Atheism is Indeed A Civil Rights Issue

by Eddie Tabash

In “Atheism Is Not a Civil Rights Issue”(FI, February-March), DJ Grothe and Austin Dacey deny that atheism isa civil rights issue. They reject the idea that nonbelievers should focus onelecting other nonbelievers to political office. I disagree on both counts.

Is Atheism a Civil Rights Issue?

One test of whether a minority group’s struggle forequality is a civil rights issue is whether majority attitudes toward thatminority reflect unreasonable prejudice or a desire to deny full legal rights toits members. By this standard, atheists’ efforts to achieve legal and socialequality indeed constitute a civil rights movement. Consider that, in 1958, aGallup poll revealed that 53 percent of American citizens would vote against aBlack candidate for president on grounds of race alone. In a 1999 Gallup poll,that figure had declined to 4 percent.¹ That same 1999 Gallup pollrevealed that a larger percentage of American citizens, 49 percent, would voteagainst an atheiston grounds of atheism alone than would vote againstsomeone for any other reason.² Even though this is the lowestcomparative percentage of people who said they would vote against someone justfor being a nonbeliever, in absolute numbers, it is still a higher percentagethan is applicable to any other historically disfavored group.

Given current attitudes, new laws that overtly discriminateagainst atheists would pass easily, and any such existing laws would eagerly beenforced—save only for the United States Supreme Court, which has heldconsistently since 1947 that no branch of government can favor believers overnonbelievers.³ Enlightened as this position may be, it has neverenjoyed majority support. Quite to the contrary, each time the Supreme Court,indeed any court, has struck down government preference for religion overnonbelief, an overwhelming majority of the public has opposed the decision inquestion.

Ever since the famous Supreme Court rulings of 1962 and1963 that ended teacher-led prayer and Bible readings in public schools, in pollafter poll Americans have favored returning government sponsored prayer topublic schools by aminimum margin of 69 percent to 27 percent.⁴In many surveys, the percentage favoring restoration of school prayer exceeds 75percent.⁵

In other words, an overwhelming majority of Americansrejects the offer of fairness that atheists and secular humanists have alwaysproposed. We don’t want government to favor us over others; we just wantgovernment to be neutral, so that both believers and nonbelievers will be equalbefore the law. We want government to stay out of the God controversy, so thatthe official structure of society equally embraces both believers andnonbelievers. We want government to be silent on the question of God’sexistence and on matters of worship. Even a moderate conservative like U.S.Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has endorsed this position,asserting that the First Amendment prohibits all branches of government fromtreating people differently based upon “the God or gods they worship ordon’t worship.”⁶

In contrast, most Americans yearn for government to takesides in the dispute over whether God exists. And so, we atheists and humanistsfind ourselves dependent on a constitutional mandate of equality before the law,the immediate survival of which depends upon a dangerously narrow margin of justtwo votes on the Supreme Court. A shift of these two votes would establish afive-vote majority on the Court sufficient to abolish the present requirement ofgovernment neutrality between religion and nonbelief. So far, President Bush hassucceeded in appointing judges to the lower federal courts who openly favor aChristian theological basis for our legal system. These judges, unfortunatelyreflecting attitudes held by most Americans, maintain that the Supreme Court hasbeen wrong in its unbroken line of decisions that require government to treatbelief and nonbelief equally.

Since the majority in our nation regards nonbelievers withdisdain and craves an end to government neutrality between religion andnonbelief, the struggle of atheists in the United States is indeed a civilrights issue. But that’s not the worst of it.

Mainstream Americans don’t simply reject atheism. Far toomany of them also revile atheists, secular humanists, and other unbelievers aspersons. In reflecting upon my own narrow loss in my 2000 bid for a seat in theCalifornia legislature, I have written that nonbelievers are the most unjustlydespised minority in the United States today..⁷

History and current events confirm how sharply nonbelieversare loathed. Consider the torrent of hatred today directed toward Michael Newdow,the courageous plaintiff in the effort to remove “under God” from the Pledgeof Allegiance that public school children are expected to recite. Far from beingunusual, the negative public response toward Newdowtypifies the ragewith which most Americans respond when anyone from our community demands thatofficial government pronouncements be as equally inclusive of us as they are ofeveryone else.

Or consider a historical example. In February 1964, whenthe landmark Civil Rights Act was being debated in Congress, the House ofRepresentatives passed a measure by a vote of 137 to 98 thatexplicitlyexcluded atheistsfrom protection under the new law that would otherwiseabolish employment discrimination.#8 Fortunately, the measure failed in theSenate. Still, just forty years ago, the same House of Representatives thatdeclared it illegal to engage in employment discrimination against AfricanAmericans was willing to give employers free rein to go on discriminatingagainst people who didn’t believe in God.

I submit that bigotry against a person just because thatindividual rejects unproven supernatural claims is every bit as destructive ofthe quest for a just and enlightened society as is bigotry against someone ongrounds of race or ethnicity.

To the extent that a clear majority of Americans, let alonean overwhelming majority,wants government at all levels to officiallyfavor religion over nonbelief—to the extent that more Americans still viewatheism as a disqualifying characteristic in a political candidate than they doany other factor—I submit that we nonbelievers are in just as much danger ofsuffering open discrimination as is the gay community. Even though there havenot yet been any notable physical attacks on atheists—just for beingatheists—discrimination does not have to be accompanied by overt violence inorder to pose a grave threat to a minority group’s struggle for full equality.Further, if President Bush succeeds in restructuring the Supreme Court so as tocreate a majority willing to nullify church/state separation, opendiscrimination against atheists and secular humanists may become the active andenforceable law of the land.

Accordingly, the efforts of atheists, secular humanists,and other nonbelievers to secure and preserve their equality before the law isevery bit as much a civil rights struggle as is that of the gay rights movement.

Should Atheists Elect Their Own?

One of the most important advances members of any unjustlydespised minority can make is to begin electing members of their own communityto political office. Consider how pathetically contemporary politicians panderto religion—for example, when every United States senator gathered on theCapitol steps to support “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance after theinitial Ninth Circuit finding favorable to Newdow was announced. Clearly ourbest protection against legislation hostile to nonbelievers would be to get someatheists elected to Congress and state legislatures.

In their article, Grothe and Dacey reproach what theyportray as my stance that atheists should vote for an atheist candidate solelybecause of his or her atheism. My actual position is that, given the dearth ofnonbelievers currently holding significant political office in the UnitedStates, when one of our colleagues in freethought makes a bid for office and hasa significant chance of winning, we should try to give that candidate oursupport even if we do not agree with him or her on every issue. We nonbelieverscan be a contentious lot, often withholding our backing from anyone with whom wedisagree on even just one issue. As a practical matter, we will never find acandidate with whom we agree on everything. My suggestion, then, is for atheistsand secular humanists to try to give a viable candidate from our own communitygreater leeway on topics not directly germane to the equal rights ofnonbelievers and church-state separation. Each of us should try to support thatcandidate, unless he or she holds a position on some issue that violates one ofour core individual beliefs.

The gay community, women, African Americans, and otherminority groups have learned the importance of civil rights activism, and ofelecting their own to political office. Since the mood of the country is soantagonistic toward atheists, our own quest to secure and preserve equalitybefore the law is clearly a civil rights issue. As such, just like any otherunjustly despised minority, we must learn how to elect a number of our own tothe halls of power.

Notes

1. Laurie Goodstein, “And Now for Something Completely Different,”NewYork Times, August 12, 2000, sec. 4, p. 1.

2. Ibid.

3.Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Tp., 330 U.S. 1, 15 (1947).

4. “Bush, Lieberman Religion Has Little Influence, Americans TellQuinnipiac University National Poll; Large Majorities Favor School Prayer, GodIn Pledge,” press release, June 12, 2003, available online athttp://www.quinnipiac.edu/x6355.xml. 

5. Michelle Marie Southers, “School Prayer,” National ParliamentaryDebate Workshop background briefing, online athttp://www.willamette.edu/cla/rhetoric/workshop/DebateResearch/michellesouthers.doc. 

6.Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687, 714(1994) (O’Connor, J., concurring).

7. Edward Tabash, “Electing Atheists to Political Office,” The SecularWeb Kiosk, August 2001. http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=122. 

8.110 Congressional Record 2607–11, February 8, 1964; Brian F. LeBeau,The Atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair (New York: New York UniversityPress, 2003), pp. 105–08.

Edward Tabash is a member of the Board of Directors of theCouncil for Secular Humanism and is a constitutional lawyer in Beverly Hills,California. In 2000, he was the only known secular humanist/atheist to have beena viable candidate for a seat in a state legislature.