Covenant for freedom of the mind

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The Federation for Freedom of the Mind Bavaria Kdö.R. (Abbreviation bfg Bayern ) is a free-spirited oriented public corporation in Bavaria . It is an umbrella organization of nine local communities with a total of approx. 8,000 members (as of January 2020), the largest local community of which is the bfg Munich with approx. 2,300 members.

history

The origins go back to the German Revolution of 1848; he comes from the free religious movement . Former names of the bfg Bayern were Freireligiöse Landesgemeinde Bayern K. d. Ö. R. and Free Spiritual Community Bavaria (FLGB) K. d. ÖR In December 1934, the Free Religious State Congregation was banned. The free religious community in Munich (bfg Munich) was able to continue to exist and was a member of the non-prohibited Free Religious Community of Germany . Individuals and groups joined the German Faith Movement .

aims

The declared aim of the bfg Bayern is to represent the interests of non-denominational citizens, i.e. people who do not belong to any church or other religious community (Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.). In particular, he represents people with a free- spirited , agnostic , humanistic or atheistic worldview.

According to the statutes, the bfg Bayern is “dogma-free, humanistic, democratic and non-partisan”. It stands for the basic values ​​of self-determination , tolerance , reason and humanity as humanity. It is based on the principles of the Enlightenment and humanism and calls for a consistent separation of state and church . An important concern is to dismantle the privileges of the churches and religious communities.

Like several small religious communities, the bfg Bayern receives a state grant that the Free State of Bavaria grants on its own initiative.

organization

The bfg Bayern is a member of the Coordination Council of Secular Organizations and of the International Humanist and Ethical Union . Several regional branches of the bfg Bayern are members of the International Federation of Non-Denominational and Atheists .

The bfg Bayern has member organizations in Deggendorf , Erlangen , Fürth , Kulmbach / Bayreuth , Munich , Neuburg / Ingolstadt , Nuremberg , Regensburg and Schweinfurt . Individual local communities are registered as registered associations, most of them as corporations under public law. The freethinkers Ulm / Neu-Ulm are affiliated as a corporate member of the bfg Bavaria.

The Freigeistige Rundschau , a publication by the bfg Bayern, appears four times a year . In Bayerischer Rundfunk , the bfg Bayern regularly gives Sunday radio lectures every 6 weeks.

Membership fees and donations to the bfg Bayern and the bfg Erlangen are tax-deductible due to their recognized non-profit status.

The corporation supports u. a. the Atheist Bus Campaign , an advertising campaign designed to raise awareness of atheism.

The bfg Munich, together with the bfg Bayern, are bringing actions against the decree of the Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder and the 2018 amendment to the Police Task Act in Bavaria.

Another lawsuit to discriminate against ideological associations in the Interstate Broadcasting Treaty has been filed with the European Court of Human Rights , after the Bavarian Administrative Court ruled that it was also negative in the second instance.

successes

On November 30, 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court, at the request of the bfg, declared the total ban on dancing on Good Friday , as it had previously applied in Bavaria , to be unconstitutional. The general ban violated the freedom of assembly and belief .

A membership in the bfg Bayern protected marriages of different faiths in Bavaria from collecting the special church money until 2017 . In 2018 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria , which was the only denomination to levy the special church fee, announced that it would no longer levy this. A constitutional complaint filed in 2019 is intended to bring about a nationwide uniform regulation for protection against the special church money in other federal states.

Great fun party

The bfg has been holding great fun parties on Good Friday since the Federal Constitutional Court allowed this. The police received a bomb threat in advance against the Heidenspaßparty organized by the Erlangener bfg in 2019. The police did not assume that there was any real danger, but nevertheless searched the premises of the celebration with explosive detection dogs. Since they did not discover any dangers, the event was carried out without any problems with intensified bag checks.

literature

  • Franz Bohl: The free religious movement in Bavaria. Becoming and working. Free Religious State Congregation Bavaria, Nuremberg, 1959.
  • Karl Bierl (Hrsg.): 25 years Bund für Geistes Freiheit (bfg) Regensburg. 1977 to 2002. Federation for Freedom of the Spirit, Regensburg 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Helmut Steuerwald: Critical History of Religions and Free Worldviews. An introduction. Angelika Lenz, Neustadt am Rübenberge 1999, ISBN 3-933037-08-5 , p. 511.
  2. Helmut Steuerwald: Critical History of Religions and Free Worldviews. An introduction. Angelika Lenz, Neustadt am Rübenberge 1999, ISBN 3-933037-08-5 , p. 510 ff.
  3. At the end of the campaign ( memento of March 28, 2012 on WebCite ) see "Supporters"
  4. Does the spaghetti monster have to pay GEZ? ( hpd.de [accessed September 26, 2018]).
  5. Abendzeitung, Germany: Zoff about broadcasting contribution at the VGH Munich: Atheisten-Bund contra Religion . ( Abendzeitung-muenchen.de [accessed on September 26, 2018]).
  6. A general ban on dancing on Good Friday in Bavaria is unconstitutional. Süddeutsche Zeitung from November 30, 2016
  7. ↑ The Bavarian State Church is the first to abolish "special church money" ( Memento from March 3, 2019 in the Internet Archive )
  8. Bayerischer Rundfunk Miriam Harner: Heidenspaß-Party on Good Friday: "God doesn't care if 250 people jump around somewhere in Bavaria" . April 13, 2017 ( br.de [accessed April 28, 2019]).
  9. Gisa Bodenstein: Bomb threat against Good Friday party. In: Humanistic press service . April 25, 2019. Retrieved April 25, 2019 .