"Make right living grow"
Queens Ethical members with items and money being donated to a local homeless shelter for women and children
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The Ethical Humanist Society of Queens is a humanistic, religious, and educational fellowship inspired by the ideal that the supreme aim of human life is working to create a more humane society.
Our faith is in the capacity and responsibility of human beings to act ethically in their personal relationships and in the larger community. Our commitment is to the worth and dignity of the individual—and to treating human beings so as to bring out the best in them. We join together to develop ethical ideas and ideals, to celebrate life’s joys and support each other during life’s crises. We meet on Sundays on Zoom at 11am to discuss ethical issues and activities we can do to improve our community and the world.
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Our Story
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We are the Queens, NY chapter of the greater Ethical Culture/Humanism movement, which focuses on ethics/morality as a way of life. We're a part of the American Ethical Union, which itself is a part of Humanists International, a camaraderie between Ethical and similar organizations in 80 countries. The greater Ethical movement is traced back generally to various secular moral traditions in the 1800s, and specifically to the work of Felix Adler, who started the first Ethical society (the New York Society for Ethical Culture, which is still active today) in 1877.
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The Ethical movement, in addition to providing a space for people to consider their own lives and others' lives from a standpoint of ethics-as-a-way-of-life, has performed tremendous work for positive social change. The Ethical movement fought for progressive reforms in response to the ills of the early Industrial Era, had a substantial role in the early 1900s in the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and was instrumental in creating the Encampment for Citizenship programs after World War II which bring together young people of widely diverse backgrounds and nations.
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Photo from past Queens Ethical Sunday School, early 2000's—we aim to begin a new one again
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Photo from past Ethical autumn activity for children—we have seasonal and other special activities in addition to weekly ones
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Queens Ethical, which started in 1958, has continued in this vein. Attendees of weekly meetings find community, purpose, and secular spirituality in the weekly congregations. Queens Ethical has usually maintained a Sunday School to bring out moral expression in our youth. Social ills continue to be addressed by our works. For example, Queens Ethical had a role in the creation of the Queens chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) during the Civil Rights movement. More recently, we joined together with other New York City-area Ethical societies to donate a car-load of supplies for a school in Mississippi destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, we donated a car-load of clothing and other supplies after Hurricane Sandy to the needy, and we donated money for people in Bangladesh whose homes would be wrecked by annual tidal waves. We also for several years took care of a local tree, and for many years provided children in a shelter by LaGuardia Airport school supplies, holiday gifts and clothing.
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We take part every year in the St. Pat's for All, Gay Pride, and Halloween parades in Queens
Sunday meeting of Queens Ethical, 2019.