Atheists In The United States Cannot Be Legally Discriminated Against, Many Groups Can Be

Updated below
There is an effort by atheists to misrepresent their status as the most beleaguered minority group in the United States when that is absurd.  Atheists have had the same civil rights status under law as other religious groups of any size for the past fifty-one years, have never been discriminated against in many of the ways that even some of those groups with equal legal status and nothing approaching the levels of discrimination in even some groups that are hardly major victims of discrimination.  Yet they still claim victim status.

More recently, the president of American Atheists, Dave Silverman, told CNN that “[t]he fact is, we’re the most hated group in the country.” During a commercial specially prepared for the broadcast, Silverman boasted, “American Atheists is leading the charge for equality and the separation of religion and government.” Even on Facebook and Twitter, American Atheists and their representatives often refer to themselves as a civil-rights organization.

Yeah, get back to me when atheists are legally discriminated against in public accommodations, right to marry, right to employment, buying or renting housing, etc.  Not to mention being the victim of fatal shootings BY THE POLICE on the average of more than once a day or the victims of routine, homicidal violence such as so many other really discriminated against minorities are.   It is quite possible a lot of that is due to the fact that atheists are about the whitest group of those polled on their religious identity.

I will point out that is is taken from one of the Pew Center's articles that seems to go out of its way to be atheist friendly.  It also say that atheists-agnostics, are more likely to be white men, one of the least discriminated against identities in the world.

Atheists and agnostics are particularly likely to be non-Hispanic whites. Fully eight-in-ten atheists and agnostics (82%) are white, 3% are black, 6% are Hispanic, and the remainder is of some other race or of mixed race. Those who say their religion is “nothing in particular” have a racial and ethnic distribution that closely mirrors that of the general public.

Gender

The unaffiliated population is more male than the general public. Among the unaffiliated as a whole, 56% are men and 44% are women. Among the general public overall, 48% are men and 52% are women.

Far from being economically disadvantaged, atheists, taken as a whole, are more likely to be affluent than most other religious groups.

I have to say, there's something about the atheist complaint that they're not liked which feels like members of the 1% complaining that people don't like them.  I mean, perhaps sometimes people have been given a reason to dislike some small groups of people, even sometimes provided by people in those groups, how they act, THEIR ATTITUDE TO PEOPLE THEY LOOK DOWN ON.  Things like that.

It is especially funny for Dave Silverman to be complaining about the unpopularity of atheists,  the group he heads, American Atheists was founded by that Vesuvius of hate and foulmouthed invective against about 95% of humanity, a person who even many atheists disliked, Madalyn Murray O'Hair*.  If atheists are unpopular, it's atheists like the founder of his organization who have done so much to earn that unpopularity.

Especially funny that it's David Silverman who is putting out the whine about being disliked, considering how many atheists don't seem to like him much, many of them hardly the most winning of individuals, either.  

Rebecca Watson  If Dave Silverman wants to pal around with the kind of people who are trying to take away the fundamental rights of other human beings, then that’s his prerogative. Personally, I’d rather work with people who agree with me on important issues (like reproductive justice) regardless of whether we agree if god is real or not, instead of prioritizing atheism over issues that affect people every single day. The arguments I often hear about why atheist activism is important is that religion is the root of inequality in our society, and if we tackle religion, then our society will be equal. Dave Silverman is proving that this is not the case, and atheism is not the panacea for equality.

P. Z. Myers I got the impression these were actually religious people trying to evangelize to the atheists with a pretense, and they stood out oddly from the rest of the crowd…rather like an atheist shilling at CPAC. So speak up, Dave, tell us what these secular arguments are.

I’m also wary because in my business we’ve run into folks peddling religious bullshit under the guise of being secular before: we call them intelligent design creationists. No one is fooled. Similarly, the anti-choicers who claim to be making a rational secular argument are easy to see through, since they ultimately always rely on some magical perspective on the embryo.

But here’s the bottom line: it is not enough to make a purely secular argument. It has to also be a good argument, unless atheism is to become a smokescreen for nonsense, to be accepted purely because of its godless label. And then atheism might as well just be another religion.

And, for someone who is trying to mount a civil rights movement -for people who already have the full compliment of legal civil rights protections, his lobbying for inclusion at one of the premier venues of right wing hate-talk and agitation AGAINST EQUALITY, CPAC is probably as much as you need to know about him.

That other people mentioned in the Daily Beast story are people I have had encounters with such as Austin Cline, who is a pretty unpleasant and dishonest person, doesn't do much to convince me that atheists particularly care about making friends.   Being liked is not a one way street, you have to make an effort, people aren't required to like you.  Being liked isn't a civil rights issue.

*  "I found more animosity among the atheist community toward her [than among Christians]. They felt like she had a golden opportunity and had blown it," Seaman said. "She couldn't delegate authority, she was mean to her followers, she was unappreciative of their sacrifices. They worked for a pittance because they believed in her cause, and she would curse them and write terrible things about them and fire them.
"As time went on, Madalyn got more and more dictatorial, so she made a huge number of enemies in her own camp."  

She was a "deeply corrupt, depraved human being," wrote Texas journalist Ted Dracos in an email interview. Dracos researched O'Hair's life for his 2003 book "UnGodly: The Passions, Torments, and Murder of Atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair."

"As I was, a lot of people were attracted to Madalyn's staunch stances--the goodness of her Jeffersonian ideals when it came to religion and governance," Dracos continued. "Alas, they were taken in by her. Seduced by her brilliance."

And there is her bizarre lawsuit to get hold of the estate of an atheist millionaire who had hated her and with whom she brawled viciously while he was alive.

In a telephone interview, O`Hair voiced indignation that she is depicted as an opportunistic villain in the estate battle.

``There has been some Madalyn Murray O`Hair-bashing going on, and I`m sick of it,`` she said. ``I`m right, and everybody else is wrong, and that`s all there is to it.``

Her rivalry and disagreements with Johnson, whom she refers to as ``James Scurvy Johnson,`` go back several years. In 1983, for example, she sent him a letter imploring him to turn over the assets of his atheist enterprises to her organization.

``You are a dying, defunct, discredited old man who will grow moldy in an unmarked grave, having squandered atheist funds,`` she wrote to Johnson. ``In the interest of a movement which you have injured by your presence in it, it appears to me you should be now making arrangements to turn everything over to American Atheists, which can do something since it is a viable, militant organization of excellent leadership, organization and elan.``

But Johnson stoutly resisted a latter-day alliance with O`Hair, selecting a nonatheist executor for his estate and filing a handwritten codicil to his will designed to frustrate O`Hair`s efforts to take control of his funds.

It's almost like atheists, today took her example as their version of Dale Carnegie with the results that her kind of approach was likely to get.

Update:  Despite what you say, if I'd wanted to be really nasty about atheists who don't seem to like each other about as much as the general population doesn't, I wouldn't have stopped where I did.  The same newspaper report continues:

``I don`t think he trusted atheists, and especially Mrs. O`Hair,`` the executor, Lawrence True, told the Los Angeles Times before the judge in the case imposed a gag order.

Johnson was elected a San Diego County assessor more than 50 years ago but was removed after he was convicted of misusing public funds in improperly disbursing tax refunds.

He also was taken to court in 1952 by his dying mother, then 79, who accused him of taking control of her money and failing to pay her hospital bill.


By the early 1960s, Johnson had become editor and publisher of the Truth Seeker, the country`s oldest atheist journal, and had assumed control of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism and the National Liberal League. He used the magazine as a platform for his outspoken views.

His vitriolic attacks were an embarrassment to other atheists, and when he died the magazine`s circulation was less than 500.

I could go into the atheist wars of folks like Thunderf00t against Rebecca Watson, Thunderf00t against PZ Myers, PZ Myers and Ophelia Benson against Michael Shermer, etc.   Atheists don't seem to like each other, maybe it's for the same reasons that lots of non-atheists don't like atheists.