Recently, the Freedom From Religion Foundation removed an article from their web site that had been written by the distinguished biologist Jerry Coyne. It was a very measured article titled, “Biology is not bigotry”. In response to their treatment of his stated position as a secular blasphemy, he resigned from the FFRF Board and was followed out the door by first Steven Pinker and then Richard Dawkins.
The response from some self-styled anti-woke warriors has been entirely predictable. Thomas Sheedy has published a video seeking to use this issue to recruit members to Atheists for Liberty from FFRF. He referred to the decision of FFRF as “cowardly”, and promised that AfL would instead “fight”.
This isn’t the first time that Thomas Sheedy as President of AfL has promised to “fight” against secular blasphemy policies. In 2020, Michael Sherlock was suspended for 30 days without pay as Executive Director of Atheist Alliance International, in part for tweeting that religion is “a retarded relic”. Michael wrote a follow up blog describing how he had used the term “retarded” as a synonym for ‘slowed down’ or ‘held back’, in the context of referring to religion as a set of ideas that are stuck in the past. He was clearly not directing the term “retarded” at any person or group of people, and AAI explicitly accepted his explanation. Nevertheless, the secular blasphemy policy at AAI insisted on sanctioning Michael anyway, since they decided that using that word is “insensitive” even when it is used “without intending any disrespect or offence to anyone”. In response to this AAI secular blasphemy policy, Thomas Sheedy also promised to “fight”.
Of course, that was back when it suited Thomas Sheedy to attack AAI. The very next year, when AAI offered him a position on their Advisory Council, it became personally inconvenient for Thomas Sheedy to fight this particular secular blasphemy policy. Rather than his opposition to this policy being a “fight” to save “civilisation”, when accepting this policy became necessary for his personal advancement it instead became “a non-issue”.
At the time of writing, Thomas Sheedy remains a member of the AAI Advisory Council, and the same AAI secular blasphemy policy still remains the stated position of the AAI Disciplinary Committee. I guess the only question then remaining, is how long it will be before it suits the personal interests of Thomas Sheedy to support the current FFRF policy? In the meantime, he can keep calling FFRF “cowardly” while he remains unable to muster the courage to oppose secular blasphemy policies in the organisations where he has influence.
Please spare me from the pontifications of the atheist anti-woke warriors, who only fight secular blasphemy policies when it suits them personally.
