ONTARIO, CANADA: The Ontario Human Right Tribunal (OHRT) has just ruled atheists need protection under the human rights legislation like other faiths such as Christianity, Muslims and Buddhists.

The Tribunal made this decision in response to a complaint by Rene Chouinard, an atheist, who wanted to distribute a book called “Just Pretend: A Freethought Book for Children” to children attending schools in the Niagara School Board (NSB). The book treats God as a mythical creature.

The NSB has a policy allowing faiths to release material to school children, it is completely voluntary as parents must give prior permission before children can receive materials. To this point, only the Gideons had taken advantage of this policy and distributed red letter Bibles.

Chouinard approached NSB to allow his book to be distributed, but the school board turned him down stating atheism was not a religion. In response, Chouinard took his complaint to the human rights tribunal stating atheism was in fact a creed.

Dictionary.reference.com defines a creed this way:

creed

noun

1. any system, doctrine, or formula of religious belief, as of a denomination.

2. any system or codification of belief or of opinion.

3. an authoritative, formulated statement of the chief articles of Christian belief, as the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, or the Athanasian Creed.

4. the creed, Apostles’ Creed.

• Atheism a creed that needs the same religious protections of Christianity and Islam: Ontario Human Rights Tribunal (news.nationalpost.com)