Atheism: The Next Civil Rights Movement?

[cbayer]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/06/atheism-the-next-civil-rights-movement.html


Munir Uz Zaman/Getty

Vlad Chituc

NONRELIGIOUS FREEDOM
04.06.15

One of the ‘most hated’ groups in America, Atheists face discrimination in everything from employment to child custody. A growing movement is fighting back—in the name of civil rights.

Early this week, Bangladeshi blogger Washiqur Rahman was stabbed and killed by three men, and the wounds to his face and neck were so severe that police had to use the voter ID card he was carrying in his pocket to identify him. This comes barely more than a month after Avijiti Roy, a Bangladeshi-American blogger, was attacked with a machete and hacked to death.

Both attacks happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s capital, and both victims were atheists.

In part because of horrors that atheists experience in the rest of the world, and in part because of gross abuses experienced by other minorities in the West, I tend to roll my eyes at rhetoric often used by the public faces of atheism in America. My close friend Chris Stedman has catalogued a few examples: according to Bill Maher of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, atheism is the new gay marriage; Todd Stiefel, a prominent atheist activist and philanthropist, has said that atheism is “the next civil equality movement, just like women’s rights, LGBT rights and African-American Civil Rights;” and Austin Cline of About.com thinks that atheists are “hated more than gays.”

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.

more at link

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Fascinating. So unless you experience physical assault, it's not 'hate'?

That atheists are so hated, let alone more than other beleaguered minority in the U.S., should strike any sensible person as absurd (and the empirical data to support it is scant). Based on the FBI’s statistics on hate crimes, gay men in America are victims of about 13 percent of hate crimes involving a single bias, but only constitute about 2 percent of the population. Contrast that with atheists, who also make up around 2 percent of the population (sometimes more, depending on who asks and how), yet are victims of less than a fraction of 1 percent of single-bias hate crimes. A gay man in America is orders of magnitude more likely to experience hatred than an atheist.

What an interesting deflection.

Nevermind that Atheists aren't a protected class, so crimes against them may not be reported into this system. (2 days ago, Madison Wisconsin became the first city in the nation to add Atheists to the list of protected non-discrimination classes)

Nevermind that Maher and friends, quoted in that article, weren't using the word 'hate' in the context of Hate Crime at all.

[gcomeau]

2. Also nevermind...

...that unless someone is going out of their way to identify themselves as such you can't exactly pick atheists out on the street and say "Look! Atheists! Get 'em!!!"


Large percentages of atheists simply never tell the people around them that they are. (Gee, wonder why?)

[Fumesucker]

3. If you can "pass" and stay in the closet then discrimination and bigotry aren't problems

At least that is the overwhelming vibe I get on DU.

[AlbertCat]

13. that unless someone is going out of their way to identify themselves as such

you can't tell someone is gay.

Or are the men all limp-wristed and in pink? and the gals wear plaid flannel shirts and a tool belt?

[TM99]

4. No, not here.

I am bi-racial and a de facto atheist.

There is real violence and violations of civil rights in other countries towards atheist, but there is nothing like that here. To say such hyperbolic bullshit as atheists are 'hated more than gays' is insulting.

Any one notice that all of the prominent atheists claiming that they are a persecuted group in need of massive civil rights are mainly white, male, affluent, highly educated, and straight?

There is always a need to maintain the separation of church and state that is the foundation of our country. The freedom to worship as one chooses and the freedom to not do so are inviolate. Secular and religious organizations can agree and work together on that.

But bluntly these asses need to focus some of that anger, resentment, money, and time on helping atheists in other countries who truly are persecuted and less time listening to themselves speak on the internet and at circle jerk conferences.

[cbayer]

5. While I agree that the consequences for non-belief in some parts of the world

are heinous, there is societal discrimination towards atheists in this country. I do think they are the next group to make significant headway towards less prejudice and more understanding.

The study that gets brought up over and over has to do with levels of trust, not hate, and there is little other substantive data to refer to.

As with many movements (and I do think this is a movement in the US), the leaders and spokespeople do tend to be those with the least to lose - therefore white, male, educated and affluent.

I'm not a fan of some of those who are considered leaders, including David Silverman, but that is primarily because they are so caustically anti-relgion. That is unnecessary and, imo, counterproductive.

However, there are others who are not asses at all. Those at FFRF, and particularly Dan Barker, Chris Stedman and numerous others are doing some really great work on both separation and societal discrimination issues. It is individuals and groups like that that will eventually lead to societal equality.

Too much we/them from both sides, imo. As the article points out, only 1 in 7 atheists are anti-religious. Unfortunately many of them have the loudest voices, but who do they really represent? Lets focus on the other 6 and get something done.

[TM99]

6. The societal discrimination is still not anywhere

near as bad as that towards people of color or GLBTQ people.

Trust can't be built if embellishments and false comparisons are made.

And yes, the most vocal leaders are very anti-religion. It is easy to see why because the real us/them in this battle is between the anti-religion atheists like Dawkins and Silverman and the fundamentalist Christians like Robertson and Westboro.

Until the extremes are challenged by others within both camps then the extremists set the tone, define the argument, and create the ongoing conflicts. That is the discussion that must be a part of the first world problem of atheism and religion in America. And even then it does not help to alleviate the real suffering of non-religious people in parts of the world where real violence is acted out upon them daily.

[cbayer]

7. I'm not sure I can go with "the prejudice against me is worse than the prejudice against you".

It varies a great deal depending on where you reside in the US. I think in some places it's pretty easy to be GLBTQ or atheist. In other places, not easy at all. As to being a person of color, it also depends on the color and where you are.

I think the author makes some good point about embellishments and false comparisons, as do you. But that doesn't mean that the issue should be dismissed. I do not think the lack of trust in atheists is due to either of those things.

The battle lines should be exactly as you describe. Unfortunately, there are those who are anti-religion with no apparent capacity to distinguish friend from foe. They seem to think Gene Robinson and Pat Robertson are ideological twins. Their vision is as shallow as that of those they criticize.

But I'm into marginalizing them. They represent a small minority and it's one that is hell bent on alienating their allies. It does not good to challenge them. Let the extremists on the other end do that.

By ignoring them and allowing others to speak, you can change the dynamic of who sets the tone and defines the argument. I don't think arguing with them accomplishes much, if anything.

[TM99]

8. I am not dismissing the issue.

I guess I am dismissing the style of communication that is being employed to bring to light any issues.

Words both describe and shape our realities.

That is one of my major problems with 'privilege' theory. Does a white female disabled atheist have more or less privilege than a black male gay Christian? It all becomes rather ridiculous unless we agree upon terms, what is and isn't persecution, and what the goals are for changing the actual laws that govern our society.

Should we not marginalize the extremists? Why support their viewpoint? Why allow it to be the strongest or one of the stronger voices in the discussion? And is ignoring them just another form of marginalization?

[cbayer]

11. I have similar issues with the issue of "privilege".

Wherever one is on the ladder, one tends to perceive everyone else as somewhere above and not recognize their own position.

I agree that what occurs in the US for the most part is not persecution, but there is prejudice. Many people still can not be open about their atheism or any beliefs that may not be mainstream in their community. I do believe that some people risk losing their jobs, friends, families and have to either stay silent or pretend they are something they are not.

I would like to see that change.

Marginalizing the extremists is exactly what I think should be done. As they are not going to back away from their positions, I think the most effective tool for not supporting their viewpoint is to ignore it. They are looking for a fight, why grant their wish? One just gives them a bullhorn and a reason to feel persecuted when you engage. If someone rages into the internet and no one hears it, do they really have a strong voice in the discussion or is there silence?

[struggle4progress]

22. The FBI's 2013 Hate Crimes Statistics Report, released in December 2014, shows

5922 single-bias incidents involving 7230 victims and 5808 offenders

The leading category is racially-based, with 2871 incidents involving 3563 victims and 2773 offenders; of these anti-black crimes predominate, with 1856 incidents involving 2371 victims and 1747 offenders; and anti-white crimes come next, with 653 incidents involving 754 victims and 680 offenders

The second leading category is sexual-orientation-based, with 1233 incidents involving 1461 victims and 1514 offenders; here anti-gay-male crimes predominate, with 750 incidents involving 890 victims and 975 offenders.

The third leading category is religion-based, with 1031 incidents involving 1223 victims and 682 offenders; here anti-Jewish crimes predominate, with 625 incidents involving 737 victims and 393 offenders, followed by anti-Muslim crimes, with 137 incidents involving 167 victims and 127 offenders. Anti-atheist/anti-agnostic crimes trail near the bottom of the list, with 7 incidents involving 7 victims and 4 offenders

So:
about 1 in every 55 000 Americans committed a hate crime in 2013;
about 1 in every 183 000 committed a hate crime against blacks;
about 1 in every 327 000 committed a hate crime against gay males;
about 1 in every 811 000 committed a hate crime against Jews; and
about 1 in every 79 700 000 committed a hate crime against atheists/agnostics

[TM99]

23. The facts back up

that this type of communication is hyperbolic and horribly ineffective.

[struggle4progress]

24. The internet seems to encourage ineffective hyperbolic speech

[cbayer]

25. I agree and do not think the case can be made that nonbelievers are

being victimized by hate crimes.

I think it is the social prejudice that is very prevalent in some places and does seriously impact on the lives of some.

Even Barney Frank is telling people to stay in the closet if they want to run for office.

[struggle4progress]

32. Here's an excerpt from Frank: "... from the politician's standpoint the question is why pick a fight

that doesn't have to be waged? I never expressed the fact that I was not a believer in any theistic approach because it was never relevant. I did fight very hard throughout my 40 years in elected office to prevent rules and laws that put nonbelievers at a disadvantage. I've fought very hard against the establishment of religion, against people being forced to subscribe to religious views to get certain benefits, et cetera. But beyond that it didn't come up. In my own case there was another reason why I didn't talk about it, I'm Jewish. Obviously there's a strong terrible history of persecution of Jews. Judaism is a religion, but it is also an ethnicity. And for many of us who are Jewish in America today it is the ethnicity more than or even to the exclusion of religion that identifies us. But for me to have, when I was a public official I was the first Jewish person to be elected to the Congress in the United States since 1884. It would've looked as, or to some people it could have been distorted to be a kind of I'm separating myself from the Jews and I wouldn't want to do that. Even today, as secular as I am, when the high holy days of Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah come up, I am not going to be seen in public doing things that other Jews won't do for religious reasons. I don't observe them myself in a religious way, but I would not want my behavior to be used to embarrass or discomfort anybody who does religiously follow them."

When I vote, I'm not interested in whether the candidate is a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain, a Buddhist or a Baptist or a Jew. I'm interested in whether the candidate understands the issues and can fight the needed political fights effectively. In dealing with US media, which often provide superficial and soundbite-based coverage, politicians (and others in the public eye) need the self-discipline to discuss issues in ways that lead to useful coverage rather than to pointless noisy media-manufactured controversies. It's sadly true that some segments of the population can be motivated, by pointless fights, to support certain candidates; and there's a word for candidates who profit by picking pointless fights: demagogue. Frank's advice, not to pick a fight you don't need to have, is good and principled advice: people who ignore that advice tend not to become impressive officials

[cbayer]

33. This is more consistent with the approach I wish more would take.

If more people would take the position that it's not relevant and reply in that way (or say it's none of your business), I think that would go a long way towards leveling the playing field.

And perhaps is exactly the time when this can be done. Frank has shown that you can take the position that what he believes or doesn't believe is irrelevant, while standing up for everyone's right to believe or not.

I can agree with both you and him that picking a fight you don't need to have is really counterproductive.

[AlbertCat]

14. violations of civil rights in other countries towards atheist,

How many known atheists have been president?

How many have been elected to anything?


in the USA of course.

[cbayer]

16. While the lack of electability definitely points to prejudice, it's not a violation

of civil rights unless there is legislation in place that would prohibit an atheist from running.

[TM99]

19. Yes, because getting elected

President in the US is exactly comparable to being slaughtered in the streets for your lack of belief in a god or gods.

[AlbertCat]

20. being slaughtered in the streets

Yes because not being slaughtered in the streets means everything is just hunky dory!

[TM99]

21. What isn't hunky dory

is using hyperbolic language to equate prejudices to violent persecution.

While working on removing the prejudices (which always take time in a society), we can be working on helping others in the world not suffer violent persecution.

Funny, I rarely hear the atheists of today speak to that. Why do you think that is?

[goldent]

9. In the US I think atheists should get the same rights and protections

of members of any religion. Didn't the SCOTUS once say that atheism is like another religion in this regard?

[cbayer]

12. Theoretically yes, but there is still evidence of discrimination.

For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employment discrimination based on any of several factors, including religion. That includes discrimination for or against any particular religion, but it also includes discrimination in favor of religion over nonreligion. The Freedom from Religion Foundation has provided this informative summary:

I was fired/not hired because I am an atheist/agnostic/freethinker. Is this legal?
Generally, religious status (including lack of religious affiliation or lack of belief in a god) is a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This means that when an employer chooses who to hire/fire/promote/demote, the employer may not use religious affiliation as a factor in making that decision. The EEOC does make a limited exception to this general rule for employers at expressly religious places of business, at least when it comes to hiring/firing decisions. The Supreme Court held that this exemption was constitutional in Corp. of Presiding Bishop of Church of LDS v. Amos, 483 U.S. 327 (1987) (upholding exemption for nonprofit activities run by the LDS church). The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently applied this exception in Spencer v. World Vision, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 3293706 (9th Cir. 2010) where it held that a non-profit, faith-based Christian organization fell within the Title VII religious exemption and could therefore fire non-Christian employees. Still, this remains a very narrow exception. See, e.g., EEOC v. Kamehameha Schs., 990 F.2d 458, 461 (9th Cir. 1993) (finding no exception for a religiously affiliated school); EEOC v. Townley, 859 F.2d 610, 619 (9th Cir. 1988) (finding no exemption for a “Christian, faith-operated” commercial company). If the company at issue is not run by a church or other expressly religious, nonprofit organization, chances are that a non-religious person cannot be legally denied a position, fired, demoted or denied a promotion based on religious criteria. If you believe you have experienced such an injustice, contact the EEOC or an attorney specializing in employment law as described in the opening paragraph of this FAQ.

(Thanks to Jim Lane, from whom I stole this response)

[struggle4progress]

10. Jim Crow was an economic system: it did not originate from prejudice; rather, prejudice developed

to justify the economic exploitation and to prevent people from thinking clearly about the system

This should be clear from the historical development. People who benefited from slavery needed an ideological justification for the ordering of ante-bellum society, so concocted a myth about the intellectual inferiority of the slaves and their lack of emotional control, to justify the hierarchical structure of the society and the organized violence necessary to perpetuate slavery. With the loss of slavery as a legitimate legal arrangement, the same hierarchical structure was reproduced under a modified ideological theory which stressed the criminality of the slaves' descendants and allowed chain gang labor as a replacement for slavery. As chain gang labor fell from favor, the division of society into classes identifiable by skin color continued to be perpetuated by violence justified by a further modified myth about the myth involving intellectual inferiority, lack of emotional control, and criminality; and this continual reconstruction of a black underclass still required inferior segregated schools, so that no counter-examples could embarrass the myth-makers. Blacks were not consigned to dead-end jobs with low pay because whites were prejudiced; rather, white prejudice evolved to perpetuate a system, that originally relied on state-sanctioned violence in order to consign blacks to a permanent underclass which a white overclass could exploit

The distinction is important, because the social mechanisms that overclasses use to create underclasses can be understood in a scientific manner, and these mechanisms continue to exist. We can identify a Juan Crow system, for example, that today relies on state power to create a lower class of Hispanics: here the power of the state is exercised as the threat of detention and deportation; and Hispanics are identified as criminals when they lack documentation; but this status does not prevent their exploitation as lower-class workers in various economic sectors

Similarly, "free trade doctrines" allowing commodities to cross borders freely, while restricting human migration, allow overclasses in one country to exploit underclasses abroad, without getting their own hands dirty with the mechanisms of state violence, which can be off-shored to client governments elsewhere in the world, the problems of justifying the exploitation thus becoming invisible to most of the people who benefit from the exploitation

The civil rights struggles that transform societies are those that expose and attack the systems of exploitation. A quarter of the population of Bangladesh earns $2/day; half of the children there suffer malnutrition. The garment industry relies heavily on child labor. There will, of course, local ideological justifications of these conditions, explaining why this is the natural state of affairs, but mere chatter attacking the ideology will not produce change: effective chatter will evolve only if it is based on organizing experience gained from efforts to change condition. The ideological commitments behind the attack on (say) Washiqur Rahman are unlikely to change without prior changes in conditions

[AlbertCat]

15. it did not originate from prejudice

Yeah.... just so those darkies couldn't vote or get a decent job.....


You so funny!




and pitiful

[cbayer]

17. Pitiful? He wrote a thoughtful response that you disagree with, but you just call him pitiful?

Why don't you respond with substance, AC?

[struggle4progress]

18. The trans-Atlantic slave trade did not originate because the slave traders were prejudiced;

it originated because slave traders eager to profit were willing to overlook the moral implications of the trade. Nor did Southern plantation owners' willingness to purchase slaves originate from their prejudice: it originated because plantation owners eager to profit from unwaged labor were willing to overlook the moral implications of chattel slavery. Racial prejudice itself, in all its irrationality, arose as psychological self-justification for participating in that system: discovering, for example, that slaves able to read were also better prepared to resist, led to laws criminalizing the act of teaching slaves to read, and popular justification of these laws then produced the prejudice that slaves lacked the necessary intellectual abilities anyway. Exactly the same motivational forces can be discerned in the chain-gang-labor system that replaced Southern slavery after the civil war: now people were arrested for minor offenses such as vagrancy, and the convicts were leased by the state as labor to private businesses; popular justification of the new system then produced the prejudice that blacks were intrinsic criminals anyway. The culture of violence against slaves originating during the chattel slavery period, and the subsequent violence against blacks in the post-war era, had their origin in the perpetuation of a system of exploitation, which relied on terrorization of a population to ensure it remained a permanent underclass

Jim Crow era laws were part of a system that relied on both state and private violence to ensure that blacks remained a lumpen-proletariate. The impoverished will work for very little pay, because their need is immediate. Since poverty is one of the clearest symptoms of political powerlessness, denying the right to vote was a critical link in the economic exploitation of the black underclass. The explosive violence, of US segregationists during the civil rights era, did not spring from their prejudice: that violence was integral to a system of economic exploitation that had evolved from slavery through chain gang labor and thence to enforced political disenfranchisement, always enforced by a combination of official and spontaneous individual terror; the prejudice was simply the psychological theory that soothed the conscience of those who were willing to engage in violence to maintain the underclass through terror. When MLK was assassinated in Memphis, he was not there to preach a simple anti-prejudice message; he was there to support the black sanitation workers strike, originating from their very low pay and unsafe working conditions that produced injuries and deaths

Racial prejudice was not the only ideological stance used in that era to mask economic exploitation: anti-communism was commonly used to justify stances against worker rights. That's why MLK was so often called a communist

[F4lconF16]

26. Excellent posts.

Would you mind making the two of them into an OP? I think this is something DU really needs to understand the history of.

[struggle4progress]

31. I've actually posted these ideas repeatedly here,

as well as the following excellent and informative video

[RedstDem]

27. I don't feel persecuted at all, actually the religious

Probably feel persecuted around me.
I cut the old lady slack on it, but everyone else gets the deluxe treatment.

[cbayer]

28. In what way do you give the religious the deluxe treatment?

[RedstDem]

29. you have to know the religious that I know

They're filled with hatred towards colored and poor people. So the deluxe treatment is telling them how unlike Jesus they are.

Not really deluxe, I guess.

I'll have to think of better branding.

[cbayer]

30. Ah, religiously based bigots. Go get 'em.