Secular Humanist Infantry

The Secular Humanist Infantry is a group whose clearest role in the narrative is as an institutional supporter of Eldon H. Mate: it gave him its highest award, the Heretic. The episode links the organization to Alice Zoghbie, who served as its treasurer before founding the Socrates Club, and places Mate’s public recognition within a network of people and organizations concerned with his work on assisted death.

Identity and Known Role

The account gives few details about the Secular Humanist Infantry’s structure or activities. It identifies the group by name, describes it as Alice Zoghbie’s first group, and records that it bestowed its highest honor on Mate. Those details establish its role as an organization capable of publicly recognizing him, without specifying a broader program or membership beyond Zoghbie’s involvement.

The Heretic Award

At a convention in San Francisco, the group awarded Mate the Heretic, its highest honor. Before the ceremony, a syringe Mate had used on a recent assisted-death trip was auctioned for two hundred dollars. An undercover police officer confiscated it, citing state health regulations, and the seizure prompted commotion and protest. The syringe’s passage from auction item to evidence made the dispute over Mate’s work concrete: the ceremony’s celebration of him unfolded alongside official intervention in the handling of an object associated with a death.

In his acceptance speech, Mate gave his windbreaker as a consolation prize and insulted the officer who had taken the syringe. The gesture and the insult made the award occasion a public confrontation as well as a tribute, joining the group’s recognition of Mate to his antagonistic response to regulation.

Alice Zoghbie and the Socrates Club

Alice Zoghbie connects the Secular Humanist Infantry to the Socrates Club. She was the Infantry’s treasurer and later became president of the Socrates Club. She described the Infantry as her first group and said she had continued to keep up with it after founding the club.

Zoghbie also recalled inviting Mate to deliver a keynote at a convention after he had won another court victory. He accepted with a note she remembered as charming; afterward, they began meeting socially, though she emphasized that their relationship was not sexual. She cooked for him and regarded him as a mentor. Through this account, the Infantry appears not only as the giver of an award but as part of the social and organizational setting in which Mate’s public reputation and personal connections developed.

Significance in the Narrative

The Secular Humanist Infantry’s brief appearance places Mate’s assisted-death work at the intersection of public acclaim and legal scrutiny. Its highest award affirms his standing among the people who recognized him, while the confiscated syringe shows that the same work was subject to state health regulations. The contrast is sharpened by the ceremonial setting: recognition and protest occur around the same object, and Zoghbie’s overlapping roles connect the organization’s history to the Socrates Club and to Mate himself.