As part of a joint effort among national atheist and secular groups, and in partnership with Boston Atheists and the Humanist Community at Harvard, we want to educate public officials about the diversity of their communities in times of tragedy and atheists’ desire and need to be included.
Atheists are hurting from this news as much as anyone else, and part of the grieving process for atheists affected includes things such as representation at the official memorial service and in the community response. When memorial services include exclusively religious language,  atheists who are affected are excluded and shut out from the community.
We are asking you to assist us by writing a short paragraph that includes the following three things:
1) Who you are and whom you represent or speak on behalf of (e.g. Kim Rippere is President of Secular Woman);
2) Why you’re hurt by the exclusion from the memorial;
3) What you would like to see happen as a solution.
Greg Epstein fro the Humanist Community at Harvard is meeting with public officials to discuss this issue and would like to pass on responses from our community’s leaders. We also encourage you to solicit responses from members of your communities (if you run a blog, your readers; if you have a TV show, your viewers, etc) that he can include as well.
Please send your responses by early this week so we can make sure he gets them in time.
IMPORTANT: Please send your responses to [email protected] and encourage your fans/listeners to do the same.

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