“Reflections on Two Movements: Gay Rights and Humanism.” This is the title of talk on October 4, in Hall A of Harvard’s Science Center, (1:30 PM). It is open to the public and free parking is available in the Littauer Lot behind the Center and Law School.

Robert Mack’s life is balanced by strong interests that have been nourished by his rationality and energized by his gay activism. Here’s what we can expect. As a Humanist and a gay man he will compare these two movements, drawing on his experience as a leader of Harvard's gay and lesbian alumni group, and, more recently, as a co-founder of the Harvard Humanist Alumni. He is particularly interested in seeing whether the history of the gay rights movement offers any ideas for planning the future of the Humanist movement.

Bob grew up in Concord, Mass. and attended Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He practiced law at the Boston firm of Hale and Dorr for 16 years, followed by another 16 years helping the same firm with its information technology. He currently works part time atFreshAddress.com, which he co-founded in 1999. Bob has been a leader of the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus, which now has more than 5,000 members, since 1992. He recently helped found Harvard Humanist Alumni, which already has more than 750 Harvard-affiliated members and several thousand non-Harvard friends. That clearly is proof how well the two movements blend in one person. For the past 15 years he has lived in Central Square, Cambridge.

Here are some further musings from your editor on the variety of links these two movements have.

At first glance, one might well ask what one has to do with the other. Clearly neither is a cause of the other nor is there a contradiction. Each profits from the other’s existence. Each is a defender and a refuge for the other. And each has been amazingly successful in recent years. Is there a chance they possess a compatibility that we can find to be energizing and rewarding? Humanism, with its rationality and science, frees the mind from religious dogma. Gay rights liberates a host of feelings, long suppressed, to thrive in the light of day, and under the gradual protection of society’s laws. Everywhere they meet on the terrain of religion where both arouse great hostility, even outright prosecution. Both flourish wherever civil and human rights prevail.