BrightsOnline.net now features a new initiative called Doing It By The Letter, announced last week to the London Brights Meetup group.
The initiative aims to get more brights writing more letters to national and global newspapers and online news sources.
Read more about the Doing It By The Letter project here.
And you can sign up to that — and to the BrightsOnline mailing list — here.
The UK has a new Brights portal, right here at UK.BrightsOnline.net.
The purpose of the UK.BrightsOnline subdomain is to unite exisiting Brights’ efforts in the UK, for example the Meetups and the SmartGroup which serves as the UK Brights discussion forum, and to extent activities by offering a new base from which to campaign on UK-specific matters of civic importance to brights.
The Equal Marriage BRights donations drive, reported last month (”Are you an equal marriage Bright?“), has been successful. 51 people have pledged to donate a total of £255 to the EqualMarriageRights.org appeal. It is, of course, a drop in the ocean, really. But BrightsOnline.net is now listed as a supporter of the overall campaign, and the News Feed will follow their progress.
Anyone can continue to send donations to the Equal Marriage Rights campaign. The contact details are here.
“Men’s Ministry leader”, Regis Nicoll, attacked brights, and the very concept of the brights, earlier this month in an article published by American Vision called “Putting on a ‘Bright’ Face“. (Also published at Crosswalk.)
Co-founder of the Brights’ Net, Paul Geisert, responded with a letter which was partially included in another article called “A Brights Responds“. But this title was something of a misnomer given that most of the article was written by American Vision President Gary DeMar, in which he placed demands on who should be allowed to offer a rebuttal to the charges made.
I agreed to allow “The Brights” to offer a rebuttal on the following condition: Richard Dawkins and Daniel C. Dennett, who are outspoken and out-front “Brights,” must be the ones to write the rebuttal
In line with EqualMarriageRights.org, Brights Online has launched a UK-based campaign contributing toward the appeal efforts of a British couple barred from legal recognition of their legitimate Canadian marriage.
The case was an attempt to challenge UK Civil Partnership legislation as discriminatory and degrading, under the European Convention on Human Rights.
See “Equal Marriage BRights” for further information on the campaign and especially how to offer your support.
From the Statement read by Sue Wilkinson outside the High Court on 31 July 2006:
We will appeal this judgment - if we can obtain financial support to enable us to do so. We have been ordered to pay £25,000 - our entire life savings - to the government.
This judgment insults lesbians and gay men. It will not stand the test of time.
Having mentioned BrightsOnline.net in the latest Bulletin (reported here) the Brights’ Net official homepage has now joined the Brights Webring (see the-brights.net/community). I’m also happy to say that the owner of BrightsOnline.net, Bob Churchill (disclosure: that’s me), has been made an “Ethusiastic Bright” for his troubles. See “Enthusiastic Brights (Page 4)“.
I would also like to welcome to the team our first two News Feed “correspondents”, Mr Rolland Everitt and Mr Michael A. Lewis. Both are based in the US but may be reporting on stories anywhere in the world.
As noted in the official Brights Bulletin #39 (31 July 2006) from the-brights.net:
There’s a new node for Brights to check out. You can visit it at www.brightsOnline.net. This new site is intended as a clean space to host various initiatives by Brights which need an internet presence. Anything from interesting creative projects to collaborative secularist campaigns might be hosted there. And originality will not be frowned upon!
The new site is the independent creative endeavor of Bob, a Bright in the U.K. (Please read Bob’s statement at the bottom of the home page concerning the site’s relationship to The Brights’ Net site.) His first two projects are likely to be of most interest to Brights who run their own websites. There is a BrightsOnline Webring and an aggregate blog called BrightsOnline Blogs. Both of these projects will encourage communication between diverse Brights’ sites and very likely bring new signatories to www.the-brights.net.
A WEB-RING FOR BRIGHTS AND “BRIGHTNESS”
Any personal site run by a Bright (your blog or homepage, for example) can join the Webring, as can any site on the topic of civil rights of Brights, Brightness, naturalism, secularism, etc. Actually, any site of probable generic interest to Brights may join. For overview information and instructions on joining the Webring, visit www.brightsOnline.net/webring.BLOGGING BY BRIGHTS
An aggregate blog pulls together the feeds from lots of different blogs. If you want your blog “syndicated” to the new aggregate blog at www.BrightsOnline.net/blogs, then email your RSS or Atom feed details to contact@brightsonline.net with “BLOG” in the subject line. (Or visit www.brightsOnline.net/blogs/help if the above doesn’t mean very much to you!)Feel free to offer further ideas, or to request hosting of projects in need of a web presence, by making contact@brightsonline.net.
NOTE FROM BRIGHTS CENTRAL: The main motivation for the Brights’ endeavor was to awaken more people who have a naturalistic worldview to the merits of their outlook and to their civic situations. BC seeks to facilitate positive endeavors that nourish the former and improve upon the latter. Consequently, we hope that the new Webring and blogging capacities for Brights will foster movement in constructive directions. For example, we anticipate more sites that will focus on, contribute to, or align well with the civic aims and principles of the overall movement. (You can read those aims on the main page at www.the-brights.net and examine the nine principles at www.the-brights.net/vision/principles.html). If you have developed such a site already, you are encouraged to become part of the new Webring right away. Thanks!
In addition to the Webring and the aggregate BrightsOnline Blogs, we’re also hosting a campaign against “Sect Schools” (UK) as well as this very News Feed you are reading right now. There’s a Featured Sites page up, and we’re mirroring the Brights Constituency Frappr map.
Also in development is a Brights “Radio” podcast show, for which submissions of content would be greatly appreciated. We’re looking especially for people who can independently produce short items for inclusion in the show, for example: music, interviews, reviews, commentary, perhaps even a drama!, Brights-related stories from your part of the world, testimony, messages, one-liners, or reports of Brights taking action. Bear in mind: we want to keep the quality high, that’s the quality of the audio and the content!
A big thanks to The Brights’ Net for the Bulletin announcement.
And I’d like to thank all the bloggers and web masters who are already contributing to the aggregate blog and to the webring.
Hopefully more blog contributors and webring member sites will continue to trickle in. Now it’s time to get thinking up your own ways to use BrightsOnline to help achieve the aims of the Brights’ movement.
