actual or supposed faith belief or moral philosophy of an individual or the lack thereof and then please see appendix a for an extensive listing of items related to personal identity. yeah it’s right at the bottom there or it should be it won’t be a good part keeps going up this page go up a little bit more than right there right there very small right down the bottom here, page 23… and then the origin of the notes with these notes did you have to create them yourself did you find them in other sort of another documents of the same sort of other communities or just so have some background on on your hard work could you repeat that question please descrip so your definitions that you came up with you guys create these did you guys sorry true i think you get some feed back sorry just looking for the origin of the definitions i think that makes sense we just want to make sure so that these been tried and tested definitions or did you have to sort of combine research that you did from many different sources…
The discussion started heating up because I wrote in the chat that “atheists” should be included as a protected class in HR policy.
Video 54:25 Ann Brady: i’m going to actually let- if Jared does not mind answering that question since he and a couple of others did the bulk of the research on the definitions it was a great deal of research i would prefer that he answered that question…
The HRC took a vote that we did not need to change the listing of protected classes, and that instead a definition section would suffice. Only two Select board members understand the need to include the vulnerable classes of “women” and “atheists” and wanted to either have the classes included or have no listing of classes. My choice to not practice religion needs to be a protected human right.
The Hamilton HRC has an opportunity to be better than other towns that may not recognize the rights of atheists. It was not that long ago when gay people had to change hearts and policy to ensure their human rights. Hamilton has an opportunity to be progressive in human rights regardless of what other towns do with definitions.
Video 54:59 Jared Hughes, yeah, so our group did look at definition sections from other municipalities from universities and colleges throughout the country and then from our own government resources to look at the most up-to-date language around all of these definitions that we had already decided to include so these are not our own creation so much as trying to make sure we were matching current definitions across our communities within Massachusetts as well as broader across the country .
Video 55:32 Bill Olson: I like that you included the references as well too in the… i’m in favor of clear and succinct and i think these are clear and succinct, succinct is important i think it’s something like this which is why we were trying to keep the actual purpose succinct and clear and not add to it but I’ve been interested do you have anything else to say before we let the board discuss , do you have any other comments
Video 56:22 Jared Hughes: so on the note of succinct we did want to only specifically address the two terms that were up for debate previously about whether they needed to be expanded upon with sex and religion on the document but we wanted to ensure that we did the full definition section as an appendix and useful resource for anyone who wanted to look into those further
Video 56:22, Rosie Kennedy: so where is the definition of just sex ? you certainly have a very in-depth explanation of gender expression but where is sex because there are still a lot of issues that are particular to women .
56:35 Jared Hughes: Rosie we we put the definitions for sex and religion directly on the policy document and then the further definitions are in the appendix which has definitions for every other segment that was in our policy.
56:56 Selectman Shawn Farrel: Jared, are you talking about the three kind of footnotes on the bottom of the policy so
video 57:07 Jared Hughes: if it would be helpful instead of just doing further definitions we could also put sex and religion into that appendix for the full definition sections .
I urge the BOS and HRC to protect atheists rights along with the other named protected classes (i.e. ex felons) . I do not want my rights to be relegated to an appendix.
57:09: Shawn Farrel: i kind of think we should even though it’s redundant but i think that it should be in there just for a little more clarity so i don’t want to be overkill with it but i think that some people might overlook those three footnotes and go into the definitions and then wonder where it is
57:32: Jared Hughes: yeah that makes sense and just as a note to the individual Barbara Smith who’s brought up atheists during our investigations of definition sections from both municipalities and the government, atheists are not defined as a separate group it is what we decided to go to with this let me pull it back up specifically yeah or the last arrow right it means actual or supposed faith belief or moral philosophy of an individual or the lack thereof and so that was what we saw as the common vernacular around religion and atheism.
Ann Brady: and atheism has been protected as a religious belief in many court cases
Jared Hughes: so on the precedent there was such that we decided to just keep religion and not create a new segment on our definition section
Atheism is not a religion, regardless of the court’s ignorance and it is harmful to deny specific class protections to this group. I do not have a lack of moral philosophy as the definition imples. To say that atheists have a lack of moral philosophy is insulting and demonstrates ignorance and bias against atheists. Is this really how the human rights commission wants to treat me? Hamilton has an opportunity to educate and expand knowledge on what it means to be an atheist.
There is no logical reason to exclude “atheists” as a protected class from a human rights policy, unless the deciders in power (3 out of 5 on the select board) have prejudice against atheists…..
Members of groups in power should not have say over groups that are not in power. That is the equivalent of saying that homeosexuals are nothing more than non-heterosexuals and are protected under the definitions of gender.
Please learn that……
According to American Atheists ” While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. To put it in a more humorous way: If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Despite the fact that atheism is not a religion, atheism is protected by many of the same Constitutional rights that protect religion. That, however, does not mean that atheism is itself a religion, only that our sincerely held (lack of) beliefs are protected in the same way as the religious beliefs of others. Similarly, many “interfaith” groups will include atheists. This, again, does not mean that atheism is a religious belief.
Some groups will use words like Agnostic, Humanist, Secular, Bright, Freethinker, or any number of other terms to self identify. Those words are perfectly fine as a self-identifier, but we strongly advocate using the word that people understand: Atheist. Don’t use those other terms to disguise your atheism or to shy away from a word that some think has a negative connotation. We should be using the terminology that is most accurate and that answers the question that is actually being asked. We should use the term that binds all of us together.
The discussion moves on to the topic of why the HR policy should include women as a protected class” I will end here and create a different post to address this topic….
I (Barbara Smith) just want to gently remind the public that I agree with the Select Board members who want to either include women and atheists as protected classes or keep the policy short and sweet to make sure it covers everybody so that you don’t exclude anything. My opinion does not make me a “racist”, anti human rights I just hope that nobody calls me a “racist” , a TERF nor anti-human rights. I am trying to be proactive to prevent name calling….
In conclusion:
Just because the Hamilton Human Rights Commission and only 3 out of 5 selectmen are against recognizing atheists as a specific vulnerable class and then they created a presentation to support their claims at a May 3rd presentation does not justify discrimination against peole like me. I agree with the select board member who explains that we need diversity on the commission. I would consider joining the board but I will not work with angry people who hold these biases against atheists.