US Non-believers Organize

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Religion News Service

Bracing for what's to come from a Republican-controlled White House and
Congress, people who don't believe in God are joining forces as never
before to make sure their rights don't get trampled in what they perceive
as a stampede of religious zeal.

US Non-believers Organize
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Religion News Service
Encouraged by these developments, both the Secular Coalition and the
American Humanist Association are pressing ahead with plans to launch
their own 501c4 organizations so they can legally finance

lobbying efforts.

US Non-believers Organize

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Religion News Service

Bracing for what's to come from a Republican-controlled White House and
Congress, people who don't believe in God are joining forces as never
before to make sure their rights don't get trampled in what they perceive
as a stampede of religious zeal.

Riding a post-election spike in new memberships, groups of humanists,
agnostics and other non-theists are raising funds to put their first-ever
lobbyists on Capitol Hill. To shape an agenda, leaders from as many as 20
non-theistic groups will convene Jan. 15-16 for their largest summit since
Ronald Reagan took the Oval Office with help from the Moral Majority in
1981.

For those who regard themselves as "freethinkers," organizing into
cohesive teams for any purpose has never been an easy task. But the effort
this time has gained fresh momentum as those outside the world of
organized religion brainstorm how to defend their freedoms in what feels
to them like a time of siege.

"A lot of non-theistic people tend to be independent and non-joiners,"
said Herb Silverman, president of the Albany, N.Y.-based Secular Coalition
for America, which represents five non-theistic organizations and has
endorsements from others.

"Now they're starting to get worried. ... It seems we're a group
politicians can feel comfortable discriminating against."

Such a perception seems to be driving non-theists to get active. For
example:
-- Membership in the Washington-based American Humanist Association has
jumped 5 percent since the election and 15 percent since January to reach
the 7,000 mark.
-- The Secular Coalition for America has grown its lobbying fund from
$8,000 a year ago to $50,000 today. At $100,000, the group intends to hire
a lobbyist and possibly an administrative staffer.
-- At the Los Angeles-based Atheist Alliance International, donations in
November 2004 outpaced those of the prior three months put together as
donors, apparently troubled by President Bush's re-election, began giving
in four- and five-figure amounts.

Encouraged by these developments, both the Secular Coalition and the
American Humanist Association are pressing ahead with plans to launch
their own 501c4 organizations so they can legally finance congressional
lobbying efforts. And insiders are hearing some hardened non-theists
warming to the notion of collaborating with liberal religious groups for
pragmatic reasons.

"There's been a shift," said Roy Speckhardt, deputy director of the
American Humanist Association. "Some in the atheist constituency are
saying things like, `We'd like to work more with you (in coalitions with
progressive religious groups) so we can have an effect in Washington.'
They've realized they need to do this in order to get things done."

Over the years, non-theist groups have tended to organize locally as
supportive communities for those whose beliefs aren't compatible with
church, mosque or synagogue. Atheist Alliance International includes 40
local chapters whose collective membership totals about 3,700. Such
numbers represent just a fraction of the 38 million Americans who
self-identify as "secular," according to the Washington-based Pew Research
Center for the People & the Press.

Organizational numbers have tended to be small, leaders say, because
skeptics are by nature wary of being followers. And in some cases,
would-be joiners might fear potential repercussions for coming out of the
closet publicly as non-theists in an overwhelmingly religious nation.

Leaders identified with atheism say they routinely receive anonymous hate
mail, including threats. One staffer at the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom
From Religion Foundation reported received an early December e-mail
saying, "You deserve to be shot in the chest."

Others have been ostracized. When Silverman gave an invocation at a
Charleston, S.C., City Council meeting in March 2003, six council members
stood and walked out in protest.

But with a rising tide of power emboldening religious conservatives in
Washington, non-theists are increasingly finding reason to stand, be
counted and speak up themselves. Topping the list of concerns is a sense
of decay in the principle of church-state separation. From faith-based
initiatives to frequent religious expression in the public square, people
of a secular viewpoint are feeling excluded from the public domain.

"There's a strong impression on the religious right that religion has been
excluded" from public life, said Tom Flynn, editor of Free Inquiry, a
bimonthly magazine read by 30,000 secular humanists. "Our perception of
fairness is their perception of discrimination against the religious
right.

... This election really seems to send us the message that we're probably
going to keep losing ground."

Yet as they get more organized, non-theists are also finding they are more
than a one-issue constituency. Leaders say those who don't believe in God
share a virtual consensus in favor of gay and abortion rights.

"If you take religious arguments out of the mix, there's no other group
that's opposing progressive values," said Timothy Travis, a non-theist
from King George, Va.

On the judicial front, the New York City-based American Civil Liberties
Union has seen membership grow by almost 50 percent since the start of
2004, from 300,000 to 445,000. Meanwhile, the Freedom From Religion
Foundation has seen membership climb by about 4 percent since the election
to about 5,100. Both groups use donations to mount legal challenges to
government-sponsored religious activity.

Yet for non-theists, the new goal is to win a favorable opinion from
lawmakers and their constituents. The arrival of a solidly Republican
Congress and a second term for Bush mean, in Silverman's opinion, it's
time to get more organized.

"There's a feeling we need to get our community out and not just sneer at
those we feel are influencing the culture for the worse."

Action is needed, he said, to oppose what many in the movement see as a
"creeping theocracy."