Humanists from around the world took part in a conference on “Sex and Secularism” in Montreal, Canada, over the weekend of August 3 to 5.

The agenda and other papers for the 2012 IHEU General Assembly in Montreal are available below for download by IHEU Member Organizations and representatives authorized to participate in this year’s General Assembly.

See more information and registration form here: http://www.iheu.org/ga2012. 

Organized by Humanist Canada, Quebec Humanist Association and IHEU in conjunction with the IHEU General Assembly. See http://www.humanistconference.ca/. 

IHEU is sponsoring a conference on “Sex and Secularism” in conjunction with the IHEU General Assembly in Montréal, Canada, from August 3 to 5, 2012. The conference will explore how Humanists can tackle the taboos and problems, challenges and opportunities that surround sexuality and gender.

When Rob Buckman – Humanist, oncologist, and TV personality – realized he was dying from an autoimmune disease, he thought it would be useful to make a film to help others learn from his death. He was right about the value of the film: Your Own Worst Enemy was a great critical success and helped countless people address a topic that is taboo and yet unavoidable. But Rob was wrong about the subject of the film: thanks to a new treatment he survived another three decades after the 1981 movie. And those three decades were filled with the love, learning and laughter that made him a hugely popular figure on both sides of the Atlantic.

On Thursday September 17 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, International PEN, with support from three other organisations and the Norwegian Mission to the UN Geneva, hosted a public meeting called "Faith and Free Speech, Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression." The consensus that emerged from the meeting was that criminalising defamation of religion is not the way forward.

See http://www.atheistconvention.org/ for details.

In the November edition of IHN, we reported on the position taken by the Federation Nationale de la Libre Pensée on the wearing of religious clothing in private life. The article argued strongly that while it is the duty of the state to ban all signs of religious membership in state schools and public services, it should refrain from dictating specific attire in the private domain.

In May this year, a Commission under Justice Sean Ryan reported to the Irish Government on the wide-scale abuse of children in Irish institutions over a very long period.