It has been many months since the last update of Secular Discrimination Report.  I have had to focus on other things in my life and SDR fell by the wayside.  Most recently, I was going through New Jersey Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) school and riding as a first aider on my local first aid squad.  EMT school is now finished and I am soon taking the test for state certification.  The end of class leaves me more time for other things, such as this.  Bigotry and discrimination against the nonreligious certainly has not gone away, and I have continued to monitor it as best I can.

To tell you the truth, it’s getting harder to deal with the horrible things said about us, though.  This is especially true as the attacks against us have been growing steadily in the past few years.  It’s frankly infuriating, but I will do my best to continue to monitor religious bigotry, especially against the nonreligious, and present it to you.  There is a bright side: the bigots are more vocal against us because we are being more vocal.  That is bound to happen.  Many nonreligious are no longer scared to speak out, nor are we scared to simply acknowledge that we exist.  In that sense, we are continuing to gain ground.

To those of you who have written to me during this absence, I have not ignored you.  Expect responses soon.

Now on to the promised links:

Christian Bus Ads Fire Back (KCCI.com)

Christian ministry “Covenant of Love” is has their own pro-Christian ads on buses on Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority buses this month.  It is reportedly in response to the recent atheist ads that have been on buses throughout the country.  From what I have seen, the article title seems misleading.  The ads don’t appear confrontational in any way; I would hardly say that they “fire back.”  They simply express their own positive view of Christianity, and that’s a great thing.  This is what we need, dialogue, which we have been essentially excluded from for too long.  We get our say and the religious get theirs.  Religious ads have existed since long before the atheist ads, though.  One could argue the religious already more than had their chance, and in fact dominated the discussion.  This is more confirmation that we are making headway.  We are a threat.  Despite the long history of unopposed religiosity, they feel that they need to respond to us.

Atheist group takes message to Lakeland via billboard (Tampa Bay Online – TBO.com)

Talking about ads, another atheist group has put up a billboard, this time by the Atheists of Florida.  As with the rest, there is nothing offensive unless one chooses to be offended.  It’s a message to other like-minded people that they are not alone, just as with other billboards that have gone up: “Don’t Believe in God?  You are not alone.”

Of course, the website’s comments display the same bigotry and irrational thought we have come to expect from bigots whenever atheists dare even display that we exist.  For example:

Posted by ( zgolf1 ) on 11/02/2009 at 01:53 pm.

I think that the people behind this billboard should stand on a street corner in Polk county and spread their word directly to the people. I am fairly certain that before the day was out that their beliefs would change once that were loaded onto bayflight.

Threatening members of the Atheists of Florida with physical violence because they state that atheists exist?  That’s not very Christian.

A message sent to members of the Secular Coalition for America email list:

June 1, 2009

A Message from President Herb Silverman

[...]

Last Thursday, the nontheist movement achieved a new milestone when the Secular Coalition for America had its first individual meeting with White House officials. The Secular Coalition has met with White House officials before, but Thursday’s meeting was unique. It was not a coalition meeting with other organizations, but a special meeting between White House staff and representatives of the Secular Coalition. We had the opportunity to tell the White House who you are, what your policy interests are, and what concerns you.

We have made clear to White House officials that our coalition of nine national nontheistic organizations represents a full spectrum of nontheists. As the broadest, most diverse advocacy group for nontheists in Washington, D.C., we have the credibility to explain our political and cultural interests to our nation’s leaders and provide them with a window into what nontheists across America are thinking and doing in their communities. More importantly we are becoming an influential and increasingly organized constituency, and elected officials want to take our concerns into account.

The goal of the Secular Coalition has always been to increase the visibility of and respect for nontheists in America. Thursday’s meeting was one small step for the Secular Coalition, but an even more significant leap for nontheists everywhere.

My deepest thanks for all you do to support the work of the Secular Coalition for America,

Herb Silverman

President & Founder
Secular Coalition for America

TheChronicleHerald.ca is reporting that a recent Harris-Decima survey from The Canadian Press is showing that Canadians are “indifferent” to the atheist bus ads.  This is as opposed to the strong negative reactions to the ads in America and also Britain, which is more surprising than the American reaction considering that Britain is commonly considered much more secular.  There has been opposition from religious groups, such as the United Church of Canada, who have run their own counter bus ads.  There has not been outrage in the same way as in America and Britain, though.

From the article:

The poll found 32 per cent of respondents opposed the ads, 20 per cent supported them and 43 per cent didn’t care one way or the other.

Support for the ads was strongest among respondents in British Columbia and Ontario, with the highest opposition in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Support also varied by age and income, with younger respondents and those making more than $60,000 a year more likely to favour running the ads.

Some nonreligious activists might see this as a failure.  This is understandable; the more controversy they create the more visible they are and the further their message spreads.  I don’t see it this way.  From the beginning, organizers of the various bus ads have asserted that they are not meant to be insulting to the religious (although many do see  anything contrary to their beliefs as an insult), nor are they specifically geared towards creating controversy, although they certainly do want attention drawn to them so that people know they exist.  They ads were created mostly to let the nonreligious know they are not alone in a world dominated by the religious, and to let others know that we exist and we will demand our place in the public discourse, no matter how forcefully the bigots try to quiet our voices.
Read the rest of this entry »

I consistently see those who attack us personally for daring to exist cry “they were rude to me!” when engaging in discussion or debate with atheists who are fed up with their bigotry. Cry me a river.  Not everyone deserves respect.  In civil society you receive the same level of respect you offer to others.  Those who simply disagree with our rejection of god belief and religion and who want to defend their beliefs by engaging in rational, intelligent discourse should be free to do such without attacks and insults.  We should attack the claims and positions, not the people.  Anti-atheist bigots, on the other hand, deserve no such courtesy.  They start from a position of complete lack of respect and civility.

Do people respectfully respond to racists?  Generally, they don’t.  They are attacked and called what they are – racists.  Religious bigots of any sort deserve no different treatment. It’s clear who has the ethical authority here.  We attack religion and the concept of faith, while they attack us directly.  They call us immoral, bad people, tell us we will burn in eternal hellfire, not due to our actions, but because have happen to not believe in something they do.  They express such bigotry through mean-spirited, disingenuous personal attacks on us – attacking us not for our characters and actions but for what we don’t believe.  They do not deserve civil discourse.  We are simply judging them by their actions which they rationalize with their religion.

Of course, we should be careful to not overdo it and see bigotry or discrimination where it doesn’t exist, such as a group in the opposition, the Catholic League.  Unlike them, though, we actually experience major bigotry and discrimination in the United States.  Not all religious folks are bigots, and they deserve as much respect as anyone else making an argument.  If they are meritless the arguments should be attacked, but not the people.  Bigots will not get such courtesy here, and should not anywhere.  They come into the discourse with nothing but personal attacks, and should be treated in kind.  If they want to be treated with respect, they should be focusing on how they treat others first.

No group fighting for their civil rights has ever preserved them by being nice to and pacifying their most vocal opponents.  This simply gives them more power.  We need to take a hint from all the great rights movements, such as the black civil rights movement, gay rights movement, and women’s suffrage movement, just to name a few.  Are bigots the type of people we should concern ourselves with showing niceness towards?  We need to concentrate our efforts towards those who are important: the progressively religious and the nonreligious who are passive and hide their views.

Are you worried about such rudeness being used against us (”See?  Look at the angry militant atheists!”)?  Don’t respond at all, then.  Religious bigots make themselves look bad all on their own.

I have seen not only religious bigots, but also other atheists make the ridiculous claim that atheists who speak out against bigotry have a persecution/victim complex.  These “Uncle Tom atheists” (a term I didn’t coin, but love because it describes them perfectly) have internalized the societal view that atheists simply should not speak out, even when they have a legitimate complaint.  One cannot have a victim complex if they are in fact victims of persecution, and atheists clearly are worldwide.

Such persecution may not be as bad as what other groups have gone through physically, as I have discussed in the differences between our movement and the black civil rights movement, but it is horrible culturally.  For social beings, is such social ostracizing not one of the worst forms of persecution possible?  Just being truthful about one’s lack of belief will commonly make others immediately think worse about you, and therefore treat you differently.  Speaking out or “complaining” about such ingrained bigotry is not expressing a persecution complex, but is necessary if this will ever change.  As clearly shown by other movements, such as the gay rights movement, the only path to social change is forcing the issue into the public consciousness.  This is impossible without calling out bigotry, discrimination, ostracizing, and persecutions against atheists wherever we see it.

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I just received an action alert from the Secular Coalition for America, urging us to stop the continuation of federal funding for religious schools through vouchers.  Vouchers are a major problem for church/state separation.  Although not all private schools are religious, the majority of them are affiliated with religious denominations and, as such, include theological instruction.  Many would be hard pressed to name local secular private schools, and may not even be able to name one.  Meanwhile, considering the prevalence of religious schools, it isn’t nearly as difficult to name at least one local private religious school.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (see graph below), as of 2005 44% of private schools were Roman Catholic and 37% had other “religious orientation or purpose,” for a total of 81% of private schools being religious.  Although the amount of schools with certain religious affiliations such as Roman Catholic has dropped since 1989, the vast majority of private schools are still religious.  The 1999-2000 Schools and Staffing Survey asked private and public school principals about their school goals.  While the top two goals of public school principals were basic literacy (80%) and academic excellence (70%), the top two goals of private school principals were academic excellence (66%) and religious/spiritual life (64%).

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“Blog Against Theocracy” is an event happening on blogs of those who understand the importance of defending our constitutionally required separation of church and state.  From April 10-12, look out for posts all over the blogosphere, including here on SDR, concerning varied issues relating to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.  This is not an atheist blogswarm, per se, but is open all who support Thomas Jefferson’s “wall of separation.”

Back in January I wrote on the first of a two part defense of the nonreligious civil rights movement, responding to the claim that atheists do not experience major prejudice and discrimination in the United States.  This post, part 2, is a response to the second common criticism, that although atheists may experience some measure of prejudice and discrimination, it is not as extreme or openly codified into our government and culture, as it was against blacks, and therefore we have no right to call our fight a “civil rights movement.”  I was recently asked by a law student for information as to what form the nonreligious civil rights movement takes.  This post is adapted from my response.

For the record, when I say atheist in this post I am for simplicity’s sake referring to the nonreligious as a whole, not necessarily only those who would self identify as atheists.  I know this isn’t very specific, but the community is not united in the way specific religious groups are because we don’t necessarily share any specific philosophy.  We simply (passive) lack belief in any supernatural deity, or (active) deny the existence of a supernatural deity.  With that said:

Clearly, the atheist civil rights movement is very much different from what is seen as the model of a civil rights movement in our country: the black civil rights movement.  Atheists are not segregated from the religious in public schools; we are not forced to sit at the back of buses; we are not barred from eating in the same restaurants as theists, using the same water fountains, etc.  This issue is used constantly to argue not so much that there is no atheist civil rights movement, but that we have no right to call it such.  This is patently ridiculous considering the plain definition of the words.  With the assumption the movement exists, is it concerned with “civil rights?”  Clearly, it is concerned with the legal and human rights of atheists.  I’m not a lawyer, or even a law student, but by what other reasonable way can we define civil rights?  Now, is it a movement?
Read the rest of this entry »

Who is Really Persecuted

Religious bigots just don’t get it.  They don’t understand that others have the right to express their opinions publicly.  If one were to criticize them for promoting their religion in public they would cry “Religious intolerance!”  When atheists express themselves, though, we are suddenly “militant atheists” hell bent on eroding the religious foundations (that don’t really exist in the way they mean) of our country.  While atheists are persecuted, or at the least subject to constant bigotry for simply expressing ourselves, I continue to hear Christians in the United States claim that they face persecution.  Really, in a country with a vast majority of Christian citizens they are somehow persecuted?  Give me a break.  Even other Christians, such as Indianapolis Star religion blogger Robert King, understand [indystar.com] how ridiculous it is for Christians in the U.S. to claim persecution.

New Bus Ads … Now From the Christians

British Christians, in an attempt to counter the recent atheist bus ads, have raised money [washingtonpost.com] for their own ads in an attempt to counteract the atheist bus ads.  This is their right, but they miss the point.  The ads were not meant to de-convert anyone, although the religious are constantly attempting to convert nonbelievers, or those that believe the “wrong” thing.  Although many atheists do see religion as a dangerous thing and would love to have more people rely on evidence-based reasoning, the ads were not meant to do this.  They were simply to let the nonreligious who feel alone in a religious world know that there are other out there who share their disbelief – that they are not alone.  Christians are already well aware that they are not alone, so what good does this really do them?  It’s a mean-spirited attempt to drown out the atheist voice by those who can’t stand the fact that atheists will no longer be in the closet, we will no longer sit quietly and internalize the opposing view that they shouldn’t express themselves like the religious, lest they be labeled “arrogant.”

British Christian community, you can feel free to buy as many bus ads as you want.  It just shows how frightened you really are that you are losing ground.  Unlike some intolerant religious folk, we are not afraid of open dialogue, we have nothing to fear.  As the Washington Post article says:

More than three of four people in the world consider themselves religious, and those who say they belong to no faith are in the distinct minority.

As a minority, even in a more secular country such as Britain, we have nothing to lose.  Our ranks are growing faster than ever and religious leaders know it.  They are scared, so we can only expect the attacks to get stronger, in both the United States and Britain.  It means we’re doing something right.

Hanne Stinson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association, said the new religious ads proclaiming God are “really quite a compliment” and mean “our ads had an impact.”

February 2, 2009

EVENT NOTICE

WHO:   Mary Bellamy, Assistant Director for Programs, and Woody Kaplan, Advisory Board Chair, Secular Coalition for America
WHAT:  Ethical Culture Society of Rockland County
WHEN:   Sun., Feb. 8, 10:45 a.m.
WHERE:  Peace Through Play Nursery School, 8 Amber Ridge Road, Chestnut Ridge, New York

Mary and Woody hope to meet you in Chestnut Ridge where they will be speaking to the Ethical Culture Society of Rockland County at 10:45 am on Sunday, February 8, concerning “More Than A Presidential Shout-out:  How the nation’s first lobbying organization for nontheists is working to remove the theocratic yoke from our federal government.”