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Commentary Too - Jan 16, 2005 - Printable Version
- Confessions From the Closet
by S. K. Eleton
The time has come for me to make a confession, to come out of the closet, as it were. Of course, I suppose it is not truly coming out of the closet if you make your confession anonymously - more like knocking on the door to let you know someone is there. And that is my real purpose in writing this article. To address an issue that is keeping a number of people unhappily closeted, living lives that border on deceitful. Most of you are aware that many closets have someone in them, but you may not be aware of how deep and how full some of those closets are. The term "in the closet" usually refers to the status of a homosexual who has not made his/her sexual orientation public. But there are many others who feel the need to remain closeted for similar reasons - the simple fact that society refuses to accept them for who they are, for some practice they choose to indulge in, or for something they think, feel or believe. Many of us are not ashamed or embarrassed by that which keeps us in the closet. More often, we are afraid of our neighbors, who are unable to understand us and respond in negative, sometimes even dangerous ways. If I challenged you here and now to name the single most hated group of people in America, what group would you name? Most would probably name homosexuals or Muslims. Those people who are still aware of the pervasiveness of racism in our society might mention blacks or Hispanics. Politicians and lawyers often come to mind. But there is one group that rarely gets mentioned by people who are outraged by discrimination and bias, and this group is one that is quietly and effectively discriminated against every day of the year. And could, at least in some respects, be justified in regarding themselves as the most hated group of people in America. I am referring to the atheists, agnostics, free-thinkers - in short, anyone who does not believe in God. Most of you will probably be surprised to hear this. You assume, as do others, that atheists live happy and fulfilled existences, fully functional and accepted by society. Yet, a large portion of us find it necessary to remain in the closet, surrounded by rampant Christianity, unable to voice our fears. This is particularly true in that portion of the country known variously as The Bible Belt, The Red States, or simply Middle America. The very word atheist brings up images in most people's mind of fire-breathing Satan worshippers, complete with horns and pitchfork.
Most people are troubled by the image of atheists having to remain closeted. The news has left a pervasive image of rampaging atheists attempting to take control of our schools, our courts, our seats of government, even our churches. Christians everywhere perceive themselves as being constantly beset by some sort of atheist conspiracy to ban the Bible, to ban prayer, to teach homosexuality, bestiality and evolution to the innocent children of America. Such an image could not be further from the truth. Atheists are not a formally organized group, and pose little or no threat to the institutions of religion in America. Very few atheists would ever get behind a move to ban the Bible, or to banish prayer from personal life. There are always rumors about such things, of course. Most of them unfounded. There are stories that atheists seek to ban all religious programming from television. Again, this is unfounded rumor. There are horror stories about children not being allowed to wish each other Merry Christmas in the hallways at school. I will address these, and other questions, but first, I would like to address the issue of why I consider atheists to be, if not the most hated group in America, at least near the very top of the list.
Everybody who is even minimally alert in America these days are aware that pollsters are always running polls on people's preferences in nearly anything. It is nearly impossible to open a magazine or newspaper, or turn on the television, without hearing the news of the latest poll in what people think, do, feel or say. Chief among these polls are the ones addressing religious and political preferences. Most people have probably heard the poll figures - anywhere from 10-14% of Americans claim to lack belief in God. And we have all heard the results of polls that combine religious beliefs with voting patterns. But are you aware of this poll? One poll asked people if they would vote for a well qualified person for President if they belonged to one of several recognized minority groups. The findings would probably startle most people. Approximately 80% of the citizens indicated they would be willing to vote for a black or a woman. The numbers were nearly as high for a Jew or a Muslim. The numbers took a serious plunge when the pollsters asked about homosexuals, who only polled slightly over 50%. The lowest ranking group was atheists, with only about 40% of people willing to vote for an atheist who was otherwise the best qualified candidate. This is borne out when you examine the actual make-up of our representation nationwide. We all know that blacks and women constitute a percentage of our representation that is much lower than their actual numbers in the population, but there are blacks and women in Washington. There are also members of many other religious groups represented. We have some openly homosexual individuals (such as Barney Frank) in our representation. But there is not one single atheist (at least to anyone's knowledge) that has been elected to public office. We are treated in every election cycle to a brief rundown of the views of the candidates on the issues that affect all of our lives, and a very detailed and comprehensive picture of their religious affiliation and the depth of their piety. It is unlikely, however, that you will hear a comprehensive rundown of the dearth of representation for atheists debated in any mainstream outlet. It is simply impossible to get anyone to notice.
Now, on to some myths about atheists. First of all, the word atheism contains all the information one would need to understand in its very etymology. It simply means "without god". It does not necessarily mean "hostile to God". I will not deny that there are atheists out there who are hostile to God, and would not mind a bit seeing Christianity shrivel up and blow away. Some of them are even very vocal about it. But few do much besides write dense philosophy books that only scholars read, or send an occasional letter to the editor of the local paper. The vast majority of atheists are strong believers in the First Amendment, which guarantees not only my right to be a non-believer, but your right to worship. I, like so many others, would hate to see that amendment weakened by a concentrated attack on religion in general. Overall, the cases that are filed by atheists are perceived as attacks on religion in general, but are more accurately described as challenges to laws that intrude on that freedom. This is the case with the challenge to Under God in the Pledge of Allegiance, any challenges to In God We Trust on our money, or the Ten Commandments being posted in public places supported with taxpayer dollars. We seek only to strengthen the First Amendment, not to destroy religion. We ask only that the nation recognize that, rather than a Christian nation, we are a secular nation in which the majority are Christian. This may seem to some like only a semantic difference, but to those who worship differently or don't worship at all, the two things are light years apart.
Many stories are flying around about elementary school children not being allowed to wish each other Merry Christmas in the hallways at school, and about schools not being allowed any celebration of Christmas at all. Although there doubtless are a few schools where principals have taken secular laws to a ridiculous extreme, this has never been at the behest of the atheists. Indeed, these stories are posted everywhere as anecdotes, and I have as yet been unable to verify the truth or falsity of them. It is certainly a handy tale for preacher's in the pulpit to scare parishioners. It is a handy tale that serves to further marginalize and stigmatize atheists and other non-believers. It is also often said that children are not allowed to conduct personal, private prayers in school. If this is the case, it is indeed a sad day for the First Amendment. But it is not the law of the land. No atheist would ever seek such a law. The only desire is that school children not be required to offer up mandatory prayers to God (any God). To forbid a child to pray would be a true violation of the First Amendment, as surely as it would be to force a child to pray. I myself was forced to pray in school for many years after it became illegal to do so (it was a law honored only when the schools so wished, and was indeed very laxly enforced). During my childhood, I was a deeply religious Christian, but I felt uncomfortable in the realm of such public display of piety. I was required to lead the prayer on occasion, when the natural rotation came around to me. This was a difficult, embarrassing, and nearly impossible task for me, but I was not able to beg off for any excuse. If this was so difficult and painful for a young child who was a firm believer, can you imagine how difficult it would be for a young child who was a non-believer (or a Jew, a Muslim, a Wiccan, or any other religion outside of Christianity)? It was also not unusual for the prayers of the teachers, also Christians, to fail to conform to the same creeds or beliefs held by my parents and myself.
Another myth of atheism is that atheism is the easy way out, adopted by persons who do not wish to follow the rigid moral codes established by the Bible. You could perhaps make this case if the average atheist was a murdering, thieving, lying adulterer. But the numbers simply don't fit. For the most parts, atheists are living productive, moral lives within their communities, contributing to the political and social well-being of their society, and quietly going about their business. Chances are, most people are not consciously aware of their status as an atheist. Few atheists wear their atheism on their sleeve. There are, at best, a handful of people in my life that are aware that I am an atheist. I manage to go about my day, every day, without murdering anyone, without stealing bread from the mouths of babies, and without untoward lying or cheating (I leave that as it may be, for I, like most, do indulge in the occasional white lie, usually undertaken for the purposes of social niceties). I will not claim there are no atheists on Death Row, for that is something I have no knowledge of, and would find it difficult to believe. I would also find it difficult to believe that their representation in the prison population is any higher than their representation in the population as a whole, indicating that they are no better and no worse than anyone else. As for other issues, the divorce rate among atheists is lower than that of most other groups (the divorce rate among born-again Christians is one of the highest of all, tending to a much lower rate among the more liberal Christian denominations). There is little evidence to implicate atheists in hate crimes. Many might point to the child abuse by alleged Satanists, but I would like to point out to you that a Satanist and an atheist are two vastly different things. Atheists tend not to worship any supreme being, a virtual impossibility if one is worshipping Satan.
It is also not true that atheists seek to remove all religious programming from television. Even if they wanted to, this would not be possible, since it is very lucrative and you are not going to get the networks to give up commercially profitable shows that easily. Yes, Touched by an Angel was taken off the air. It was not taken off the air because of agitation by Madeline Murray O'Hare, one of the most famous (and one of the most abrasive) atheists of all time. Madeline Murray O'Hare was dead long before Touched by an Angel was a hit, having been murdered in the early 1990s. Other atheists are not petitioning to remove religious programming from television. They are not seeking to ban the Bible. It is simply our wish not to have another's religious views forced on us as the law of the land.
Imagine the following picture: you get a job working at a government agency. When you show up for work everyday, nearly every desk has an open copy of the Bhagavad Gita (or the Koran or the Talmud) on it, and throughout the day, you are regularly subjected to readings of verses from this text. Your boss stops to engage in prayer throughout the work day, grabbing your hand and insisting that you join him. When you go to ask him a question about your work, he pauses, contemplating briefly, and then tells you, "I always have to ask myself, what would Buddha do?". You dare not speak out and make it known that you are of a different religion (or no religion at all), as this would make the situation at work highly uncomfortable for you. You are always being exhorted to "pray for" someone to do well in something, or to "pray over" your project. You would not hesitate to speak out, and you would be supported by a cry of outrage from the community who felt you were being unfairly subjected to a religion not your own. Now, substitute the Christian counterparts for the scene above, and be aware that it happens. In my office, there were at one time at least three non-believers. Not a one of us ever spoke out. We were well aware that we would not get sympathy of the community. In fact, it would be risky, maybe even downright dangerous.
Dangerous? How could it be dangerous to be an atheist? No one ever targets atheists, do they? Actually, they do. People have lost jobs when it was discovered they were an atheist. There have been reports of vandalism when children of atheists choose not to join in the Christian activities of their school. Hate mail and death threats are not uncommon. You rarely hear about them in the media. Indeed, when you do hear about atheists in the media, it is usually with the fear that they are trying to take something away (watch the news reports of the Pledge of Allegiance case - Michael Newdow is usually represented as the bad guy in the piece, lined up against dozens to hundreds of good, god-fearing indignant citizens). It simply is not regarded as important to report incidents against atheists as hate crimes. It has not been all that long since a President of the United States declared that, in his opinion, atheists were not entitled to the rights enjoyed by other citizens. And this president was much more liberally tolerant religiously than his offspring, who later followed him into the Oval Office. Now, perhaps you understand why I remain in the closet (I will give you another hint - like many of the regular authors in this newsletter, I live in a deep red, Bible Belt state, and was brought up in a rigidly religious, fundamentalist Christian family filled with dangerously unstable people). The coldness and loneliness of the closet is accentuated by news reports of grilled cheese sandwiches bearing the likeness of the Virgin Mary selling on e-bay for six figure sums, a judge in Alabama wearing the 10 commandments stitched on his robes, faith-based charities, and prayer breakfasts held by our elected leaders. It is further accentuated by movies, television shows, and "news" articles informing us about the coming "end times". There sometimes comes a desire to lash out, to scream and shout, to destroy something. But being a rational, thinking person, I must resist the temptation to indulge in such irrational behavior, and I must recognize that I am not welcome in such a society. So I keep my mouth shut. The vast majority of my friends and family simply assume I share their beliefs. After all, how could it be possible they could like or trust an atheist? And yet, most people also regard themselves as truly tolerant.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you all for allowing me to speak my mind, even though I have been unable to shed the cloak of anonymity which shrouds my days. I thank Mark Faulk for allowing me to publish a Faulking Truth that many don't want to hear. Most of all, I look forward to the day when ALL atheists will feel they have the freedom to walk forth in broad daylight, without risk, without censure, without stigma, able to know that we, too, have the same rights as other free citizens of this "secular" nation.
To learn more about this subject, go to:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/
http://godlessamericans.org/
(Editor's note: There is no topic that galvanizes America, and the world, more than the issue of religion. At the Faulking Truth, we don't shy away from controversy, and this article might inspire more debate than any other piece that we have posted to date. Read our other recent articles on the subject of religion, and you will see how personal and varied each American's beliefs are, then let us know what you believe in our Guestbook http://www.faulkingtruth.com/GuestBook/ )
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