Since the legalization of same-sex marriage last week, advocates of civil rights have applauded this milestone in American history. However, another civil rights issue brought about from religious bigotry has been overlooked: discrimination against atheists.
I.
Nicole Smalkowski was a cheerful, thirteen-year-old girl when she moved to an eighty-acre ranch in Oklahoma with her atheist family.
When she joined her high school's basketball team, everything changed. Her team and everyone in the audience — teachers, coaches, parents — all bowed their heads in prayer before every game.
I wouldn't do it because it's disrespectful to me. I think it's disrespectful to them. Why would they want an atheist in their circle saying the Lord's Prayer? I mean, if I was a Jew or a Muslim or Hindu, I would have had a problem with that prayer.
When she came out as atheist to her classmates, her relationship with them flipped upside-down. They stared her down. They called her a devil-worshipper. She was referred to as the "dirty little trouble-making atheist." She even received harassment from one of her teachers, telling her: "This is a Christian country, and if you don't like it, get out."
So much for Southern hospitality.
She didn't even do anything to stop her classmates from praying — but was still ostracized by her community, and even blamed for stealing from one of her classmates.
After two years of bullying, her parents chose to homeschool her.
II.
Sixteen and the daughter of a firefighter and a nurse, Jessica Ahlquist won a lawsuit against her high school over an eight foot-tall Catholic prayer banner that hung in her public school's auditorium.
A federal judge ruled that this prayer's presence at the public school is un-Constitutional.
It seemed like it was saying, every time I saw it, "You don't belong here."
Her heavily-Catholic town in Rhode Island treated her with hostility; she received death threats on social media, insults from her classmates, and was even called an "evil little thing" by her state representative. Three separate florists refused to deliver her roses sent from the Freedom From Religion foundation for "safety reasons." She even needed to be escorted to and from school because of threats against her life.
III.
America's conservatives generally have a lot of respect for veterans; they believe that serving in the U.S. Military is the most patriotic and heroic thing that you can do.
But what if you're atheist?
At a Memorial Day parade in Pennsylvania, a group of veterans were sneered at and booed by their community. Why? Because they held an "Atheists in Foxholes" banner — in reference, ironically, to the title of a book arguing that atheists are cowards who will ask God for help when put in a life-or-death situation.
IV.
You wouldn't expect a gun-toting, animal-hunting, reality TV star like Phil Robertson to be a devout Christian. However, hypocrisy is a virtue to social conservatives.
At a National Prayer Breakfast in 2014, he fantasized about an atheist family being viciously raped.
I'll make a bet with you. Two guys break into an atheist's home. He has a little atheist wife and two little atheist daughters. Two guys break into his home and tie him up in a chair and gag him, and then they take his two daughters in front of him and rape both of ‘em and then shoot him and say, "Isn't it great that I don't have to worry about being judged?" There's no right or wrong. And then you take a sharp knife and take his manhood and hold it in front of him and say, "Wouldn't it be something if [there] was something wrong with this?" But you're the one who says there's no God, there's no right, there's no wrong…so we're just having fun. We're sick in the head, have a nice day."
Celebrities say stupid things all the time. But what's appalling about this is the amount of so-called "Christians" who stood up and
defended Robertson's sadistic comments.
V.
His name is Damon Fowler. A student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, his public school was planning to have a school-sponsored prayer at his graduation. Being an atheist and an advocate of the U.S. Constitution, which protects, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, the "wall of separation between church and state," he objected to this school-sponsored prayer at his state-funded public school.
At first, the school didn't make a big deal of it and cancelled the prayer. Then his name was leaked, and he was scathed by his classmates and teachers, ostracized from his community, and even disowned by his family who threw everything he owned onto the porch and cut off his financial support. After being disowned, he was even told by one of his classmates: "Go cry to your mommy! Oh wait…you can't."
He even received death threats.
However, with help from the atheist community, he eventually received a scholarship and financial aid from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Regardless of what your religious beliefs are, the harsh reality of anti-atheist bigotry should trouble everyone who cares about civil rights. Stories like these are all too common in small towns across America, and atheists and theists alike need to unite and put a stop to religious zealotry wherever it exists.