Rachel Maddow, the popular MSNBC news anchor who is openly gay, caused a stir this week when she said that closeted gay anchors "have a responsibility to come out." The statement renewed an old debate about whether coming out is a right or a responsibility.

What is the basis for arguing that one has a duty, not just a right, to come out?

To help understand, we can refer to some words from Harvey Milk, the San Francisco gay rights activist who was assassinated in 1978, explaining why open identification can be so important: "I would like to see every gay doctor come out, every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out, stand up and let that world know. That would do more to end prejudice overnight than anybody would imagine."

Pride in identity can be empowering, an antidote to even the most venomous prejudice. By forcing society to rethink what was once considered wrong or shameful, Milk and other identity-oriented LGBT activists changed the cultural landscape and weakened longstanding biases.

But still, is the good that results from coming out enough to make it a duty? If staying in the closet helps perpetuate discriminatory attitudes, does that give rise to a responsibility to come out?

Taking it further, as a humanist activist I wonder whether Maddow's comment might be applicable to the secular movement. After all, in a 2006 study atheists were found to be the most disliked and distrusted minority group in America, ranking below gays, Muslims, and recent immigrants. While prejudice against any of these groups would be wrong, one must question why atheists would be so disfavored, especially since numerous studies show that, from a statistical standpoint, atheism does not correlate to high crime rates, health risks, or any other immoral or socially undesirable outcome. With so much prejudice against them, it's not surprising that many atheists are "closeted" to some degree, hesitant to identify openly.

Hence, is there an argument that secular individuals - atheists, agnostics, and humanists - have not just a right, but a responsibility, to come out, to identify openly in some manner to family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and/or the world at-large?

Statistics suggest that significant portions of the American population are essentially secular in outlook: About half the population does not attend any regular religious services, about 15 percent identify as "none" when asked for religious affiliation, and almost one in five will not affirm a belief in a divinity. Yet, despite the undeniable existence of this large demographic, politicians and media pundits rarely even acknowledge nonreligious Americans when discussing policy or current events. This no doubt can be attributed to the fact that, despite the size of the nonreligious population, relatively few have historically asserted self-identity as atheist, agnostic, humanist, or otherwise secular.

Would a concerted campaign to encourage secular individuals to "come out" change public attitudes? The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science thinks so, and even launched the "Out Campaign" to encourage atheists to come out. The campaign's scarlet "A" is now seen frequently in online profiles and elsewhere.

In the 1980s and 1990s we saw the landscape change when congressmen and other high-profile public figures began coming out as gay. Today, only one congressman is an open atheist (Rep. Pete Stark of California), though it is well known that many others are closeted. Do they have a responsibility to come out? Would doing so help to diminish unfair prejudice and challenge the Religious Right's claim of moral superiority based on religiosity?

Of course, there are significant differences between being gay and being an atheist, and few would suggest that the discrimination experienced by atheists is equivalent to that experienced by gays and lesbians. Even though atheists are the most disliked minority, being an atheist is not an experience that is particularly difficult on a day-to-day basis. The realization of a teen that he or she doesn't believe in a divinity, for example, doesn't normally carry with it the gravity and real-life ramifications that come with realizing that one is gay.

Nonetheless, there are serious personal and social consequences that come with keeping atheists closeted. Religion becomes exalted and validated in an atmosphere of apparent general consensus about its value, while the public's association of religion with morality is reinforced, thereby affecting the entire social, cultural, and political landscape. All of us, including future generations, pay a price as a result thereof.

Thus, perhaps some would argue that Maddow's statement holds true for the secular community as well, that atheists, agnostics, and humanists have a responsibility to assert their identity to some degree. If it does, even under Maddow's standard the duty arises only "if and when we feel that we can." As such, whether seen as a right or a responsibility, the decision to come out is ultimately a personal one.

(via "Our Humanity, Naturally")

Imagine that you are a religious minority sending your child to public school, only to find out that the school has implemented a "voluntary" program of religious instruction that reaffirms the doctrines and creeds of the largely Christian community. Like most people, you don't want to make waves by challenging the views of the majority, so you allow your child to participate in this program, hoping that it will emphasize education, not indoctrination. Your child soon comes home with artwork and other materials, however, that indicate that the program is little more than a Christian Sunday school, having nothing to do with objective education and everything to do with instilling Christian beliefs.

Fed up with the blatant proselytizing, you advise the school that you do not want your child to participate in the "voluntary" program. Since it is conducted during ordinary school hours, not after school, and since your child is the only one who is not participating, the school must now decide what to do with your child while everyone else participates. To resolve this dilemma, the school orders your child to sit in the "detention chair," a highly visible seat outside the principal's office normally used for disciplining children who have been misbehaving, while all the other children participate in the religious instruction program.

The above facts, unfortunately, are not fictional. They are part of the story of the McCollum family of Champaign, Illinois, and they set the stage for one of the greatest church-state confrontations in American history. This story is being brought to life in a superb new documentary, called "The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today" that will begin airing on PBS in May.

The documentary, produced by Jay Rosenstein, tells the story of Vashti McCollum's struggle to defend her children - and the wall of separation between church and state - against majoritarian religious bullying, a fight that went from a small courthouse in Champaign all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The legal case culminated with an historic 8-1 Supreme Court victory for the McCollums, a landmark 1948 precedent that was the first case to successfully apply the Constitution's Establishment Clause to state action under the Fourteenth Amendment. (One earlier case, the 1947 case of Everson v. Board of Education, had ruled that the Establishment Clause applied to the states, but nevertheless decided that the state action in question didn't violate that clause. McCollum was the first such case wherein the plaintiffs won.)

The McCollum family's victory infuriated religious conservatives, who had won every stage of the legal battle until it reached the Supreme Court. It also laid the foundation for many other church-state victories that followed, such as Engel v. Vitale (1962) which banned official school prayer, Abington School District v. Schempp (1963) which ended school-sponsored Bible study, and numerous others.

Rosenstein covers the legal chronology well, but the documentary's most compelling moments are those that recount the blowback experienced by the family, the senseless hostility directed toward them for standing up for their principles. Hate mail, intimidation, a mutilated pet, threatened careers, and other repercussions all flowed from their simple act of resisting public religiosity. Many of the good Christians of Champaign and America, it seems, weren't feeling very Christ-like.

The documentary is made priceless by the frequent inclusion of interview segments with Vashti, who was 92 when Rosenstein sat with her, and who has since died. Throughout the film viewers see numerous photographs of the younger Vashti, whose natural beauty shines through, and one can sense from those photos that she was probably an ordinary wife and mother and a reluctant warrior. The late-life interviews, where viewers get to see and hear the real Vashti, only confirm what one suspects. She's smart, to be sure, but far from a rabble-rouser and no more feisty than your typical 90-something. She conveys a sense that, had the school system been even slightly reasonable, she never would have been a litigant.

But having been pushed to litigation by the esteemed men of her community, men who showed her little respect and were dismissive of her concerns, Vashti took them to the mat and taught them a lesson. As a result, church-state law in America rests on a foundation built by the mother of three from Champaign.

Attendees at the American Humanist Association's recent annual conference got a special screening of the film, and the response seemed unanimous - this is one documentary that you won't want to miss, and that you'll want your kids to see.

And I'll add one post-script not mentioned in the documentary. Vashti also served as president of the American Humanist Association from 1962 to 1965.

(via "Our Humanity, Naturally") 

Atheism on college campuses is certainly nothing new, but there's something different about today's secular students. Unlike their parents' generation, atheist, agnostic, and humanist college students today more often consider their secularism to be an important, primary aspect of self-identity.

Nothing demonstrates this point more clearly than the rapid growth of the Secular Student Alliance, the umbrella group for organized atheism and humanism on college campuses (and now high schools as well). SSA chapters have grown from less than 50 in 2007 to over 250 today, and there is no sign of slowing down.

"We're witnessing a major shift in our society," said Jesse Galef, an SSA spokesperson. "More students are proudly calling themselves atheists, which inspires others to do the same. We used to go out and find them. Now, they're springing up everywhere and finding us, asking to join the movement."

In years past, religious skepticism was not hard to find on most university campuses, but few atheists, agnostics, and secular humanists considered organizing and socializing around their non-theistic worldview. For most atheist/agnostic college students, secular identity was incidental and secondary, whereas primary self-identity might have centered around other personal characteristics or lifestance positions, such as being feminist, a racial minority, gay/lesbian, anti-war, environmentalist, socialist, libertarian, or even just politically "liberal" or "conservative."

In recent years, however, that has changed, as nonreligious identity has become increasingly important to many.

"After the September 11 attacks, I began thinking that perhaps I should speak out against what I felt was a mindset that is not only wrong but dangerous," says Ian, who was a student at the University of Wisconsin in 2001 when the religiously motivated 9-11 terrorists took the lives of 3000 innocent victims.

Ian expresses the sentiments of many young adults who increasingly have come to see traditional religion as having little value in the modern world. A secular lifestance, to many of these students, is not secondary or incidental, but a primary aspect of their self-identity.

Supporting this concept of identity politics, and experiencing explosive growth from its popularity, is the SSA, which is now expanding into high schools and finding many enthusiastic secular students eager to counter the evangelism of religious groups.

Operated on a shoestring when it was founded in 2000, the SSA is now attracting significant financial support. The group received a big financial boost recently when Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jeff Hawkins, creator of the PalmPilot, pledged major financial support.

One of the strongest organized non-theistic student communities in America can be found at Harvard University, where the Harvard Humanist Chaplaincy has existed for almost 40 years and its current chaplain, Greg Epstein, promotes a vibrant environment of campus humanist activism. Along with the student-led Harvard Secular Society, the chaplaincy has made humanist self-identification prominent at America's oldest university. Author of a bestselling book "Good Without God," Epstein reminds students that the best humanist activism emphasizes the "Good" (as in doing good deeds and community service) as much as the "Without God."

Though Harvard is a great model, some of the most active student secular groups can be found in the Bible-belt, where atheist students are frequently confronted with religiosity and are therefore often hungry for secular camaraderie. Marie, a student from the Secular Student Alliance of Clemson University in South Carolina who was raised in a conservative Presbyterian home, explains the attraction of campus secular community: "Almost everyone I meet through sports, other clubs, or anyplace on campus is almost always a religious person and actively affiliated with a group. I wanted a place where I could challenge those beliefs in an open group with other people who may have thought more about it and had different ideas from those I was raised with."

The Clemson group, like most student groups, has informal meetings and social events, sponsors guest speakers, watches documentaries, participates in panels with religious groups, and generally provides a place where non-theistic students can find community.

With religious skepticism on the rise among young people and online social media making visibility and organization easier than in the past, the secular student phenomenon is unlikely to fade. Students see it as an effective and necessary response to the Religious Right, a sensible means of combating religiously motivated activism. Moreover, from a practical standpoint, it is a great way of meeting like-minded friends, people who perhaps have also read and enjoyed bestselling books by "New Atheist" authors Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.

Thus, today's campus atheism is a far cry from that of the past. It is organized, well-funded, identity-oriented, and populated by young people who will not back down in the culture wars, who see their non-theistic lifestance as something that can contribute to a better world.