humanist

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IT’S a challenge keeping up with Leo Igwe, who was, until recently the International Humanist and Ethical Union’s (IHEU) Representative for Western and Southern Africa.

This one-man human rights dynamo has championed causes that few would dare touch, and in doing so has earned the admiration of thousands around the world, and the hatred of many others who regard his efforts – including his championing of gay rights – as unacceptable meddling in religion and politics.

Igwe, who recently left IHEU in order to research African witchcraft at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, last month returned from a two-day conference on a problem endemic in Nigeria and other parts of Africa: the branding of children as witches, something which is also occurring in the UK.

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Pink Humanist editor Barry Duke goes for the jugular

In a bizarre, round-about way I learned last month that that the words “heterosexual” and “homosexual” never existed until they were invented by a 19th-century writer called Karl-Maria Kertbeny.

I came by this information after receiving a long (3,007-word) email from Christian zealot David Skinner, who is trying – with scant success – to get Britons to boycott the supermarket giant Tesco after it announced that it would be sponsoring World Pride 2012 in London.

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