HumanistNetworkNews.org
Nov. 5, 2008
The Humanist Network News decided to ask half a dozen humanist movers and shakers about their reaction to the presidential election. As we interviewed people both pre and post-election, we posed the same question: How will a Obama or McCain presidency affect atheists and humanists and the issues that generally concern us, like separation of church and state, First Amendment rights, protecting a woman's right to choose, marriage equality for gays, etc.?
Following the decisive Obama victory, Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, told HNN that "clearly a door has opened up for us that wasn't there before. Humanists will not let up the pressure but go through this open door and talk to them."
"The Obama campaign ran a grassroots campaign and from reading the pundits I get the impression that they intend to continue that against special interests," said Speckhardt. "We (the AHA) need to be a part of that grassroots mobilization."
Prior to Tuesday's election, HNN we spoke with Lori Lippman Brown, the director of the Secular Coalition for America (SCA). The SCA is the first Congressional lobbying organization explicitly representing and advocating for the rights of nontheistic Americans.
Brown, also a lawyer who once served as a Nevada state senator, said that she was "very hopeful that whoever will be elected will be a welcome change from the current administration."
"We see it as a chance to educate a new president," said Brown.
Her chief concern is that both McCain and Obama have said that they plan to keep and even expand the "faith-based initiative scheme", as Brown called it, begun by George W. Bush. "Neither will stop the privileging of religion."
(For more information about the history and purpose of faith-based and community initiatives, visit this web site. Among other things, the initiatives serve to make it easier for faith-based organizations to get financial support for doing charitable works.)
"This is damaging to the reputations of non-theists around the country," said Brown. "It's saying that anyone without a god belief can't do good social service."
Brown also feels that whether to give cash vouchers to parents so their children can attend religious schools will be an issue in the next administration.
Ronald Aronson, professor at Wayne State University and author of Living without God: New Directions for Atheists, Agnostics, Secularists, and the Undecided, thinks that "Life will be better for secularists (and almost everyone else) under an Obama presidency, but piety will still prevail in America and we secularists will largely remain a fragmented, unorganized non-community. …It is important to think about how to combat specific issues ahead of us, such as Obama’s 'faith-based initiative', but it is no less important to think about ourselves. How might we become a more visible community? How become a political force?"
Margaret Downey, former president of Atheists Alliance International, said that she was bothered by how "degraded atheists are as citizens and a political voice."
Not differentiating between Republicans or Democrats, she said that atheists were viewed as the "the lowest of the low" by both parties.
As example, she pointed to the campaign tactics of Senator Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) which smeared her Democratic opponent Kay Hagan as an atheist just because Hagan once attended a fundraiser held by an atheist businessman and philanthropist. The Dole campaign ran ads falsely accusing her of not believing in God and accepting money from the Godless Americans Political Action Committee (GAMPAC).
Hagan, who is a Christian, has filed a lawsuit charging defamation against Dole's re-election campaign. Apparently, the negative tactics didn't work as Hagan soundly trounced Dole in Tuesday's election.
"The next four years should be a wake up call for us, full of planning and strategy," declared Downey. She thinks that the humanist/atheist movement should not be satisfied until an open atheist can be elected to higher office.
Ellen Johnson, executive director of GAMPAC, which was recently renamed and reorganized as EnlightenTheVote.com, said via e-mail that "We (nontheists) need to be able to demonstrate that we are a voting bloc. We need to be able to deliver votes and money to candidates who will support us. We need to give them our political safety net.…Our mission is to be able to demonstrate that we can defeat candidates who will not support us and elect candidates who will…"
