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A recent Pew Research Center survey of Americans reports that one in five are not affiliated with a religion; this number has grown by 25 percent in the past five years.
With the rise in the number of nonbelievers, there is also a rise in discrimination against the religiously unaffiliated. Under the First Amendment, we are guaranteed the right to exercise religious freedom. This means that we can choose our own beliefs about the existence of a higher power, including the belief that a higher power does not exist. Many don’t view discriminating against nonreligious people as the same as discriminating against a Muslim, a Jew or a Buddhist, but it is still religious discrimination.
The attitudes toward those who identify as nonreligious have been improving. According to a Gallup Poll, 54 percent of Americans would vote for a well-qualified atheist presidential candidate.
In fact, voters in Arizona elected the first officially religiously unaffiliated member of Congress in the November election. Kyrsten Sinema was recently sworn into office on a copy of the U.S. Constitution rather than the Bible.
Despite the overall progress nationwide, the preference of religious exercises, particularly Christian exercises, is still a problem at our school.
As a freshman and sophomore, I played for a junior varsity sports team. Our coach prayed before every game, and while he said that we didn’t have to participate in the prayer if it made us uncomfortable, a nonreligious teammate and I still felt awkward obviously not participating in a team exercise.
Also, on one school sports team the coach arranged after-practice dinners at Chick-fil-A, an openly Christian establishment, to have “team fellowship.” These coaches don’t mean any harm, but they are assuming that all of their athletes are Christians because we live in a predominantly Christian area.
I’ve found as a nonbeliever living in the Bible Belt that many equate a disbelief in a higher power with a lack of morals. Just because I don’t follow a religious text, doesn’t mean I can’t tell wrong from right. I can actually make better decisions based on my own code of ethics than decisions based on what someone else tells me is right. Such respected American heros as Helen Keller and Susan B. Anthony were atheists, and I don’t know anyone could argue that they were overall immoral people.
By Diane Gromelski, Editor in Chief
