Hemant Mehta pointed me to an article from The Dallas Morning News, “Dallas-area atheists discuss their outlook, relationships.” It discusses the lives of atheists in the area, their growing socialization with each other, and socialization with their fellow citizens who are religious. There is a lot that is interesting in the article, but I will focus on the example of discrimination – this is Secular Discrimination Report after all.
From the article:
Clark Vinson, a Baptist-turned-atheist who grew up in Irving, said he believes he has been discriminated against in the Bible Belt because of his lack of religion.
“I was on the verge of sealing a contract for $105,000 a year for a school district in the area for counseling services,” said Vinson, who was a therapist at the time. “I lost the contract suddenly.”
He said a friend who worked for the district told him a school official was disturbed after seeing a Darwin fish on his car.
This type of discrimination is exactly what atheists and others who lack religion or religious supernatural belief deal with throughout the United States, from the East to the West to the North to the South. The dominance of religion and expectation that everyone at least believes in some deity leads to some level of innate distrust of the nonreligious in even the most liberal of areas. We don’t always see examples such as this because it is avoided by atheists hiding or at the least not being open about our lack of faith. If not, discrimination such as this would happen much too often. If we look at history, as the nonreligious civil right movement is growing and there are more open atheists, we are already and will undoubtedly see more of this in the future.
Where is the Outrage?
Giving Mr. Vinson the benefit of the doubt – there are two sides to every story, after all – this business contract was virtually a done deal until the school official realized that he was an atheist. You can’t get much more bigoted and hateful than that. Apparently he was a good enough therapist to work in the school system before the revelation of his lack of belief. The contract wasn’t lost because of anything he had done, but because he lacks religious beliefs. Is this the tolerance they teach their children in that school system?
If Mr. Vinson was a member of a different religion, would that have lost him the contract? I doubt it. If such discrimination against a Christian, Jew, or even Muslim did happen and this was reported, it is likely that there would be public outrage. How much stronger would the reaction be if he canceled the contract after seeing a Jesus fish on the car instead of a Darwin fish? Our country was founded partly on the notion that we should all be able to worship or not worship how and if we choose. Where is the outrage that a public employee, paid for by tax money, is discriminating against atheists? We are protected by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment just like anyone else.
Silent Discrimination
This is not an isolated incident. There are many instances of such discrimination that have been reported, and undoubtedly many more that have not been. If it were not for the fact that Mr. Vinson’s friend worked for the school district and was able to tell him why he lost the contract, he would have never known the act of discrimination committed against him. I propose that this “silent discrimination” is much more insidious. It allows anti-atheist bigots to discriminate freely while it robs the nonreligious of their ability to seek redress for such actions. How many more atheists have been discriminated against without whistle-blowers to let them know of the injustices committed against them?
I leave you with one more point. The nonreligious are constantly criticized for being intolerant of religious people, but this is blaming the victims. Many of us are intolerant of religious belief, but we live and work very well with those who hold such beliefs. Our family members, friends, and colleagues are religious. When was the last time you heard of an atheist canceling a deal or firing someone because he found out they believe in a god? The converse happens much too often. Too many religious people simply can’t get over the fact that someone can not have any religious belief at all, and clearly have no problem with discriminating against us.
Ring Huggins
on Apr 7th, 2009
@ 8:15 pm:
Hello Campers,
Sometimes I get really upset by stories such as this tale. American public schools have considerably more with which to concern themselves. We have schools in some states that have removed prayer, the Pledge, Christian sayings from the walls and so forth. Now they are going to discriminate against people who do not believe in a supreme being? That is total ignorance.
Peace,
Ring in Terlingua
popurls.com // popular today
on Apr 27th, 2009
@ 7:40 pm:
popurls.com // popular today…
story has entered the popular today section on popurls.com…
Bing Kissins
on Apr 28th, 2009
@ 1:32 am:
Ummm, that statement that you just made, unless it was a joke, just about hit the nail on the head in terms of decidedly “Christian” biased religious expression.
You fail,
Bing on Earth
Kevin
on Apr 28th, 2009
@ 2:11 am:
Ring Huggins,
I dont understand. What makes you think school-sponsored prayer is a good thing? Why do you want the Ten Commandments in public schools?
Our country is about equality and progress. It used to be that girls weren’t even allowed to go to college. It used to be based on skin color whether you could go to a good school. We changed those at the same time as we removed prayer and the Christian sayings and started teaching evolution. Do you really want to go back to the 1950s?
LAheadlines
on Apr 28th, 2009
@ 4:47 am:
It seems like there’s a lot of assuming going on here. Unless there’s more to what the counselor was told by his friend than the story relates, it seems that there’s a considerable distance between being “disturbed” by a Darwin fish and working to cancel someone’s contract. We’re also assuming that one person who complained has that sort of influence. Maybe it’s discrimination, but it could have been something else, too. A $105,000 a year contract sounds pretty pricey to me.
As for the question “When was the last time you heard of an atheist canceling a deal or firing someone because he found out they believe in a god?” I don’t know if Perez Hilton admits to being an atheist, but he certainly went out of his way to try to ruin Carrie Prejean’s career just because she holds traditional Christian beliefs. There’s plenty of discrimination going around against all sorts of people.
SDR
on Apr 28th, 2009
@ 2:30 pm:
LAheadlines,
If you seriously don’t see the difference between a state government (this is a public school) discriminating in hiring against an atheist and a judge deciding to (as is his right) vote down someone in a private competition for her answer, you’re not even worth the time.
Hint: the former is illegal discrimination, the latter is tough luck. Has the Christian persecution complex gotten so ridiculous that you can’t find something that even remotely sounds like actual discrimination?
Ed
on Jun 2nd, 2009
@ 1:54 pm:
I can’t imagine that I would want to hire someone that worships one of the numerous fictional deities. I don’t want to be paying good money for someone to work on something for me when they might just turn around and pray that it turns out well…
SDR
on Jun 2nd, 2009
@ 2:42 pm:
Ed,
You are treading on dangerous ground. Religious discrimination in hiring isn’t acceptable in a country with religious freedom, whether it is the nonreligious doing it against us, or us doing it against the religious. Remember that the majority of the United States population is religious to some degree. In practically all cases, someone can be completely secular on the job, doing their job without bringing religion into it no matter what they believe. To deny employment simply for privately held beliefs (although why this would come up in an application/interview I don’t know) is the same discrimination that quietly (and sometimes not so quietly) happens to the nonreligious.
Of course, if there is good reason to believe the person’s religious beliefs would for some reason preclude them from being able to do the job effectively, that’s a different story. Rejecting that candidate would not be discrimination because it rejecting someone who cannot do the job effectively, which is a perfectly valid reason. If someone was to let his religion affect his ability to do the job, such as when you say:
Then that is of course not someone you want working for you – that person cannot effectively do the job he was hired for. The majority of religious people can separate their religion from their work and do every day.
Don’t become what we are fighting against. No one should be discriminated against for simply having religious belief just as no one should be for not having religious belief.
Stephen McClelland
on Jun 11th, 2009
@ 1:56 pm:
I live in Gulfport, MS. Until recently, I ran a small custom cabinetry shop, catering to high-end kitchen and bath consumers. It took me some time to come to terms with the politics involved in simply doing business.
I didn’t have to go through more than about 5 projects before a customer asked, “What church do you attend?”. I carefully responded that I was not yet a member of a church, as I had recently moved here, and had not yet seeked out an establishment that I was comfortable with. That was not a sufficient answer, and simply by not being able to associate myself with a specific church, I lost the contract. The customer said, “I want to KNOW that the person working for me is a GOOD Christian!” I told him that I had not claimed that I was not, but this was still not good enough.
I would normally define myself as an Atheist for lack of a more fitting category. I feel as though I am a very spiritual person, but my beliefs are based on Nature, Nurture, Logic, and Science as we know it. I have loose opinions, and I like to believe in something like a God, but my God is more of a process, set of rules, the way of the universe, rather than some benevolent creature. I cannot express these outlooks openly without persecution. What is odd, is that holding a conversation with a Christian about such thoughts, usually leads to being accused of oppressing the church, when it seems more like I am the one being oppressed.
I eventually left the cabinet company, in the incapable hands of my silent partner. After a year and a half of building custom cabinetry, I found that at least 1 of every 3 jobs in this area required a prerequisite conversation about faith, and what church I attend. To succeed in business, I actually had to start attending church, and claiming faith. It didn’t take much longer for me to get completely sick of it. I was lying to my customers, and lying to myself. I simply could not do it anymore. Now I am focused on Graphic Arts, as a pixel pusher, or an artist is rarely expected to express religion in order to receive work.
Christian society in the U.S. has become overly dominant. Many people go to church simply as a political or business decision (not that they would admit it). Here in the South, it is nearly impossible to succeed in business without maintaining a personality in the church. Not only is this absolutely ridiculous, but it seems to me that the church is creating hypocrites by the truckload. Sincerity, compassion, acceptance, and consideration are not only unnecessary in the church, but are practically discouraged. Conformity or oppression, is what I see more often.
I am not afraid to express my beliefs, but I have found time and time again that doing so is either counter-productive (usually the case, even to the point of possibly eliciting violence from religious parties), or at least, my expression is generally a waste of time. Blind faith, rigid conformity, and complete oblivion of personal thought is all that I see being cultured in our churches, and those who actually want to expand their consciousness, consider new ideas, or actually (not figuratively) explore spirituality are condemned, boycotted, slandered, and prayed for (how insulting!).
I don’t knock on your door, and tell you you are wrong. I don’t judge the quality of your work by the time you spend in church. I don’t even find occasion to try to offer contradictory ideas to people of faith. Why must my wish to abstain from the fight cause my life such strife, hey, strife inflicted by a “compassionate” Christian culture?
Anonymous
on Jun 12th, 2009
@ 12:49 am:
detrimental reliance. If the party lead him to believe that he would be obtaining the contract and he relied on this belief to his detriment, such as making some sort of financial sacrifice due to his expectation of landing the contract, he may be able to sue them. discrimination against someone due to their religion (even atheism) is protected by the federal govt.
RLWemm
on Jun 20th, 2009
@ 2:26 am:
My business has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in regards to religion. You don’t ask me what my religion is and I don’t tell you about mine, whether you want to hear about it or not.
In order not to discriminate against a person on the grounds of religion I believe it is better to avoid the topic.