July 17, 2025 • 16 mins
RFR has been disinvited to participate as a vendor at the "in the park" event after the St. John's Pride parade Sunday July 20th. The reasons make no sense.
blake@recoveringfromreligion.org
St. John's Pride website
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blake@recoveringfromreligion.org
St. John's Pride website
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
an idea.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The population of atheists this country is going through the.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
because I put my hand on a book and made
a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,
Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is just a little short form broadcast of Bonus
this week. It's a conversation I just had on video
with Blake coll It recovering from Religion, and this is
kind of a timely thing about an event that is
happening in three days that RfR has been disinvited to.
(01:16):
So anyway, if you want to click the YouTube link
to watch that, as in the show notes, otherwise, here
we go. There is some controversy about an event that
is happening north of our border here in the United States,
and it has to do with a Pride event and
(01:36):
recovering from religion. One of my favorite organizations periods, and
certainly they have been pro LGBT, and yet they are
being denied access to a Pride event in Canada. I
want to get the details on that, so I'm talking
to Blake, call it an ambassador for FR. Blake, good
(01:58):
to see you, thanks for coming.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Thanks for having me on seth.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What's the name of the event in question.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's the Saint John's Pride in the Park after the parade.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And OURFR wanted to participate in what capacity.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We wanted to be a participant in terms of have
a table set up as we have done at many
Pride events, to have a display, to give out pants
and brochures. As a nonprofit organization, we would be there
just more or less interacting with people based on a
nonprofit vendor.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So I've got an email that you have shown me.
Here an email of acceptance from the code chair of
the event. He said, thanks for reaching out, apologies for
the delay and getting back recovering from religion. Is welcome
to have a space at our Pride in the Park
celebrations after the parade. This seems like an enthusiastic welcome, Blake.
(02:54):
This was your initial response, right.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, we were very excited. We were welcomed. We immediately
thanked them for letting us attend. Then we immediately started
working in logistic details.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
So I went back and told our told Darryl our doctor,
Daryl Ray, our president, we're very excited to have the
first presence ever in the province of up and Land
and Labrador.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So how long did this agreeable exchange go on? This
back and forth of emails in preparation.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
The exchange went on for approximately one week, back and
forth saying, yep, you guys can show up the proper application,
which we did. They said, because you're a nonprofit organization,
there was no fee when you come in. You know.
They did ask that we co exist with the out
in Fate and l group, so we had discussions with them.
Everything went back and forth. Tell about June ninth. The
(03:46):
acceptance came on June second, and the final correspondence was
on June ninth.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I want to read from that email if I may.
It says, Hello, Blake, thank you for your interest in
participating as a vendor at Pride in the Park, your
thoughtful consideration and consultation with our board and broader community.
We have decided to respectfully withdraw our approval to participate
(04:11):
in this year's event as a vendor. While we appreciate
the important work you do, we did not find a
strong alignment with the focus of Pride in the Park,
particularly in regard to visible engagement with the two S
lgbt QI A plus community. That's a mouthful for me.
(04:31):
I just usually say lgbt Our event aims to center
and celebrate this community, and we carefully consider how each
vendor supports that mission. Forgive my ignorance, Blake, real fast.
Can you help me teach me what this means? Two
S l gbt Q I A plus. What do those mean?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The acronym.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, so it's two spirit lesbian, gay trans I intersects
and plus cows all of the groups. So that's the acronym.
It's an expanded acronym. It used to be just LGBTQ plus,
but now they've been in by the two spirit.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
All right, Well if I use lgbt we're good. I
will you assume the rest for me? Okay, for Breathabe's sake.
What was interesting is that the co chair did some
media after there was a public response by you did
you guys go to the press when it was over, like,
did you say, hey, if we're not invited to participate?
(05:34):
And I think Darryl Ray said that roughly a third
of r f r's leadership is LGBTQ. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
That is a fact?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yep, about a third of our leadership and probably a
little less. We're not Suready exact numbers of our volunteers
identify as part of that community.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And as I understand it, according to Daryl, one of
the people on the board who may have uped to
your appearance and participation is himself a minister.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
To my knowledge?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
That is correct?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So we can intuit or we can infer maybe that
religious people are weird about a non religious organization being
in their midst You're not going after churches though, You're
not showing up and saying screw the rest of you guys.
You're not holding up banners that say all of this
mythology is stupid and superstition. It's not about any religious
(06:32):
criticism and RFI really doesn't do that anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Right now. The mission of our ers to provide hope
and support for those people who have been harmed by
our religion or questioning their faith. So we have been
there for the two s LGBTQIA plus community for a
long time, since our beginning. One of our members has
attended thirty Pride events in thirty years. So no, we
(06:55):
don't go there. We're not there to debate. And in fact,
one of our mandates if somebody shows up and says, hey,
you know what do you guys believe in God or what,
we don't engage that. That's not what recovering from religions for.
We're here to provide helping support.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's it. So then you told the organization if we're disinvited,
even though we are an advocate organization, we're disinvited, you
feel that you might have no choice but to go public.
Would that include talking to the press, etc. And did
they consider that a threat?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
They did? At first the wording we used was we
may have to look to alternative methods to get answers
for our board. We were as gentle as possible because
we weren't getting a reply, and that prompted a reply,
and then Daryl came back.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
With his reply from the email which was sent in
July the sixth. Dear Eddie the Coachair, this is doctor
Darryl Ray, president of the Board for Recovering from Religion International,
our Canadian volunteers, let me know of the Saint John's
Pride acceptance then rejection a month later. Looking over the correspondence,
(08:02):
I cannot but think some mistake has been made in
the research of your team. We are about as LGBTQ
allied as is humanly possible. We have several LGBTQ board members,
Several of our director level people are LGBTQ. We have
over five hundred volunteers worldwide, with around twenty percent or
more identifying as LGBTQ. We create hundreds of hours of content,
(08:26):
with around twenty five percent being directly related to issues
LGBTQ people face. Our resource library is full of curated
help for LGBTQ people all over the world. Now what
I find interesting, Blake, is that Eddie the co chair,
did a media interview himself. Is it a radio interview
(08:46):
that he gave, Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It was a radio interview with VOSDM News.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
And when he was talking about you, he said that
there was a concern that you had tokenized LGBTQPE.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
The big thing here is is like this group isn't
part of our community, and at first we had looked
at it and we saw the application. We kind of
did a really high level outreach to members in the
community and said, you know, how do we feel about this?
And at first, at face value, people said, you know,
this shouldn't be a problem. And then we then there
was some concerns I got raised in the community about
how and this again just no no connection to our
(09:23):
local community. People were ensure what their motive was. There's
always a concern that queer people are tokenized in these
kinds and these kinds of groups and these kinds of movements,
so purely just said of an abundance of caution, we
had reached out to them and said, you know what,
we looked into the Zeber, we don't have an established
relationship with you folks, and what we and we said
(09:45):
to them, we said, your representatives are more than welcome
to attend and be part of Pride because as far
as as we understand it, they're local. The person that's
connected to them locally is a member of the kind
of the queer community, just not in Saint John's or
the Avalon. So we had said, you know, we still
encourage a person to attend and like they to take
in the festival and participate and kind of get some
(10:06):
time in community and if we can, we'll talk about
this in August and see what next year looks like.
And they did not like that response, and there was
an escalation protocol that got launched. City councilors were contacted
for comment on this, which why we don't understand. They
(10:28):
got very aggressive demanding to see our internal policies and
we were given timelines of when we had to respond
or things are being escalated. And I can understand people
being upset because Pride of fun time you want to
be a part of it. But just the way that
things have played out over the last couple of weeks
since we since we informed them and just ask them
to come and be in community, is really interesting and
(10:52):
it really speaks to an entitlement to access to our
community that some groups have and it's something that we
try to be really cognizant of and that we try
and navigate as best we can. And we're never going
to get at one hundred percent right, and we're covering
from religion. Maybe an apt group that should be at
that pride, But the big thing is that they're not
a part of our community and they don't have a
(11:13):
connection to our community, but there is a sense of
there is a sense of entitlement that that that they
should have access to our community. And the reality is
is that these are events that are put off by
Saint John's Pride, and first and foremost we try and
make sure that the community that we know are protected
and that they're going to have a good time. Not
(11:35):
to say that anything wouldn't have happened, but that it's
that missing it's that missing connection piece. So I think
that if we're covering from religion wants to participate in
future pride, that there's just some work that has to
happen between both organizations so that we know who they are,
we know that we know what they're about, and then
that can be future times. But I think if things
(11:56):
keep going the way that they are, it's it's going
to be hard for us to kind of build that
relationship in So the door isn't closed, no, And we
told them that, we were very very clear in our
email correspondents to them, look like, we encourage your members
to attend because they're queer. They're they're queer members in
Newfoundland and Labrador and if they're looking to fine community,
(12:18):
that's what we offer up. And we just told them
we're in the middle of our festival, we don't we
can't dedicate time towards this, but we'd be willing to speak,
to be willing to speak after the festival. And then
press releases started going out and we were accused of
only catering to faith groups, which for it. And that
was the other thing. Is anybody that's anybody that's in
(12:39):
organizing in pride, organizable pride organizing to be accused of
making a requirement to participate is that you have to
be a person of faith. That would not be a
very full Pride festival. And I think it's indicative and
how there's a little bit of a disconnect there between
their organization and what it is that pride too.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You would assure anybody and everybody who was and within
listening distance of that interview that LGBT people are not
tokenized within RfR, right.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're really not.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It's we don't. I mean, we're there to support them,
We provide we have a support group once a month,
which is huge. I've actually been a host in it.
We've got to bring an extra host because we have
so many, so many people show up, you know, we
take calls every day from people in that community. I
think that the furthest from tokenized as you can get.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So what's the goal now with the event which is
coming up in a few days. If they were to
invite you or reinvite you after disinviting you, after inviting you,
would you participate or is the goal now something else?
What are you trying to achieve with this publicity here?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
One our goal is to be welcome. We will show up,
we will shake every body's hand. There will be no
ill will bygones be bygones. If that doesn't happen, we
will be going to the event and attempting to attend
in some capacity. I'm not sure. Where it's a public park,
it will be asked to leave given the nature of
(14:15):
the event that I'm not sure. But our goal in
this either way is to attend, and we really want
to attend as equals. That is our only goal here
to be included.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So Blake isn't going to be out there with the
big sign that says screw these guys trying to march
in the parade, that's not going to be your MO
That's not what's going to helpen No.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And I have lots of you know, family and friends
who are part of this community as well, so I
not only represent our air, I'm representing them as well.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
How can we support you at this measure? Just getting
the word out that you were disinvited and that all
you want to do is be an advocate. I know
we want to promote secular humanist values and talk about
how we are advocates and agents of good. Beyond that,
is there anything we can do for you?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I think reaching out to not not in a protest manner,
but reaching out to you know, Saint John's Pride in
a manner to ask we feel these this group should
be included. Pride is about equity, diversity, and inclusion, so
include us. What we don't want is anybody calling up
in any kind of militant fashion or any kind of anger.
(15:24):
We want to do this right. We've We've conducted ourselves
with professionalism, you know, and I've had the very fortunate
task of working under doctor Daryl Ray who has been phenomenal,
and we want to continue to build the reputation and
you know, support us call Saint John's Pride pop Us.
You know some we're actually accepting some things on our
(15:45):
social media from people who have been helped by recovering
from religion. So anything like that just we asked, not
in a militant fashion. The deal, the idea here is
to get acceptance in this.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We just want to see it at the table, just
on a fair and equal seat at the table, to
fight for a worthy cause. Blake, call it ambassador for
recovering from religion. All AA, accumulate some links, throw those
in the description box, and we'll keep an eye on
(16:17):
your story and let us know if anything else happens.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Okay, brother, thanks Seth, greatly appreciate your talk.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
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an idea.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
The population of atheists this country is going through the.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not
because I put my hand on a book and made
a wish and working together for a more rational world.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,
Fusian wisdom will come to you that way.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is just a little short form broadcast of Bonus
this week. It's a conversation I just had on video
with Blake coll It recovering from Religion, and this is
kind of a timely thing about an event that is
happening in three days that RfR has been disinvited to.
(01:16):
So anyway, if you want to click the YouTube link
to watch that, as in the show notes, otherwise, here
we go. There is some controversy about an event that
is happening north of our border here in the United States,
and it has to do with a Pride event and
(01:36):
recovering from religion. One of my favorite organizations periods, and
certainly they have been pro LGBT, and yet they are
being denied access to a Pride event in Canada. I
want to get the details on that, so I'm talking
to Blake, call it an ambassador for FR. Blake, good
(01:58):
to see you, thanks for coming.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Thanks for having me on seth.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What's the name of the event in question.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
It's the Saint John's Pride in the Park after the parade.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And OURFR wanted to participate in what capacity.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
We wanted to be a participant in terms of have
a table set up as we have done at many
Pride events, to have a display, to give out pants
and brochures. As a nonprofit organization, we would be there
just more or less interacting with people based on a
nonprofit vendor.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
So I've got an email that you have shown me.
Here an email of acceptance from the code chair of
the event. He said, thanks for reaching out, apologies for
the delay and getting back recovering from religion. Is welcome
to have a space at our Pride in the Park
celebrations after the parade. This seems like an enthusiastic welcome, Blake.
(02:54):
This was your initial response, right.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, we were very excited. We were welcomed. We immediately
thanked them for letting us attend. Then we immediately started
working in logistic details.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
So I went back and told our told Darryl our doctor,
Daryl Ray, our president, we're very excited to have the
first presence ever in the province of up and Land
and Labrador.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So how long did this agreeable exchange go on? This
back and forth of emails in preparation.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
The exchange went on for approximately one week, back and
forth saying, yep, you guys can show up the proper application,
which we did. They said, because you're a nonprofit organization,
there was no fee when you come in. You know.
They did ask that we co exist with the out
in Fate and l group, so we had discussions with them.
Everything went back and forth. Tell about June ninth. The
(03:46):
acceptance came on June second, and the final correspondence was
on June ninth.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
I want to read from that email if I may.
It says, Hello, Blake, thank you for your interest in
participating as a vendor at Pride in the Park, your
thoughtful consideration and consultation with our board and broader community.
We have decided to respectfully withdraw our approval to participate
(04:11):
in this year's event as a vendor. While we appreciate
the important work you do, we did not find a
strong alignment with the focus of Pride in the Park,
particularly in regard to visible engagement with the two S
lgbt QI A plus community. That's a mouthful for me.
(04:31):
I just usually say lgbt Our event aims to center
and celebrate this community, and we carefully consider how each
vendor supports that mission. Forgive my ignorance, Blake, real fast.
Can you help me teach me what this means? Two
S l gbt Q I A plus. What do those mean?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
The acronym.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, so it's two spirit lesbian, gay trans I intersects
and plus cows all of the groups. So that's the acronym.
It's an expanded acronym. It used to be just LGBTQ plus,
but now they've been in by the two spirit.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
All right, Well if I use lgbt we're good. I
will you assume the rest for me? Okay, for Breathabe's sake.
What was interesting is that the co chair did some
media after there was a public response by you did
you guys go to the press when it was over, like,
did you say, hey, if we're not invited to participate?
(05:34):
And I think Darryl Ray said that roughly a third
of r f r's leadership is LGBTQ. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (05:43):
That is a fact?
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yep, about a third of our leadership and probably a
little less. We're not Suready exact numbers of our volunteers
identify as part of that community.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
And as I understand it, according to Daryl, one of
the people on the board who may have uped to
your appearance and participation is himself a minister.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (06:07):
To my knowledge?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
That is correct?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So we can intuit or we can infer maybe that
religious people are weird about a non religious organization being
in their midst You're not going after churches though, You're
not showing up and saying screw the rest of you guys.
You're not holding up banners that say all of this
mythology is stupid and superstition. It's not about any religious
(06:32):
criticism and RFI really doesn't do that anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Right now. The mission of our ers to provide hope
and support for those people who have been harmed by
our religion or questioning their faith. So we have been
there for the two s LGBTQIA plus community for a
long time, since our beginning. One of our members has
attended thirty Pride events in thirty years. So no, we
(06:55):
don't go there. We're not there to debate. And in fact,
one of our mandates if somebody shows up and says, hey,
you know what do you guys believe in God or what,
we don't engage that. That's not what recovering from religions for.
We're here to provide helping support.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
That's it. So then you told the organization if we're disinvited,
even though we are an advocate organization, we're disinvited, you
feel that you might have no choice but to go public.
Would that include talking to the press, etc. And did
they consider that a threat?
Speaker 3 (07:25):
They did? At first the wording we used was we
may have to look to alternative methods to get answers
for our board. We were as gentle as possible because
we weren't getting a reply, and that prompted a reply,
and then Daryl came back.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
With his reply from the email which was sent in
July the sixth. Dear Eddie the Coachair, this is doctor
Darryl Ray, president of the Board for Recovering from Religion International,
our Canadian volunteers, let me know of the Saint John's
Pride acceptance then rejection a month later. Looking over the correspondence,
(08:02):
I cannot but think some mistake has been made in
the research of your team. We are about as LGBTQ
allied as is humanly possible. We have several LGBTQ board members,
Several of our director level people are LGBTQ. We have
over five hundred volunteers worldwide, with around twenty percent or
more identifying as LGBTQ. We create hundreds of hours of content,
(08:26):
with around twenty five percent being directly related to issues
LGBTQ people face. Our resource library is full of curated
help for LGBTQ people all over the world. Now what
I find interesting, Blake, is that Eddie the co chair,
did a media interview himself. Is it a radio interview
(08:46):
that he gave, Yes.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It was a radio interview with VOSDM News.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
And when he was talking about you, he said that
there was a concern that you had tokenized LGBTQPE.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
The big thing here is is like this group isn't
part of our community, and at first we had looked
at it and we saw the application. We kind of
did a really high level outreach to members in the
community and said, you know, how do we feel about this?
And at first, at face value, people said, you know,
this shouldn't be a problem. And then we then there
was some concerns I got raised in the community about
how and this again just no no connection to our
(09:23):
local community. People were ensure what their motive was. There's
always a concern that queer people are tokenized in these
kinds and these kinds of groups and these kinds of movements,
so purely just said of an abundance of caution, we
had reached out to them and said, you know what,
we looked into the Zeber, we don't have an established
relationship with you folks, and what we and we said
(09:45):
to them, we said, your representatives are more than welcome
to attend and be part of Pride because as far
as as we understand it, they're local. The person that's
connected to them locally is a member of the kind
of the queer community, just not in Saint John's or
the Avalon. So we had said, you know, we still
encourage a person to attend and like they to take
in the festival and participate and kind of get some
(10:06):
time in community and if we can, we'll talk about
this in August and see what next year looks like.
And they did not like that response, and there was
an escalation protocol that got launched. City councilors were contacted
for comment on this, which why we don't understand. They
(10:28):
got very aggressive demanding to see our internal policies and
we were given timelines of when we had to respond
or things are being escalated. And I can understand people
being upset because Pride of fun time you want to
be a part of it. But just the way that
things have played out over the last couple of weeks
since we since we informed them and just ask them
to come and be in community, is really interesting and
(10:52):
it really speaks to an entitlement to access to our
community that some groups have and it's something that we
try to be really cognizant of and that we try
and navigate as best we can. And we're never going
to get at one hundred percent right, and we're covering
from religion. Maybe an apt group that should be at
that pride, But the big thing is that they're not
a part of our community and they don't have a
(11:13):
connection to our community, but there is a sense of
there is a sense of entitlement that that that they
should have access to our community. And the reality is
is that these are events that are put off by
Saint John's Pride, and first and foremost we try and
make sure that the community that we know are protected
and that they're going to have a good time. Not
(11:35):
to say that anything wouldn't have happened, but that it's
that missing it's that missing connection piece. So I think
that if we're covering from religion wants to participate in
future pride, that there's just some work that has to
happen between both organizations so that we know who they are,
we know that we know what they're about, and then
that can be future times. But I think if things
(11:56):
keep going the way that they are, it's it's going
to be hard for us to kind of build that
relationship in So the door isn't closed, no, And we
told them that, we were very very clear in our
email correspondents to them, look like, we encourage your members
to attend because they're queer. They're they're queer members in
Newfoundland and Labrador and if they're looking to fine community,
(12:18):
that's what we offer up. And we just told them
we're in the middle of our festival, we don't we
can't dedicate time towards this, but we'd be willing to speak,
to be willing to speak after the festival. And then
press releases started going out and we were accused of
only catering to faith groups, which for it. And that
was the other thing. Is anybody that's anybody that's in
(12:39):
organizing in pride, organizable pride organizing to be accused of
making a requirement to participate is that you have to
be a person of faith. That would not be a
very full Pride festival. And I think it's indicative and
how there's a little bit of a disconnect there between
their organization and what it is that pride too.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
You would assure anybody and everybody who was and within
listening distance of that interview that LGBT people are not
tokenized within RfR, right.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
They're not.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They're really not.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
It's we don't. I mean, we're there to support them,
We provide we have a support group once a month,
which is huge. I've actually been a host in it.
We've got to bring an extra host because we have
so many, so many people show up, you know, we
take calls every day from people in that community. I
think that the furthest from tokenized as you can get.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
So what's the goal now with the event which is
coming up in a few days. If they were to
invite you or reinvite you after disinviting you, after inviting you,
would you participate or is the goal now something else?
What are you trying to achieve with this publicity here?
Speaker 3 (13:54):
One our goal is to be welcome. We will show up,
we will shake every body's hand. There will be no
ill will bygones be bygones. If that doesn't happen, we
will be going to the event and attempting to attend
in some capacity. I'm not sure. Where it's a public park,
it will be asked to leave given the nature of
(14:15):
the event that I'm not sure. But our goal in
this either way is to attend, and we really want
to attend as equals. That is our only goal here
to be included.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So Blake isn't going to be out there with the
big sign that says screw these guys trying to march
in the parade, that's not going to be your MO
That's not what's going to helpen No.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
And I have lots of you know, family and friends
who are part of this community as well, so I
not only represent our air, I'm representing them as well.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
How can we support you at this measure? Just getting
the word out that you were disinvited and that all
you want to do is be an advocate. I know
we want to promote secular humanist values and talk about
how we are advocates and agents of good. Beyond that,
is there anything we can do for you?
Speaker 3 (15:03):
I think reaching out to not not in a protest manner,
but reaching out to you know, Saint John's Pride in
a manner to ask we feel these this group should
be included. Pride is about equity, diversity, and inclusion, so
include us. What we don't want is anybody calling up
in any kind of militant fashion or any kind of anger.
(15:24):
We want to do this right. We've We've conducted ourselves
with professionalism, you know, and I've had the very fortunate
task of working under doctor Daryl Ray who has been phenomenal,
and we want to continue to build the reputation and
you know, support us call Saint John's Pride pop Us.
You know some we're actually accepting some things on our
(15:45):
social media from people who have been helped by recovering
from religion. So anything like that just we asked, not
in a militant fashion. The deal, the idea here is
to get acceptance in this.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
We just want to see it at the table, just
on a fair and equal seat at the table, to
fight for a worthy cause. Blake, call it ambassador for
recovering from religion. All AA, accumulate some links, throw those
in the description box, and we'll keep an eye on
(16:17):
your story and let us know if anything else happens.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Okay, brother, thanks Seth, greatly appreciate your talk.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
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