As a further sign of the times—that is, of the increasing secularism in the U.S.—we have an editorial from a major newspaper, yesterday’s Sunday Los Angeles Times, that calls for an end to marginalizing atheists, demonizing them, and calling them “unpatriotic.” The editorial is signed by the “Times Editorial Board,” thus representing the consensus opinion of the paper.

Read the piece, “Patriotic Americans have the right not to believe in any God“; it will hearten you even if they did put “God” in caps, implying a specific god (the Abrahamic one) rather than gods in general.

To show you how out of touch I am, the authors motivate their opinion by citing two recent incidents, and I was completely unaware of the Mississippi bill. That one will certainly violate the First Amendment, but it’s probably just for show, to give lawmakers a chance to posture and compete at showing their love of Jesus. The Greece, New York case was of course common knowledge.

A few snippets from the editorial:

In Mississippi there is currently a campaign to amend the state constitution to acknowledge the state’s “identity as a principally Christian and quintessentially Southern state, in terms of the majority of her population, character, culture, history, and heritage, from 1817 to the present; accordingly, the Holy Bible is acknowledged as a foremost source of her founding principles, inspiration, and virtues; and, accordingly, prayer is acknowledged as a respected, meaningful, and valuable custom of her citizens.” (Bizarrely, the text says the amendment “shall not be construed to transgress either the national or the state constitution’s Bill of Rights.”)

That last statement about the First Amendment is of course the height of mendacity.

The commingling of citizenship and Christianity isn’t confined to the Bible Belt. In May, the Supreme Court upheld a New York town’s practice of opening its public meetings with invocations that overwhelmingly were offered by Christian clergy members who frequently prayed in Jesus’ name. The notion that the U.S. is a Christian nation also underlies claims, fanned by talk show hosts and other non-serious hysterics, about a secularist “war on Christmas” and the continued complaints about Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s that ended the practice of beginning public school classes with prayers and Bible readings.

And then the paper gets down to business:

We believe that entanglement of religion and government runs the risk of risk of marginalizing citizens who don’t share the religion of the majority. That is especially a concern at a time of growing religious diversity and an increase in the number of Americans who tell pollsters they aren’t affiliated with any religion. In a 2012 Pew Research Center poll, 19.6% of adults said they were “religiously unaffiliated.”

. . . equal treatment for organized religions, while it avoids the evil of “establishing” a single faith, can still carry the message that those with no religious beliefs at all are second-class citizens. That is why this page has opposed even nonsectarian prayers at meetings of local government bodies. Political leaders, especially those who frequently engage in religious language, should acknowledge that there is no religious test for being a good American. Obama did just that in his first inaugural address when he said that “we are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and nonbelievers.” We’d like to see more public officials recognize that reality; one way of doing that is to include nonreligious speakers in solemn public events. (That wasn’t done when public officials, including Obama, came together last year to honor the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings, despite a request that the speakers include a representative from the Secular Coalition for America.)

The ending is great:

Organized religion undeniably plays an important and often constructive role in the lives of many Americans. Religious figures have been instrumental in political causes from abolitionism to the civil rights movement. No one should seek to banish them from political debate. But we reject the notion that religious faith in general or adherence to a particular creed is an essential attribute of being American. The only creed to which a citizen of this country should have to pay homage is the Constitution.

You can’t promote secularism more strongly than that, and I’m enormously chuffed to see this coming from an important journalistic organ in the U.S. Now if only the New York Times—or even the New Yorker, which is always soft on religion—would say something like this. After all, it’s not like this message is strident, for it adheres scrupulously to what the founding fathers of our country intended, and during times that were at least as religious as now.

h/t: Robin

According to North Country Public Radio (a subsidiary of NPR), an atheist delivered the opening “invocation” at a city council meeting last month in Huntsville, Alabama. It was the first time in the history of the state (as far as we know) that a secular invocation opened a public meeting in that state.

If you click on the screenshot below, you can hear Jeannie Robison, the executive director of the Interfaith Mission Service (and an Episcopalian deacon) discussing the genesis of this event with Robin Young.  Of course our Official Website Secular Organization™, the Freedom from Religion Foundation, was involved in getting the City Council to agree to such an invocation.

Here’s the invocation from a report at AL.com. The invocation was given by Kelly McCauley, a member of the board of directors of the North Alabama Freethought Association:

Dearly Beloved,

     When the ancients considered the values that were proper and necessary for the good governance of a peaceful, productive society, they brought to our minds the virtues of Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Moderation. These values have stood the test of time.

     In more recent days, an American style of governance has led to approbation for newer enlightened values; we celebrate diversity, we enjoy protections of our freedoms in a Constitutional Republic, and we dearly value egalitarianism – equal protection of the law.

     So now let us commence the affairs that are presented to our community. Let Doubt and Skepticism and Inquiry be on our lookout when caution is the appropriate course. But also let innovation and boldness take point when opportunities for excellence appear on our horizon.

     In this solemn discourse, let’s remember Jefferson’s words: “…that Truth is great, and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”

     Let it be so.