Don't Tolerate Intolerance

HumanistNetworkNews.org
March 14, 2007

Why are atheists the last group in America that it is socially acceptable to hate?

This question came to mind yesterday when I read an anti-atheist column in my morning newspaper, the Albany Times Union.

The column, "Nobody Here But us Believers", was written by Suzanne Fields, a syndicated columnist for the Washington Times (a right-wing newspaper owned by the Moonie religion). The column starts with the insulting lie that "there are no atheists in foxholes" and then proceeds with almost every other anti-atheist canard in the religious right arsenal. Besides attacking the non-religious, the column's main aim seems to be to smear religious Democrats such as the Clintons as insincere in their religiosity. (If only the Democrats were as irreligious as the Christian right claims!)

My initial reaction, after choking on my cornflakes, was to plan a letter to the editor taking issue with the arguments in the column. But then I got to thinking about why my mainstream local paper -- whose moderate and decent editors are personally friendly to me -- would publish hate speech against me and my kind. Paradoxically, we freethinkers are so into reasoned debate that we don't see when the line is crossed from acceptable argument to unacceptable defamation. Sure we write great letters to the editor, but we accept the legitimacy of the debate, instead of saying hate-mongering is simply not acceptable in the mainstream media -- the media you pay for with your subscription or viewership.

My local paper would never publish a column that vilified Jews or libeled all Muslims. First of all they would immediately see it as hate-mongering not journalism, and secondly they know that they could not get away with it. All hell would break loose. Not only would the offended groups condemn and boycott the paper, but decent-minded mainstream readers would condemn the paper too. Organizations would organize letter writing campaigns and boycotts against the hate-mongering writer and the newspapers that carried the offending column.

This doesn't seem to happen when it's atheists attacked. I think it's time we changed that.

Read Suzanne Fields' syndicated column here or the original column (very slightly different) here in the Washington Times. Check your local papers to see if they reprinted it (when IHS called Creators Syndicate, the group that syndicates the column, one employee refused to tell us which newspapers carry it and another employee never returned our calls.)

Write to the offending newspapers telling them it is unacceptable to promote such bigotry. Or write to the Washington Times or any other paper that published it. Share the column with your freethinking friends and colleagues. Get them to protest it. Don't resort to intolerant language yourself. Tell the paper why Fields' hate-mongering insults and harms you and the significant part of their readership who share your lack of belief in gods. If you were an atheist in a foxhole, let them know.

This is a good opportunity for a letter to the editor educating readers about their fellow Americans who do not believe in a god. But in addition to letter for publication, we need to protest directly to the editors about including such a bigoted column in the first place. Tell them to stop publishing this columnist. If you are mad enough to want to cancel your subscription, let them know.

Here is a letter to the editor that I submitted for publication in the Albany Times Union. You may use this as a guide in writing your own letters.


Matt Cherry is the executive director of the Institute for Humanist Studies. He is the author of Introduction to Humanism at the Continuum of Humanist Education, the online school of the Institute for Humanist Studies.