Discrimination against Atheists in the USA

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I was surprised that Pim was unaware of this, so I thought I'd share some articles.

5 examples of Discrimination against Atheists in the USA

Since the legalization of same-sex marriage last week, advocates of civil rights have applauded this milestone in American history. However, another civil rights issue brought about from religious bigotry has been overlooked: discrimination against atheists.

I. Nicole Smalkowski was a cheerful, thirteen-year-old girl when she moved to an eighty-acre ranch in Oklahoma with her atheist family.

When she joined her high school's basketball team, everything changed. Her team and everyone in the audience — teachers, coaches, parents — all bowed their heads in prayer before every game.

I wouldn't do it because it's disrespectful to me. I think it's disrespectful to them. Why would they want an atheist in their circle saying the Lord's Prayer? I mean, if I was a Jew or a Muslim or Hindu, I would have had a problem with that prayer.

When she came out as atheist to her classmates, her relationship with them flipped upside-down. They stared her down. They called her a devil-worshipper. She was referred to as the "dirty little trouble-making atheist." She even received harassment from one of her teachers, telling her: "This is a Christian country, and if you don't like it, get out."
So much for Southern hospitality.

She didn't even do anything to stop her classmates from praying — but was still ostracized by her community, and even blamed for stealing from one of her classmates.

After two years of bullying, her parents chose to homeschool her.

II. Sixteen and the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, Jessica Ahlquist won a lawsuit against her high school over an eight foot-tall Catholic prayer banner that hung in her public school's auditorium.

A federal judge ruled that this prayer's presence at the public school is un-Constitutional.

It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, "You don't belong here."

Her heavily-Catholic town in Rhode Island treated her with hostility; she received death threats on social media, insults from her classmates, and was even called an "evil little thing" by her state representative. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from the Freedom From Religion foundation for "safety reasons." She even needed to be escorted to and from school because of threats against her life.

III. America's conservatives generally have a lot of respect for veterans; they believe that serving in the U.S. Military is the most patriotic and heroic thing that you can do.

But what if you're atheist?

At a Memorial Day parade in Pennsylvania, a group of veterans were sneered at and booed by their community. Why? Because they held an "Atheists in Foxholes" banner — in reference, ironically, to the title of a book arguing that atheists are cowards who will ask God for help when put in a life-or-death situation.

IV. You wouldn't expect a gun-toting, animal-hunting, reality TV star like Phil Robertson to be a devout Christian. However, hypocrisy is a virtue to social conservatives.

At a National Prayer Breakfast in 2014, he fantasized about an atheist family being viciously raped.

I'll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist's home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him, and then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of ‘em and then shoot him and say, "Isn't it great that I don't have to worry about being judged?" There's no right or wrong. And then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, "Wouldn't it be something if [there] was something wrong with this?" But you're the one who says there's no God, there's no right, there's no wrong…so we're just having fun. We're sick in the head, have a nice day."

Celebrities say stupid things all the time. But what's appalling about this is the amount of so-called "Christians" who stood up and defended Robertson's sadistic comments.

V. His name is Damon Fowler. A student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, his public school was planning to have a school-sponsored prayer at his graduation. Being an atheist and an advocate of the U.S. Constitution, which protects, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, the "wall of separation between church and state," he objected to this school-sponsored prayer at his state-funded public school.

At first, the school didn't make a big deal of it and cancelled the prayer. Then his name was leaked, and he was scathed by his classmates and teachers, ostracized from his community, and even disowned by his family who threw everything he owned onto the porch and cut off his financial support. After being disowned, he was even told by one of his classmates: "Go cry to your mommy! Oh wait…you can't."

He even received death threats.

However, with help from the atheist community, he eventually received a scholarship and financial aid from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Regardless of what your religious beliefs are, the harsh reality of anti-atheist bigotry should trouble everyone who cares about civil rights. Stories like these are all too common in small towns across America, and atheists and theists alike need to unite and put a stop to religious zealotry wherever it exists.

www.dailykos.com/story/2015/7/11/1401480/-Five-Examples-of-Discrimination-Against-Atheists-in-America

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Atheists Face Discrimination On A Shocking Level (INFOGRAPHIC)

It's a sad, but well-known truth that many people around the world are persecuted for their religious beliefs. But many people are also suffering for their lack of religious belief, though their stories are not as often shared.

The American Humanist Association created this infographic which shows some of the ways in which atheists are socially and legally discriminated against.

The rise of the religious "nones" in the United States show that more and more people are choosing not to affiliate themselves with an organized religion. But why is this so threatening to people of faith?

Commenter Jackie Martinez wrote, "I don't identify as Atheist (but definitely Agnostic), but I'm saddened by the state of our world when we trust a cheater or rapist more than an Atheist. It's discouraging and disheartening."

www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/06/26/atheist-discrimination-humanist-association_n_5531296.html?ir=Australia

In the picture in the link includes that:

49% would be unhappy if a family member married an Atheist
53% are least likely to vote for an Atheists as President, but have no problems voting for people who have taken drugs or have had extra-marital affairs
7% of US states still have laws that stop Atheists from holding Public office.

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11 Things Atheists Couldn't Do Because They Didn't Believe In God

When it comes to discussions on institutionalized discrimination, atheists often are left out. That may not surprise many. In a world with widespread prejudice based on gender, race and sexuality, it may be hard for people to get incensed over a story about nonbelievers fighting to remove the phrase "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. And while these kinds of divisive challenges may be the only things that some unsympathetic people remember about atheists fighting for justice and equality, the fact is that nonbelievers in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world face systemic and substantial discrimination.

Here are 11 things atheists couldn't -- and in many cases still can't -- do because they didn't believe in God.

1. Live.

Atheists in 13 countries face execution under the law if they openly express their beliefs or reject the official state religion -- Islam in all of these cases. While this ultimate punishment may be rare, there are a number of other outrageously harsh restrictions on the basic rights of nonbelievers around the world, from revoking citizenship to denying marriage.

For more on the most severe oppression of atheists around the world, read the 2013 edition of the Freedom of Thought report, published by the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

2. Run for office.

Not believing in God is political poison, at least if you express that belief openly. While the most severe mistreatment of atheists may take place in fundamentalist nations, political discrimination is pervasive across the U.S. Despite polling that has shown nonbelievers making up an increasingly large part of the country, there isn't a single admitted atheist in Congress right now, and by most counts, there's only one in all of the state legislatures across the nation.

Furthermore, despite constitutional restrictions on "religious tests" for holding public office, six states have laws on the books barring nonbelievers. These laws aren't technically in effect, but they don't need to be. Not believing in God is such a volatile political issue that a simple meeting with people who have ties to atheist groups can expose a candidate to a brutal smear campaign.

3. Be trusted by their peers.

Discrimination against atheists doesn't appear only in the political realm, though it is quite clear there. A poll taken during the 2012 election season found that only 54 percent of Americans would vote for a "well-qualified" atheist presidential candidate. While this was the highest total since Gallup began asking the question in 1958, atheism proved the biggest negative influence on a hypothetical candidate's viability, with fewer respondents saying they would be willing to vote for an atheist than either a gay or a Muslim candidate.

Atheists have trouble being trusted even when they're not running for office. A survey taken in 2012 found that half of Americans believed atheism was "threatening" to them. Another study by the University of British Columbia and University of Oregon found that people are likely to distrust atheists as much as they do rapists.

4. Be respected by their leaders or neighbours.

During his swearing-in speech in 2011, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) threw inclusiveness out the window when he made these comments about religion:

"So anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother," he said.

It's hard to imagine any other class of people, especially one so large -- we're not just talking nonbelievers here, but people of all non-Christian faiths -- being so casually and expressly dismissed.

Atheists are apparently so detestable that a group of military veteran nonbelievers was repeatedly heckled and berated in 2011 during a Memorial Day parade. Apparently supporting the troops comes with a big asterisk, which maybe isn't a shock, considering the military's own record of discriminating against service members who don't believe in God.

5. Have a job.

Not believing in God could make it harder to get a job, though that would of course require a would-be employer to be aware of a candidate's nontheistic beliefs. The study on distrust of atheists cited above also found that issues of faith carry over to hiring decisions. In a survey, researchers found that respondents significantly preferred religious candidates for jobs that were considered high-trust, while they marginally preferred nonbelievers for low-trust jobs, like servers.

While it may be harder in most cases to determine someone's religious beliefs than it would be their race or sexual orientation -- and therefore perhaps harder to openly discriminate against them -- this means that atheists may feel that they're better off concealing their personal views on God.

Nonbelievers also have faced discrimination after being hired. In 2010, a math teacher was fired from her position at a Catholic school after someone noticed she'd joined an atheist website from her home computer and made comments on Facebook about not believing in God. A few years prior, a government and history teacher in Texas was allegedly fired simply over the suspicion that he was an atheist. Other people have reported similar mistreatment, though the nature of their terminations wasn't confirmed.

6. Get custody of their children.

If atheists can't be trusted to be good employees, they certainly can't be trusted to be responsible parents.

Over the past few decades, there have been many documented cases of judges either denying parents custody rights because of their apparent disinterest in organized religion, or in other cases, of atheist parents being ordered to attend church so that their children can undergo "systematic spiritual training."

In 2006, an atheist father emailed The Dish columnist Andrew Sullivan to describe a custody battle that had seen his Sunday visitation rights revoked so that his son could receive "religious instruction" under his ex-wife's supervision. The case took place in Mississippi, and the father said that he feared he would only lose more ground if he challenged the religious judge's ruling.

7. Volunteer in their communities.

When the Upstate Atheists, a charity organization in Spartanburg, S.C., offered to lend a hand volunteering at a local soup kitchen last year, they were surprised to hear that the director of the facility would have rather resigned than work alongside godless members of the community. While the atheists said they had no plans to bring religion into the mix at all, the soup kitchen's director complained that they were "targeting" her organization.

The Upstate Atheists responded by setting up shop across the street from the soup kitchen and handing out 300 care packages to homeless people.

8. Advertise their beliefs, or lack thereof.

The battle over the place of God in advertising has frequently led to broader questions about discrimination against atheists. In 2011, a judge ruled that the Central Arkansas Transit Authority had violated the free speech rights of a local atheist group when it denied the group's request to launch an ad campaign on city buses. The ad organization that worked with the transit authority had regularly approved religious ads.

Elsewhere in the U.S., an attempt by a "freethought" group to purchase an ad that simply included the word "atheists" led a town to change its entire advertising policy and ban all religious-based content. And in Vancouver, British Columbia, last year, an ad company that owns most outdoor billboards in the city refused to accept material from an atheist group that was seeking to stress the power of reason and logic over prayer.

Of course, many companies have allowed atheists to purchase ad space. That controversial decision often leads to vandalism, or in some circumstances, high-profile messaging wars between nonbelievers and religious groups.

9. Participate in life without violating their beliefs.

While the Establishment Clause of the Constitution is supposed to ensure a clear separation of church and state, the two frequently intermix, much to the disapproval of nonbelievers.

This manifests itself in a variety of ways, from the inclusion of the word "God" in various mandatory pledges and on the face of U.S. currency, to compulsory religious-based sessions that atheists have been unconstitutionally forced to take part in.

While these cases are relatively common -- and it appears that a nonbeliever somewhere is always locked in a legal battle to remove religious language and imagery from the public sphere -- there are a few brazen examples that show the extremes of this issue. In Arizona last year, Republicans proposed a bill to require high school students to recite a pledge before receiving their diplomas. That oath included the words, "so help me God," and gave students no chance to opt out. While the sponsors eventually said they'd be willing to change the nature of the pledge, the bill failed.

And in South Carolina earlier this year, lawmakers again submitted a bill that would mandate daily prayer sessions in public schools. In that case, atheists or anyone objecting could leave the classroom if they pleased.

10. Create an organization.

Groups of atheists have regularly been denied the opportunity to form recognized clubs at public schools around the nation. While this difficulty is not universal, it is common. Administrators have been known to erect procedural hurdles to discourage nonbelievers from organizing, or in some cases, simply rejected their applications.

In 2011 at the University of Notre Dame, a group of "Atheist, Agnostic and Questioning Students" was denied official club status because their beliefs weren't "consistent with the University's mission." Notre Dame is a Catholic institution, but has a number of other multi-faith organizations. Apparently non-faith is not welcome.

11. Become a Boy Scout.

This one's pretty straightforward. The Boy Scouts of America still prohibits atheists from joining its ranks. Scouts must pledge to "do my duty to God and my country," and the BSA has resisted calls to remove religion from the oath. Scouts have even been asked to leave their troops after their nontheistic beliefs were discovered. In 2009, Eagle Scout Neil Polzin was fired from his job as an aquatics director at a Boy Scouts camp after his role with a secular student group was uncovered.

www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2014/01/16/atheists-discrimination_n_4413593.html?ir=Australia

[pim]

Nov 20, 2015 5:58:47 GMT 10 pim said:

Slarti your Atheist Republic (thanks for the link) seems to emanate from North America. The language is a tad juvenile in a strident undergraduate sort of way and the feedback from readers thanks the publication for helping them "come out", as it were, as atheists. As if for them being an atheist was to live as an oppressed minority where you had to keep your atheist notions to yourself. In fact they're channelling gays who've come out of the closet.

Now gays who come out of the closet have a real axe to grind. Gay-bashing and homophobia are part of the lived experience of gays even now. So for a gay to "come out" is still an act of courage. Given that here in Australia, and my memories go back to the 1950s, there never has been a problem with living openly as an atheist, I can never remember a time when atheists had to hide their atheism. I can never remember a time when atheists suffered discrimination. In my lived experience your religion has been a personal affair and it's something that's tolerated as long as you're not a ratbag ... about it by giving other people the shits with your god-bothering. To that I could add that in Australia your atheism is your affair and it's something that's tolerated as long as you're not a ratbag by giving other people the shits with your god-bashing. I think it's over the top, a bit rich, when atheists such as those in a mag like Atheist Republic claim the mantle of oppressed minority and steal the language of the gay movement in talking about "coming out". Sorry guys, that kinda language is taken by people who are genuinely oppressed and for whom "coming out" is an act of courage. It's presumptuous of you to try to move in on that type of action. Careful, your hubris is showing.

Slarti I put up that post of mine from your "Pascal's Wager" thread to underscore that I referenced Australia and not the US. Personally I think Australia is one of the most godless societies on the planet. Isn't that wonderful? While god-bothering was the driver of European colonisation of English-speaking North America, with god-botherers from Stuart England fleeing across the Atlantic so that they could do their own brand of god-bothering without being bothered by other forms of god-bothering that didn't approve of their particular form of god-bothering, Australia was a by-product of another European development that occurred 200 years later and that was the Industrial Revolution. While English-speaking North America was a by-product of the most intensely god-bothering period in Western history which was the Protestant Reformation, basically for the first 60 years of British settlement Australia was colonised by the flotsam and jetsam of the transformation of village agrarian England to the modern industrial Britain of Queen Victoria. You couldn't have found a more godless bunch of disgraceful wretches than the convicts Robert Hughes describes in The Fatal Shore. Samuel Marsden tried to flog a bit of god-bothering into them but failed utterly and went off to New Zealand where he had more success inflicting god-bothering onto the Maori. So godlessness has never been a big negative in Australia. What Australians have always taken a dim view of is ratbaggery. A god-botherer who gives others the shits with his god-bothering is dismissed as a bible-bashing ratbag. But the converse is also true: a god-basher who inflicts his god-bashing on everyone around him whether they want it or not is equally dismissed as a ratbag. I think it might have something to do with the fact that in moments of rapture such as that intense orgasm that you've dreamt of experiencing, given a choice (and Pascal's probability theorems might apply here) between screaming "Oh My God!!!" or "Oh String Theory!" or "Oh E = MC squared!" I know which one my money would be on. Would an atheist be more likely to scream (there must be atheists who scream or groan at these sorts of moments. Or are they always rational?? C'mon!!!) "Oh E = MC squared!" instead of "Oh My God!"? As my late Dad used to say with his heavy northern European accent: "I don't believe it!" But I digress ...


Turning to the US situation, with its intense culture of intolerant god-bothering, guns, death penalty and US exceptionalism, the US has become a scary place. My own bro, an inoffensive rock nerd geologist who looks like an inoffensive rock nerd geologist - I can't imagine anyone who looks less like a terrorist than my inoffensive rock nerd geologist brother - experienced this peculiar US paranoia when transiting through LAX airport on his way from Sydney to attend a conference for inoffensive rock nerds in Montreal. He'd failed to do the necessary paper work to permit him to transit through LAX. Not to go through US immigration but simply to transit through LAX. He was locked up within LAX for hours until he could sort it out. Missed his Montreal connection of course. That was the last straw for my bro as far as the US was concerned. I think the US is going through a very bad and difficult period which has everything to do firstly with the management of decline and secondly a large white minority which can't accept that it’s no longer the majority. I doubt very much that Thomas Jefferson would agree with the actions modern Americans are taking in the name of the Constitution he had such a big hand in drafting. They should heed one of the more memorable quotes of the second US President, John Adams who said: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." I think he might have been referring to ancient Athens since there weren't many democracies in the late 1700s but the words contain a warning that should be heeded today, if today's Americans have the wit to heed them.

But slarti my critique of the mag Atheist Republic centred on its strident undergrad tone in which it channelled the language of the gay rights movement. Notwithstanding what you reference in your OP I stand by what I said which was that whatever victim status the readers of Atheist Republic might try to claim, or feel they're entitled to - and let's face it these days identity politics is all about the struggle to claim and hold victim status - it can never equate to the victims of homophobia and gay-bashing. And what's more it's presumptuous in the extreme of the readers of that mag to claim that it does.

[pim]

Cor blimey he offers as "evidence" that Australian atheists are as entitled to "victim status" the fact that the Australian parliamentary day begins with the Speaker muttering the Lord's Prayer!! And he also claims "victim status" for Australian atheists on the grounds that the current Australian PM describes the loathsome ideology of ISIS as the "work of the devil".


Well, knock me down with a feather and move over gays and lesbians the atheists are taking over as victims of oppression and, oh, they'll be using your terminology too!

[pim]

Are we really going to allow precious minutes of our lives to dribble away while we "debate" (if we can grace such an unedifying exchange of god-bashing/god-bothering with such a word) the pro's and cons of the Lords Prayer (KJV if you please!) beginning parliamentary proceedings? Don't worry Yorick I know the script: from you it'll be pure god-bashing and KTJ will see an opportunity for a bit of pack mentality god-bashing so he'll spam the thread with his flatulence I'll defend it for its poetry and I'll defend it on the grounds of its poetry and its cultural value. That and the fact that its setiments combined with its poetry make it greater than the sum of its parts and highly appropriate as a ritual to begin the parliamentary day with. And from there it will be a race to the bottom in unseemly god-bashing and personal insult. Fergeddit! Not interested!

[pim]

Nov 20, 2015 15:28:38 GMT 10 Gort said:

Pim retires hurt. Again.

Am I wrong?


(Yorick disappears up his own arse in flippant reverse flatulence)

[pim]

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Atheists are nowhere nearly as much discriminated against here compared to the USA, and if you regularly read their articles, the American Atheists do not compare the discrimination they have suffered as anywhere like the discrimination suffered by gays.

But there is a common factor, both are usually discriminated against by theists.