Athiest Discrimination?

[Kulaf]

Since it is technically in a post in the wrong forum I will open it up here since some of our resident atheist have claimed it. I would like to know how exactly athiests are discriminated against.

In the review of Religulous Klast postulated that atheists need lobbyists......presumably to speak on their behalf to law makers to protect their rights. I honestly cannot think of anything they would need further protection from that is not covered in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 but would be happy to hear what they actually need these lobbyists to lobby for.

[Klast Brell]

Moved my reply to your post over here.



How do atheists suffer discrimination?
Military
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/at ... index.html
http://www.thenafa.org/ofa/OFANews.html
Boy Scouts
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/West/10/ ... index.html
Child custody
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/family.pdf
On the job
http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/ ... sm_firing/
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat ... ettles.htm

State constitutions include clauses like:

Arkansas' Constitution (Article 19, Section 1) states: "Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness. No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court."

South Carolina's Constitution (Article 6, Section 2) states: "Person denying existence of Supreme Being not to hold office. No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."

Tennessee's Constitution/Bill of Rights (Article 9, Section 2) states: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."

Texas Constitution Article 1 - BILL OF RIGHTS Section 4 - RELIGIOUS TESTS No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

So passing laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of atheism would be something a lobbyist could work on.

[Harlowe]

When the whole lobbying issue came up it wasn't just a lobby for atheists, but religious moderates & agnostics as well. People that want to counter the neo-con-religious right machine.

[Freecare Spiritwise]

Hah, if the sequence of events that leads up to a "God is really swell" billboard is purely deterministic, then it's an expression of natural law, and can't have a "wrongness" associated with it. Was the superchain of events that brought it into existence wrong?

[Freecare Spiritwise]

...and for a less flippant answer:

Intolerance in all its incarnations is wrong IMO. But things like billboards don't really bother me because people can twist my arm with their beliefs all they want, but they can't force me to believe what I don't want to believe. Oh how that galls some people. Believe me, my non traditional spiritual beliefs are just as offensive as atheism to many people and I feel that same pressure.

So that pressure doesn't really bother me. As the kids say, talk to the hand.

[Kulaf]

Moved my reply to your post over here.

How do atheists suffer discrimination?
Military
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/at ... index.html
http://www.thenafa.org/ofa/OFANews.html
Boy Scouts
http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/West/10/ ... index.html
Child custody
http://www.law.ucla.edu/volokh/family.pdf
On the job
http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/ ... sm_firing/
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat ... ettles.htm

State constitutions include clauses like:

Arkansas' Constitution (Article 19, Section 1) states: "Atheists disqualified from holding office or testifying as witness. No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court."

South Carolina's Constitution (Article 6, Section 2) states: "Person denying existence of Supreme Being not to hold office. No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."

Tennessee's Constitution/Bill of Rights (Article 9, Section 2) states: "No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."

Texas Constitution Article 1 - BILL OF RIGHTS Section 4 - RELIGIOUS TESTS No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.

So passing laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of atheism would be something a lobbyist could work on.

Athiests are already protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the EEOC. You don't face any more chance of discrimination that someone who is religious would. The Boy Scouts are a private organization and as such are allowed to have whatever beliefs they want to have. Feel free to have a offshoot for athiests boys if you so choose. With respect to the constitution of the state of Arkasas Article VI of the US Constitution finds it in violation to whit:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

I think you would find that it would also find in violation any other state constitution that would test someones religious beliefs.

[Kulaf]

As to billboards.....well if someone wants to exercise their freedom of speech by paying for a billboard.....then other people who wish to exercise their freedom of speech by complaining to the owner of said sign must be respected as well. I would suggest the purchase of their own billboard by said organizations and then they can freely express their ideas and views without worrying about the opinions of others.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Klast's citations of various laws excluding participation by atheists is a compelling argument for the discrimination against atheists, at least at a governmental level, and that's where we should be most concerned about discrimination based on religious (and race, gender, etc) preferences. To me, the barring of atheists in government is just as abhorrent as the barring of Jews, Catholics, Wiccans, Deists, Unitarians and Mormons. Well... maybe not Mormons (I kid, I kid).

Seriously though.. the type of belief or type of non-belief in a Supreme Creator should not be a basis for any type of discrimination. I hope those statutes eventually get over-turned, especially before the 2nd coming of Christ.

[Kulaf]

Well the sad thing is......I remember a few people on this board saying they would not support this or that candidate because they are affiliated with this or that religion. And then I have to come in here and support the fact that laws are already on the books to protect athiests from discrimination based on their religious views.

Sad.

[Embar Angylwrath]

To be honest Kulaf, I don't recall that. No matter what political bent particular board members may have, I don't recall any of us discriminating against a candidate based on religious views.

Ever.

[Kulaf]

I distinctly remember several people saying they would never support Romney because he was a Mormon.

[Harlowe]

I have no respect for the LDS church at the leadership level. I think it's as meddling and corrupt as the Vatican, however, I would judge the individual candidate (whether Catholic or Mormon in this example) by their own words and choices. I think Romney is a neo-con homophobe so I certainly wouldn't vote for him.

If a candidate were to come out and say they were atheist, they'd have their balls nailed to a cross in the public square.

[Select]

No matter what political bent particular board members may have, I don't recall any of us discriminating against a candidate based on religious views.

Fallakin is racist for sure, but this religious discrimination sounds like him too. I don't feel like reading back and getting annoyed at his ignorance to find it, though

[Select]

Yay for sister remembering what she's read. Same source link, but it's an intelligent one liking to other sources.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... s_a_go.php
"Godless family" cannot adopt. It's 1970's, but certainly after:

Athiests are already protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... _horde.php

Now the fact that godless Americans exist and that people actually talk to us is the subject of a political ad by the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... editor.php

It's been a rough eight years. So of course it must be someone's fault, and Daniel Henninger has a simple explanation: blame the atheists

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... hese_1.php

I've written a couple of posts decrying the tactics of Elizabeth Dole — who uses the act of talking to atheists as a smear — and favoring her opponent, Kay Hagan. It seems Ms. Hagan doesn't like us very much, though.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... em_all.php

where all sides are taking turns bashing the godless to wash off the taint of association with us subhumans with no faith.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... s_game.php

Christianist thugs stole the atheist sign from the Washington state capitol building.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... ages_o.php

The Atheist Foundation of Australia sought to emulate those successes, and met an obstacle: the ad company simply refused to allow them to buy ad space, without giving a reason, and you can tell it was simply religious bigotry behind the decision.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/ ... _or_le.php

When you listen to the words of the CNN commentator, replace terms like "religious," "Christian," and "faith" with, oh let's see, how about "African American," Black" and if you like, the "n-word." Or, if you don't want to do this with race, you can do this with a religion. Replace "Christian" with "Jewish." Or "Female" and "woman." See how that plays. See if you can tell what is missing in this picture.

[Select]

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... silent.php

Many of us were fans of Possummomma and her blog, Atheist in a Mini-van. She was a passionate writer, struggling to make ends meet with her family, coping with lupus, and also having to deal with a lot of anti-atheist-bigotry in her community and online. Well, they finally got to her: she's gone offline and has put her blog under password protection, all because of some extreme harassment and accusations from, believe it or not, Christian fans of a dopey reality TV show.

Venomous Christians, threats, and stalkers. Enough was enough. Possummomma has been libeled and attacked online, and stalked in real life. This isn't good for her family, or for herself. Stress aggravates the symptoms of SLE, and who needs that?

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... lepers.php
More smearing of atheists and smearing of people who associate with them.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/signage.php

You can tell a lot about people from signs. For instance, the atheists at the University of Alberta went to extra effort and expense to make a nice canvas banner that they could reuse at their events — so some helpful Christians decided to decorate it.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... _fault.php

The conservative columnist Melanie Phillips has an explanation for our current economic problems, for drunkenness and drug abuse, for rudeness, for psychopathic killers, and for the wholesale collapse of Western culture. What could possibly be the single root cause of so many catastrophic consequences? Why, atheism, of course.

Possummomma's blog, Athiest in a Minivan, has some good accounts of discrimination because she's athiest, complete with her children being stalked and death threats for her! One of her kids was being bothered by other kids in class for not believing in God. There's other stuff, but I haven't read the blog in depth yet.

[Select]

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... heists.php

The governor of Illinois has been playing some games with state money, shuffling a million dollars to benefit a Baptist church, and an atheist dared to testify to the legislature against this. The response from one legislator was unsurprising: she shrieked at the atheist to get out.

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago) interrupted atheist activist Rob Sherman during his testimony Wednesday afternoon before the House State Government Administration Committee in Springfield and told him, "What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous . . . it's dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists!
"This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God," Davis said. "Get out of that seat . . . You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon."

[Kulaf]

Yay for sister remembering what she's read. Same source link, but it's an intelligent one liking to other sources.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008 ... s_a_go.php
"Godless family" cannot adopt. It's 1970's, but certainly after:

Athiests are already protected by the Civil Rights Act of 1964

I'll take followup story for $500 Alex:

http://www.americanadoptions.com/adopti ... /2435?pg=1

The NJ Supreme Court unanimously overturned the verdict of the lower court judge.

The rest of your citations are just opinion and not matters of law.

[Ddrak]

Well the sad thing is......I remember a few people on this board saying they would not support this or that candidate because they are affiliated with this or that religion. And then I have to come in here and support the fact that laws are already on the books to protect athiests from discrimination based on their religious views.

Sad.

I think people should quite happily be able to not vote for a candidate based on their religion, especially if they are running with those beliefs as part of their platform. If a Scientologist was running, I'd sure hope people viewed that as a negative (for example).

There's a vast difference between public approval of political candidates, which should very much be done on the candidate's personal beliefs, religion and any other factors that may or may not make them a good representative of your own viewpoint and that of a public servant who should be employed based on their ability to work in a role. If the public servant in question can't separate their religion from their work then there's a definite reason to fire them, but that's still objective and not simply based on their private beliefs.

Dd

[Freecare Spiritwise]

The reason our company hired Philipino and not Indian engineers is because the Pres. more closely identified with their Christian beliefs. Is it discrimination to want to associate with folks you identify with? Being practical I told him I could give a fuck why he hires someone as long as they're good at the job, but I understand where he is coming from. Come to think of it, I don't think there's a single "pure" atheist working for the company, although I don't remember it ever coming up with me. The boss has this weird power for sniffing out those whose belief systems are what he deems incompatible with his. Again, I don't see it as discrimination; I see it as birds of a feather...

And just to keep it consistent I wouldn't have any problem with someone not getting a job at Embar's company because of being pro choice. Being in a position of authority to choose gives one the luxury of choosing like minds. It's always been that way.

Although I do believe we should work towards social structures that are based purely on merit and not anything else like skin color/gender/ideology/etc. Not for purely lofty reasons either, because greater diversity leads to a much more rich and dynamic experience.

[Select]

Kulaf, just because it was eventually overturned, which I knew about, doesn't mean they didn't face discrimination. They still felt singled out, they still felt the emotional strain.

I think it's a terrible thing to judge someone because of their religious beliefs or non-religious beliefs. As long as they aren't mixing it with the job, especially if it's government, then I don't give a shit. If it's violent or hurting people, then I'll care... But that's only if they're acting on the violence and mixing it with the job.