Non-believing US voters feel demonized
2 days ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) 

One presidential hopeful is a preacher, another proudly Mormon, and most openly 
tout their Christianity. In an arena where faith can make or break a 
politician, the one in 10 Americans who profess no religion feel left in the 
cold.

"They're very disconcerted," said Darren Sherkat, an atheist sociology 
professor specializing in religion at Southern Illinois University.

"They're horrified by both the Democratic and Republican rhetoric surrounding 
religion -- that people who are not religious ... are immoral, that they're not 
qualified to serve in public office," he said.

Ian Thomas, 25, got involved in political campaigning as a student and in 2005 
ran for a place on the school board in his local district in Pennsylvania.

Days before the vote, a county council member emailed local community groups 
disparaging Thomas for having an atheist bumper sticker on his car, and for 
writing a letter about atheism to a local newspaper.

"They are entitled to their beliefs and free speech but it doesn't make a sound 
foundation for elected officials who makes our laws ... to promote an Atheist 
that we know anything about," read the ungrammatical email, shown to AFP.

"I was very, very insulted," Thomas said.

The small-town incident was part of a wider pattern of
"disenfranchisement" of 
non-believers, according to Margaret Downey, president of the educational 
organization Atheist Alliance International.

She claims atheists are "the fastest-growing minority in America."

But they are also "the least tolerated group by conventional standards of 
religious toleration in the US," Sherkat said.

While church and state are constitutionally separate, politicians must reckon 
with a largely religious electorate -- some 160 million out of the 200 million 
adults considered themselves Christian, according to 2001 figures from the US 
Census Bureau.

Critics complain that candidates face a public "test" of their faith 
credentials.

"Atheists and agnostics find all the candidates distressingly
religious," said 
Michael Shermer, an atheist writer and publisher of Skeptic magazine.

"Legally, there is no religious test for office, but culturally there obviously 
is," he said, as polls showed Republican Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist 
minister, surging ahead in key early nominating states.

Religion surfaced prominently when Huckabee's rival Mitt Romney, a member of 
the Mormon church, made a bid this month to reassure the powerful conservative 
Christian voting bloc.

"I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but 
I will not separate us from the God who gave us liberty," Romney said, fighting 
to dispel mistrust of his denomination, which some dismiss as a sect.

"Yeah, well, what about the approximately 30 million American nonbelievers, 
Mitt?" Shermer retorted, in comments to AFP. "You have no plans
to represent 
us, or to protect and defend the constitution for us?"

More than one in 10 US adults have no religious affiliation, according to the 
census figures. But a Gallup poll in February found more than half of voters 
would not back an otherwise well-qualified candidate from their favored party 
if that person was an atheist.

"We're very saddened that people walk into the voting booth and do bring their 
prejudices, in terms of only voting for people who believe in God," said Lori 
Lipman Brown, head of the Secular Coalition for America, a Washington-based 
group campaigning for separation of church and state.

"People have this prejudice against non-theists and think that we don't have 
values or morals or share their ideas on issues, or live compassionate lives," 
she said. "All of which is not true. But they're going to vote based on those 
prejudices."

Non-believers would not necessarily reject a candidate who was religious, 
according to campaigners.

"Non-theists don't have any problem with people having their religion ... You 
shouldn't be walking into the booth thinking,'I'm going to vote for or against 
someone because of what he or she believes,'" says Lipman Brown.

"The fair question would be to ask ... will you impose your theology on civil 
law?"

"There is no candidate that an atheist would vote for ... other than maybe Ron 
Paul," Shermer said, naming a Tennessee lawmaker, a long-shot Republican 
contender.

"He's a libertarian who feels absoutely (for) separation of church and
state."

"Many of the candidates would be acceptable to me regardless of their religious 
faith," Stark told AFP. "Jimmy Carter (who became president in 1977) was 
perhaps the most personally strident conservative Christian -- and I think he 
did a wonderful job."

Copyright © 2007 AFP.
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