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Madison, Wis., first city to ban discrimination against atheists

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MADISON, Wis., April 2 (UPI) -- Discrimination against atheism was banned on Tuesday in Madison, Wis., after a city council vote -- a first in the United States.

"Nonreligion" was added as a protected class by the Common Council under the city's equal opportunity ordinance. The legislation was co-sponsored by 14 of the council's 20 members and was approved without objection.

"This is important because I believe it is only fair that if we protect religion, in all its varieties, we should also protect non-religion from discrimination. It's only fair," ordinance sponsor Anita Weier said. "There are many categories that are protected... and it did occur to me that if religion was then perhaps the opposite should be."

The ordinance states: "Atheism means the disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." The ordinance protects people who don't believe in God, commonly called atheists, from discrimination in the areas of employment, housing and public accommodations.

Former Atheists Humanists and Agnostics president Chris Calvey spoke in favor of the legislation.

"It's actually something we're commonly very concerned about, just because atheism is viewed as such a taboo in this country, and there's such a stigma with it," Calvey said. "People in my student group, for example, are very hesitant to be honest about their lack of belief in God out of fear that they are going to be discriminated against... if that came up in a job interview that's held against them."

The Common Council approved the legislation in the last meeting before elections.

"Having it on the books, where we're legally a protected class, that'll make things much easier for atheists," Calvey added. "And we'll be able to be confident that at least if we're honest about what we actually believe, then we have the law backing us up so we can't legally be discriminated against."

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Madison, Wis., first city to ban discrimination against atheists

Deepak Chopra: The problem with atheism

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Story highlights We all fall somewhere on the sliding scale of belief and unbelief, Deepak Chopra says Skepticism is a way station on the way to a higher, more fulfilling kind of spirituality, he says

Standing back a bit, faith is on a rheostat, not an on-off switch. Putting God into the position of yes/no, belief/unbelief doesn't really reflect the modern state of faith. There are gradations of belief. In fact, 17% of people who identify as atheists still go to church -- they have social and family reasons for their choice rather than religious ones.

We all fall somewhere on the sliding scale of belief and unbelief. Secular society has sharpened our demand for truth. To me, this is a positive development. If belief in God can't stand up to proof, it won't sustain a person through difficult times.

Deepak Chopra

I consider skepticism a way station on the way to a higher, more fulfilling kind of spirituality.

Millions of people have walked away from organized religion to become more spiritual, not less. They call themselves seekers; their disbelief is a starting point for starting their own investigations.

Where the census form asks what faith they belong to, they might not have a ready answer, but that's not important. What's important is walking your own spiritual path. As a lifelong goal, it's one of the most rewarding.

What's not rewarding is to base your belief or unbelief on secondhand opinion. Being a knee-jerk skeptic is as limiting as being a knee-jerk fundamentalist. In both cases, the mind is being conditioned by others.

Atheists open up: What they want you to know

In my own conception of God as the source of consciousness, creativity, intelligence, love and evolution, the reason to be spiritual is to increase all of those qualities.

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Deepak Chopra: The problem with atheism

Madison, Wis., Council Votes To Ban Discrimination Against Atheism

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In what is believed to be a first in the United States, the common council of Madison, Wis., has voted to amend the city's equal opportunities ordinance "to add nonreligion as a protected class."

The legislation adds atheists to the categories of people who could potentially face discrimination. It was co-sponsored by 14 of the council's 20 members and approved without objection Tuesday night.

"This is important because I believe it is only fair that if we protect religion, in all its varieties, we should also protect non-religion from discrimination. It's only fair," said Alderwoman Anita Weier, the bill's chief sponsor, according to Madison's WISC TV.

The addition of atheism to the ranks of protected classes comes at a time when "religious freedom" laws are in the spotlight particularly in Indiana, where a controversial new law is seen as allowing businesses to refuse service to people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Madison's amendment will take effect when it's officially published, a step that follows the mayor's signing of the council's proceedings.

Several representatives from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is based in Madison, spoke in favor of the bill at last night's council meeting.

"We encourage freethought activists including the increasing number of local public officials who are atheists or agnostics to work to introduce and replicate this protection at their city, county or even state levels," FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor says.

The new legislation inserts the words "or atheism" after "religion" in several sections of the city of Madison's legal code.

For example, here's how the city lists its protected class:

"Protected class membership means a group of natural persons, or a natural person, who may be categorized because of their ability to satisfy the definition of one or more of the following groups or classes: sex, race, religion or atheism, color, national origin or ancestry, citizenship status, age, handicap/disability, marital status, source of income, arrest record or conviction record, less than honorable discharge, physical appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic identity, political beliefs, familial status, student, domestic partner, or receipt of rental assistance."

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Madison, Wis., Council Votes To Ban Discrimination Against Atheism

Atheism has some race and gender problems

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CNNs recent special report on atheists didnt draw many viewers, and has been kicked around a bit in the blogosphere. Certainly the program had its gaffes. Most important, as other critics have noted, the report trotted out the hoary and ridiculous claim that 1 in 3 millennials is an atheist. (The correct figure is closer to 3 percent.)

But that wasnt the biggest mistake. By focusing on the lives of atheists, CNN swept into the wings, with only the briefest of mentions, atheisms significant race and gender problems.

According to a much-discussed 2012 report from the Pew Research Center on Religion and Public Life, only 3 percent of U.S. atheists and agnostics are black, 6 percent are Hispanic, and 4 percent are Asian. Some 82 percent are white. (The relevant figures for the population at large at the time of the survey were 66 percent white, 11 percent black, 15 percent Hispanic, 5 percent Asian.)

The same report tells us that women are 52 percent of the U.S. population but only 36 percent of atheists and agnostics. The gender split has led some male atheists to muse about differences between the male and female brain which in turn unsurprisingly generated sharp ripostes. Certainly it makes the atheist movement less attractive to would-be adherents. As one commentator has put it, Show me a party to which women are invited but that they overwhelmingly choose to avoid, and Ill show you a party to which Id ask you to remember not to invite me.

Some feminist atheists contend that the gender split is a distinctively U.S. phenomenon. They point to a 2012 WIN-Gallup International survey tending to show that outside the U.S., men and women describe themselves as atheists at about the same rate.

But the WIN-Gallup data also point to what might be atheisms larger difficulty: race, nationalism and ethnicity. In the U.S., atheists and agnostics are disproportionately male and white, as we have seen. Around the world well, lets let the data tell the story.

Seven of the 10 least religious countries are in Europe. The other three are China, Japan and South Korea. Seven of the 10 most religious countries are in the developing world, headed by Ghana and Nigeria. When the data are tabulated by region, those most likely to describe themselves as atheists are from north Asia (42 percent) and western Europe (14 percent). At the other end are south Asia (0 percent), and Latin America and Africa (2 percent each).

At some point one has to admit that there is a pattern here. And just to pile on a bit, the estimable Craig Keener, in his huge review of claims of miracles in a wide variety of cultures, concludes that routine rejection of the possibility of the supernatural represents an impulse that is deeply Eurocentric.

Richard Dawkins, well-known apostle of atheism, only damages his cause when he insists that atheists are a race. Even if he was being tongue-in-cheek (and one certainly hopes so), hes more likely to stir an already boiling identity politics pot. Atheists themselves increasingly fight nasty battles over these issues at least online.

I had lunch a couple of years ago with a Yale colleague who is a committed atheist. He explained away the international data in pretty much the way one would expect: Those other countries have to be liberated. They are mired in a false consciousness as the result of oppression and lack of education. In other words, people around the world who continue to believe in God are too stupid to understand the glittering truths that atheists see clearly.

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Atheism has some race and gender problems

'Sun Worshipping Atheism' is not a religion, Californian court rules

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State flag of California.

A Californian appellate court has affirmed an earlier ruling that Sun Worshipping Atheism is not a religion.

According toRaw Story,the California Court of Appeal ruled on Tuesday that Marshel Copple's Sun Worshipping Atheism did not satisfy the requirements of a three-point checklist in order to be considered a religion.

The appellate court ruled that Sun Worshipping Atheism failed to demonstrate that it addresses "fundamental and ultimate questions having to do with deep and imponderable matters," and that it is comprehensive and not limited to only one subject matter. The court also said that religions "can often be recognised by the presence of certain formal and external signs," all of which are not present in Copple's atheism.

The case began after Copple, a former officer at theCalifornia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, resigned from his work claiming that he was denied religious accommodation by the department. Copple promptly filed suit alleging religious discrimination, failure to accommodate and constructive discharge.

According to Copple, the Sun Worshipping Atheism advocatessleeping at least eight hours a day, daily fresh air, frequent exercise, having a job, social interaction, and scepticism of one's surroundings. As his job requiredeight hours of mandatory overtime if needed and up to 16 hours of overtime in the rare instances of a prison riot, Copple requested that the department limit his duty to eight hours a day.

According to the National Law Review, the Department denied his request. Copple then resigned and filed his lawsuit.

A Court issued summary judgement on Copple's suit and ruled that Sun Worshipping Atheism was not a religion, and there was no basis for the Department to grant Copple's request for religious accommodation. Copple appealed, and the Courts of Appeals upheld the decision on Tuesday.

"Although there is a set of principles on which plaintiff relies to guide his life, it reflects a moral and secular, rather than religious, philosophy," the court ruling said.

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'Sun Worshipping Atheism' is not a religion, Californian court rules


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