Now it’s time for something actually on topic.  Randall Balmer [barnard.edu], professor of American religious history (yay, roughly my academic field!) and author of God in the White House: A History, was interviewed by John Stewart on The Daily Show last Thursday.  When asked what type of person would be the last elected as president of the United States, it is no surprise that atheists came last.  Don’t criticize Balmer for this, he was simply expressing the facts of the bigotry (or to put it more mildly lack of trust) that the majority of religious Americans have against atheists.  He also expressed one of the biggest problems which we nonreligious face: that although religion does not equal morality and is not necessarily required for a person to be moral, much of the U.S. doesn’t see it that way.  With this false premise in mind, the bigotry we see should not be surprising.

A partial transcript (stolen) from Friendly Atheist [friendlyatheist.com]:

Jon Stewart:… Do you think we could ever elect an atheist?… Now, we have a black president. Could an atheist – What will come first: black, woman, Hispanic, gay, Jew, Atheist? Where do you go?

Randall Balmer: I think, pretty much, in that order…

JS: [Laughs] I hope somebody wrote that down!

RB: And I think atheist is probably at the end. Because we Americans want to know about our candidates’ faith. What we really want to know is: Are they good people? Are they moral? Are they trustworthy?

JS: But when did “good person” get intricately linked to faith? Why can’t goodness be a virtue without fear of Biblical punishment or any of those other…

RB: Well, it certainly can. But in America… religion is a proxy for morality… the only way we can frame the question is ask, “Do you go to church?” “Are you a religious person?” And I think the problem is that we, as the voters, take those kind of blithe responses at face value and we should interrogate those claims…