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A morning run down of the day's news stories addressing secular issues and church/state separation.

On the Hill/Washington:
Kyrsten Sinema: A success story like nobody else's
Debates percolate on the Internet about Sinema's spiritual beliefs, a dynamic fueled by the vague responses she gives when asked about this aspect of her life. The fascination with Sinema's spiritual life is another source of pique for her. She is frequently referred to as agnostic or non-theist. But when I asked, she wouldn't go into detail, saying merely, "I am not a member of a faith community." What she does believe, she says, is that Americans deserve "freedom of religion and freedom from religion."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/kyrsten-sinema-a-success-story-like-nobody-elses/2013/01/02/d31fadaa-5382-11e2-a613-ec8d394535c6_story.html

Petition, lawsuits demand changes in tax perks favoring religious institutions
On Christmas, a petition was filed on the White House's "We The People" site, asking that the Obama administration lead an effort to get Congress to repeal the parsonage income tax exemption enjoyed by religious ministers. The petition has only 117 signatures.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/propose-congress-act-repeal-internal-revenue-code-section-107-allows-ministers-income-tax-free/tYVYb7yZ?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

State & Local News:
Chicago cardinal leads new fight against gay marriage
Chicago Cardinal Francis George has launched a last-ditch campaign to convince the lame-duck Illinois legislature not to legalize same-sex marriage, saying that government "has no power to create something that nature itself tells us is impossible." The bill is expected to be introduced this week and debated before a new set of legislators is sworn in on Jan. 9.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/religion-news-service/~3/eLaSoyXhIGQ/

Texas ousts Planned Parenthood from its Women's Health Program
On 1 January 2013, a new law has taken effect in Texas that strips Planned Parenthood from receiving any monies that the state has allotted for its Women's Health Program. The law, signed by GOP Governor Rich Perry.
http://www.goddiscussion.com/106000/texas-ousts-planned-parenthood-from-its-womens-health-program/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GodDiscussion+%28God+Discussion%29

Nontheist News & Secular Reads:
Defending the Faith: Secularism offers little comfort
Why, faced with appalling tragedies such as Newtown, does secular humanism seem so irrelevant? And not just in the face of extreme tragedies. "We have humanist celebrants, as we call them," says a secularist counselor interviewed by Freedman, "but they're focused on doing weddings" - happy, easy, non-challenging events. "I don't see celebrants working in hospice or in hospitals."
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765619222/Secularism-offers-little-comfort.html

In wake of Newtown shooting, why blame atheists?
I admire the people of all faiths and beliefs who have come together to honor the lives lost in the incomprehensible shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary earlier this month. They provide support to those who are in mourning, and strive for a safer and more unified community. That said, I am concerned that some of these efforts have rendered people like me-nonreligious Americans-invisible. The interfaith memorial service in Newtown featured expressions from multiple faiths, including remarks from President Obama that reflected only a theistic perspective. A non-religious perspective was absent, and this, I think, is a problem. Especially since, in the human search to place blame for this tragedy, nontheists like me have become a target.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/27/in-wake-of-newtown-shooting-why-blame-atheists/

Reports to the contrary notwithstanding, secularization is not the wave of the future.
In 2012 a much trumpeted Pew study showed a record number of Americans professing to be religiously unaffiliated, with 20 percent declared as "nones." Although the same study showed about the same percentage of Americans attending church regularly as have for the last 80 years, it was widely heralded as proof of accelerating secularization.
http://spectator.org/archives/2012/12/31/religion-highlights-of-2012

An open atheist in the U.S. Senate? Could be if South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley appoints SCA President, Herb Silverman, to fill the vacant spot being left by Republican Sen. Jim DeMint.  

Herb has some stiff competition though: Stephen Colbert. According to Public Policy Polling for South Carolinians, Colbert tops the list of possible Haley appointments with 20 percent of those polled. But not with the people of Colbert's hometown, Charleston! In fact, according to an ongoing poll conducted by the Charleston City Paper, Herb is leading Colbert, 86 percent to Colbert's 11 percent. Not even close.

Herb for senate is a long shot, perhaps, but he has already been endorsed by Richard Dawkins.  (Take that, Colbert!)

As for DeMint, he announced last week he would step down to join the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank dedicated to (among other things) fighting "attempts to relegate religion to private life," including promoting abstinence-only sex education and "traditional marriage."  

Just how sweet would it be to see our own atheist activist replace the Religious Right Senator who claims God put Christians in charge of America?   

Want your say? Take to Twitter and tell Stephen Colbert to debate Herb! #SenatorHerb

Vote for Herb or view results here.

***UPDATED*****

Election Day wasn't without its share of disappointments but for the nontheistic community it was overwhelmingly a very good night!

The Good

• In Florida, Amendment 8, which would have allowed for taxpayer funding of religion was voted down.
• Voters in Washington state, Maryland and Maine approved same-sex marriage. "We've lost at the ballot box 32 times," Paul Guequierre of Human Rights Campaign told CNN. "History was made tonight."

  Election Image from Shutterstock.

• In Minnesota voters rejected a measure that would have banned same-sex marriage.
• President Barack Obama was reelected. Obama received a "C" grade on the Secular Coalition's Presidential Candidate Scorecard, coming in behind Libertarian Gary Johnson, who received a "B." However, of the two major party candidates, Obama came in well above his challenger, Republican, Mitt Romney, who received an "F" on the Scorecard.
• Missouri's U.S. Representative, Todd Akin, lost his seat. Akin, who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, has repeatedly denied scientific evidence in many areas, including regarding climate change, and making explosive claims that the female reproductive system is able to block conception from an unwanted pregnancy. He also objected to removing "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.
• Kyrsten Sinema, won her Arizona Congressional race, she is the first bisexual member of Congress and is supportive of a strong separation of church and state.

The Bad

• Sadly, longtime California U.S. Representative, Pete Stark, lost his reelection bid. Stark was the only open nontheist in Congress.
• Minnesota U.S. Rep, Michelle Bachman, who received an "F" in every category on the Secular Coalition's Presidential Primary Candidate Scorecard and an "F" on our Congressional Report Card, was reelected.
• Massachusetts voted down a “Death With Dignity” initiative that would have permitted terminally-ill patients to request physician-assisted suicide medications. The initiative was narrowly defeated by a 51-49 margin.
• Roy Moore, the so-called ‘10 Commandments judge’ won his old job back--he was  re-elected chief justice of Alabama's Supreme Court.

 The Opportunity?

• Tammy Baldwin from Wisconsin will be the first openly gay Senator. Baldwin lists no religion and could be a strong ally for the nontheistic community.

The Humor

• Charles Darwin got almost 4,000 write-in votes against Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, who said earlier that evolution is a "lie straight from the pit of hell."
  

 Looking Forward

Prior to the election same sex marriage was permitted in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont and the District of Columbia. We can now add three more states to that list. Additionally, we saw a successful effort to block marriage equality. According to CNN  a majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage, with the number of Americans saying they have a close friend or family member who is gay at 60 percent-up from 49 percent in just 2010. Public opinion is definitely shifting on this issue.

The religiously unaffiliated are quickly becoming a voting bloc politicians-especially Democrats-will need to court. According to Pew, unaffiliated voters are now equal to white evangelicals. According to exit polls, the nones voted for Obama by a margin of 70-26. Obama won more than half of those who seldom or never attend religious services, and a full 70 percent of the religiously unaffiliated, according to CNN's exit polls. And in various states, that number was even higher. For example, in Pennsylvania, where unaffiliated voters make up 12 percent of the electorate, Obama won 74 percent of the "none" vote.

According to Sarah Posner, with Religion Dispatches, "Given what we've learned recently about religious realignments -- declining numbers of Catholics, declining numbers of mainline Protestants, declining numbers of evangelicals in the 18-29 year-old age group, and increasing numbers of unaffiliated voters, and in particular, atheists and agnostics in the 18-29 year-old age group -- it seems like a significant shift is underway."

A shift indeed. One we are looking forward to.

After the Pew Forum study earlier this month that indicated 19.6 percent of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, we didn't expect another study on the "nones" quite so soon. However, on Tuesday a new study from the Public Religion Research Institute was released, called The 2012 American Values Survey: How Catholics and the Religiously Unaffiliated Will Shape the 2012 Election and Beyond.

Considering that the nones are now the fastest growing "religious group" in the country, public interest is growing--especially in this election year, as it relates to the nones political leanings.

In many ways the Pew study seemed to marginalize the atheist/agnostic and secular segment of the nones, stressing that the group overall is not "uniformly secular." At a press conference for the release of the Pew study, Greg Smith a senior researcher at Pew's Forum on Religion and Public Life seemed to be offering reassurance to the crowd in both tone and rhetoric when he said, "atheists and agnostics are still a very small minority," noting that many nones still believe in a god (read: religious people, don't panic!).

Interestingly the American Values Survey paints a different picture. The new study found that atheists and agnostics make up a larger percentage of the unaffiliated population and thus a larger percentage of the general population overall. Based on the American Values Survey statistics, approximately 6.8 percent of the general population is atheist or agnostic, compared to the 5.7 percent of the population that the Pew study found. The American Values Survey also indicates that a full 75 percent of nones are in fact secular or atheist/agnostic.

Although more conservative in their accounting of unaffiliated Americans than the Pew study (for example, the American Values Survey found that 19 percent of Americans are nones, compared to Pew's 19.6 percent findings), the American Values Survey found that a larger percentage--36 percent--of nones are atheist or agnostic, while the Pew study put that percentage much lower at 29 percent. In the Pew study, the remaining 71 percent who did not identify as atheist or agnostic were labeled "nothing in particular".

The American Values Survey also broke down the unaffiliated "bloc" further than Pew, dividing us into three groups, "atheist/agnostic" (36 percent), "secular/non-religious" which accounts for 39 percent, and "unattached believers" which make up 23 percent.  This allowed the demographers to take a closer look at the beliefs and political leanings of the nones.

The American Values Survey found that the religiously unaffiliated overall tend to be less politically engaged than religiously-affiliated Americans. But when they looked at each demographic closer they found that this was not the case for atheists and agnostics. In fact, 73 percent of atheists and agnostics said they were absolutely certain they would vote in the 2012 election, compared to 53% of both secular Americans and unattached believers. 

The American Values Survey also delved a bit deeper into the nones by age. We knew that 35 percent of Millennials were religiously unaffiliated from the Pew study. The American Values Survey also found that 35 percent of 18-29 year olds were nones, but went further, identifying 40 percent of them as atheist or agnostic and another 39 percent as secular.

Click chart to enlarge:

Finally, whereas the Pew study noted that there were no major differences in education levels between the religious and the nones, the American Values Survey found that wasn't quite the case when they examined atheists and agnostics specifically.

The American Values Survey found that atheists and agnostics are "significantly better educated than Americans overall." Nearly 45 percent of atheists and agnostics have at least a four-year college degree. More than 1-in-5 (22 percent) have a post-graduate degree.

The release of both of these studies shows that the religiously unaffiliated are a fast-growing segment of society and one people are starting to pay attention to--and for good reason because politicians should absolutely be looking to engage these voters.

Whether we comprise 5.7 or 6.8 percent of the population, atheists and agnostics constitute a serious voting bloc--one that does tend to vote together on the issues and is passionate about political involvement. That becomes clearer when we compare those numbers to those of other religious groups that are smaller, yet have more political clout. Atheists and agnostics outnumber the combined membership of Jews, Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Hindus, Jehovah's Witnesses and the Orthodox, which combined account for only 5.4 percent of the population, according to information on Pew's site. Atheists and agnostics even outnumber groups like Lutherans (4.6 percent), Black Baptists (4.4 percent) and Methodists (less than 5.4 percent).

As a bloc we have the ability to be a powerful force in the political and legislative process, but only if we take advantage of our numbers, forcing politicians to recognize us as a constituency and take action on our concerns. To do that we must continue to make ourselves seen and heard both in everyday life as well as at the ballot box.