This is an edited version of the speech given by Jeremiah Camara at FFRF’s convention in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 19, 2019. He was introduced by FFRF’s Director of Operations Lisa Strand:

It is my pleasure to introduce filmmaker Jeremiah Camara. He directed and produced the documentary, “Holy Hierarchy: The Religious Roots of Racism in America.” Those who were here at our convention a few years ago had the pleasure of seeing his other movie, “Contradiction,” also about religion, and it’s on Amazon Prime. Jeremiah is also an author, whose books are Holy Lockdown: Does the Church Limit Black Progress? and The New Doubting Thomas: The Bible, Black Folks and Blind Belief. He is the creator of the widely watched YouTube series, “Slave Sermons,” a mini-movie series addressing the harmful effects of religion. Please welcome Jeremiah Camara.

By Jeremiah Camara

I’m honored to be here. Thanks to [FFRF Co-Presidents] Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker for inviting me to this event, to an organization that’s so important, and not only to this country, but to the world. We definitely need the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

They say that America’s going to hell and going wayward because of the rise of secularism. That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It is really crazy. Do you realize that once upon a time there was something in this country called slavery — and religious belief was the driving justification behind slavery? And now they’re saying that we’re going to hell because of secularism.

My film, “Holy Hierarchy: The Religious Roots of Racism in America,” attempts to explain how the beliefs in a biased supreme being during Colonial America led to beliefs in supreme human beings. If you believe in a supreme being, it’s a seamless transition to believe in supreme human beings.

There is a legal component behind racism that we tend to forget, and it ultimately turned racism into an institution. When you believe in a god, you bring your baggage into that belief, you bring your beliefs, your bigotry, your bias, your superstitions, your stereotypes and your ignorance into that belief. And one of the most fundamental beliefs in America since Colonial times and even today, even if it’s on a subconscious level, is the belief that there is a god who created whites to be superior and blacks to be inferior. This was the prevailing precept.

We moved from Virginia, but many of us still have a Virginia state of mind. Virginia is the boss of this country. You can call it the District of Columbia, if you want. That’s Virginia. And I tell people, if you don’t understand early Virginia, it’ll be a challenge understanding racism in this country, because Virginia is the place where the party started. They perfected racism.

You can’t talk about racism without talking about white supremacy. You can’t talk about white supremacy without talking about Christianity. They’re tied. They’re interwoven. And it’s the root of racism. You don’t enslave. You don’t create systems of apartheid. You don’t create systems of Jim Crow. You don’t implement systems of redlining. The prison-industrial complex is for people who you believe are equal to you.

I think one of the least appreciated but most powerful elements that keeps the wheels of Christianity spinning is white biblical imagery and iconography throughout this country and the world. It does three things: It promotes Christianity, it promotes white supremacy, and it ensures and preserves racism. There’s a lot of talk about the separation of church and state, but there’s also the separation of church and the state of one’s mind.

Imagery is more or just as powerful than any speech that any attorney general or any president or vice president can give in promoting Christianity. Iconography is one of the most powerful weapons in support of Christianity. It’s the unnoticed elephant in the room.

Before there was television, there was imagery. Before there were magazines, there was white biblical iconography. I remember when I was about 6, my mother had a picture of a white Jesus in the kitchen and it was sitting on the table and I noticed that everywhere I went, the eyes followed me. So, I knew that there was really something to this religion because I never saw a picture do that, where the eyes actually followed you.

To people of color, especially blacks being the antithesis of white, seeing white biblical imagery causes immeasurable psychological damage, which has helped to lead to severe cases of lack of self-worth. And deep illness of Stockholm syndrome, as we witnessed in the Botham Jean-Amber Guyger case. And the humongous statue of a white Jesus in the country of Nigeria.

Since Colonial America, the imagery throughout the land continues to support the notion of white supremacy. We see mythological white biblical imagery every day in the magazine and book sections of Walmart, Kroger, Walgreens, CVS and all throughout Hobby Lobby. We see the iconic biblical imagery in doctor’s offices. We see it in hospitals, airports, billboards. We’ve seen it in schools and, of course, in churches and movies.

You look at some of the big blockbuster movies that we’ve had, like “The Passion of the Christ,” that took in close to $400 million. Blacks go to these movies, too.

I always tell people that Jesus is white, even though he never existed. Jesus is white and they ask, “Why do you think that he’s white?” Because he’s white in Walmart and Walmart is the largest retailer in the world. My phone is packed with imagery that I just collect everywhere I go. It’s all around. And that’s something that’s really not talked about a lot.

I was born and raised in Cincinnati, and I used to work at a place called Half Price Books. I was a buyer there. People would bring their old books in and I would assess them. I was really the best assessor that they had and I was the only black. A lady came up with her books and she needed them assessed, and said, “I don’t want a black person touching my books,” even though she was giving them up anyway. I was like, “OK, no problem.”

Honestly, I wasn’t offended. I was cool with it, but what really pissed me off was my white co-worker who assessed her books. That’s the problem. If I can’t do them, you, as my co-worker, should say, “Look, take your books somewhere else.” So, if we’re not all offended and all appalled when we go to Walmart, when we go to these places, I don’t care. I was at the Miami airport and there’s white biblical iconography all around. It’s all over, it’s everywhere. It’s ubiquitous. We all should be upset about that.

Let’s not ignore imagery. Imagery is deeper many times than the spoken word. If there’s no legal justification to end the onslaught of white biblical imagery based on the Constitution’s protection of free speech, then the Constitution is flawed. You should not be able to walk into a store and see white images of Moses and Abraham. To a person of color, it does immeasurable psychological damage. There’s no way we can put a measure on the damage psychologically.

Black people don’t even embrace their own culture. We have Stockholm syndrome to the highest degree in Africa. I don’t know how many have been to Africa, but it is amazing the reverence. They have a saying in Africa that if you’re on your way to church and you see a white man, turn around, because you’ve already laid eyes on God.

This is all about imagery. But what is racism? There’s a lot of talk about it. We hear that word all the time, but racism is the legal backing of a group’s prejudices, stereotypes, bigotry, bias and ignorance. It’s when all that is backed legally it becomes racism. We’ve been mentally conditioned to perceive an all-knowing and all-powerful creator as a white male. And no matter what our current beliefs are, our memory, an association of a white Jesus, are permanently locked in our minds. I’ve been this way since I was 22 years old, since I’ve been out of religion. Done with it. But that image when I was 6 years old is still there. It will always be there.

I’ve got a little part in the film that addresses that imagery. Racism actually stems from one group believing to be of more value and more worth than another group. And it’s time to end all of that and I’m glad that I’m here. I wish there were more blacks here. I wish there were more Hispanics here. It’s a long process, but I think we’re headed in the right direction.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate you guys.

This is an edited version of the speech Amber Scorah gave at FFRF’s national convention in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 19, 2019. She was introduced by FFRF Programs Manager Kristina Daleiden:

Amber Scorah is the author of the moving memoir Leaving the Witness, which details her experience growing up as Jehovah’s Witness, moving to China to become a missionary and coming to question the beliefs that she had been taught and eventually leaving that religion. After suffering the tragic loss of her 4-month-old son, Amber became a parental leave advocate, bringing this issue to the forefront of the 2016 presidential campaign. She also penned an op-ed in The New York Times titled “Surviving the death of my son after the death of my faith.” “Oprah” magazine said that Leaving the Witness was one of the best books of summer and The New York Times called it one of 12 new books to watch. Amber is a Canadian writer living in Brooklyn.

Please join me in welcoming Amber Scorah.

By Amber Scorah

First of all, it’s amazing to be here. I was raised a Jehovah’s Witness and women were never allowed to give talks. It’s my guess that everyone in this room either has known a Jehovah’s Witness or has had one approach them to preach to them.

But so many people feel like they don’t really understand what the Jehovah’s Witnesses are about and why there isn’t more information from ex-members out there.

Jehovah’s Witnesses fly under the greater cultural radar, in many ways, because of the way its own culture is set up. As a Jehovah’s Witness, you are raised to believe that you must keep separate from the world.

This is why Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t vote, don’t get involved in charity work, are told not to go to college or pursue any kind of career, don’t get too close to people or have relationships with anyone who is a nonbeliever. Any person who is not a Witness is considered “worldly” and a bad association. The outside is Satan’s world.

Growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, I was taught I was different. And this was reinforced by many of the arbitrary things the Witnesses pull out of the bible and pronounce as necessary for salvation. No blood, which obviously meant that if you were dying and needed a blood transfusion, you’d have to accept death. No Christmas, no singing carols. We’d have to sit outside. When someone had a birthday in the classroom, we weren’t allowed to eat the cake. We couldn’t date or marry a non-Jehovah’s Witness. Our time was to be used for preaching, to save as many as we could before Armageddon.

No dirty laundry

You don’t see many books by people like me, who leave the religion, because the leaders of the group strongly forbid anyone from airing any of the organization’s dirty laundry.

This applies to very minor issues. For example, we were told constantly that even if a brother cheats us, we shouldn’t take him to court. And it extends to very serious issues, where parents are told not to go to the police when their child has been sexually abused by someone within the congregation. The idea behind this is that the most important thing is that God’s chosen ones be protected. They don’t want God to look bad.

Of course, you might think, if you leave, then you’re no longer bound by this rule, right?

But what happens when you leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses, like I did, is that you are shunned. This is quite a severe punishment for people who have been taught to build their entire lives around an organization, and who, as a result, have very few ties anywhere else.

This shunning is bad enough, but if a person takes it one step further and speaks out about the organization, or their doubts, or anything that they feel is wrong within the organization, in any kind of a public way, that person is labeled an apostate.

This is a very scary brand to receive. Apostasy, according to Jehovah’s Witnesses literature, is the one sin God will never forgive. “Apostates” like me would be described in very terrifying terms. They were “mentally diseased,” “criminals,” “lower than a snake” with “characteristics like the devil.”

Even after I wrote my book and didn’t believe in the religion anymore, you feel the power of that community lasts even after you’ve left. The last thing I wanted to be was that horrible apostate character we’ve been warned about. I didn’t want to be seen that way, even by people who no longer spoke to me. I didn’t want to be “mentally diseased”!

Yet here I am, out here in Satan’s world!

Path to freedom

The path to finding my freedom happened in one of the most restrictive countries in the world: China.

When I was in my 20s, after spending years knocking on doors in my home city of Vancouver, Canada, to not much in the way of results — you all know what you do when a Jehovah’s Witness calls! — I decided to learn Mandarin Chinese and travel to China to preach. China was the one place that had not received a Witness, and I wanted to give them a chance to convert before Armageddon came and God killed them for being nonbelievers.

Ironically, it was in China that, for the first time in my life, I had some freedom, which should have told me something, since most people who go to China don’t feel more free.

Because my preaching work was done underground in China, the structure of meetings and community I had had my whole life at home as a Witness was gone. Our religion was illegal there, so there was no structure.

Of course, my aim was to preach, and I took that mission seriously. But that, too, looked different. Back at home, rarely would a Witness ever have a friend who was not a Witness. The only interaction was for the sake of conversion. Non-Witnesses were to be always kept at bay, as they were a worldly influence.

Yet here in China, we were told by the leaders of the organization that the way to go about our preaching work was to spend a lot of time getting to know people before we preached to them. This would allow us to vet them, to make sure they weren’t Communist Party members, or people who would turn us in to the authorities. Often that vetting process took a long time, because you were trying to “be casual” and get information from people naturally, before bringing in the bible or our literature and possibly endangering ourselves.

A byproduct of this, of course, was that I began to make “worldly friends” for the first time. I got to know people who weren’t Jehovah’s Witnesses on a pretty intimate level before I ever even tried bringing up the bible.

Preaching in a language like Mandarin, too, was so different, it felt like my mind was being excavated. As I sat teaching my Chinese bible students “the truth,” telling them to throw away their thousands of years of cultural history for my 100-year-old religion in this new language, it was almost as if I could hear what I was saying for the first time. I started to realize my beliefs sounded a bit crazy.

Cracks in my faith

Eventually, the mild disorientation of being in this new culture and speaking this language so different than my own opened up cracks in my faith, and the physical distance from my community gave me a mental break from the constant meetings and indoctrination. Slowly, a “worldly” friendship I began to engage in with a client at my workplace ended up with me questioning everything I had been raised to believe.

A lot of people who have never been religious wonder why in the world anyone would stay in a group like this that is so obviously, to those on the outside, wrong and “culty.”

Here’s the thing: No one who is in a cult ever thinks they are in a cult. You think you are living the best life, and in some ways it IS a great life. You have no angst, you don’t worry about climate change, you don’t have to have a retirement fund because Armageddon and God are going to solve all those problems. Plus, you have many wonderful friends and family who believe in it with you. You have a warm community.

You are constantly told about how awful people’s lives are on the outside, and because you are only allowed to be close with other Witnesses, you have no way of verifying. Of course, the world can be a scary place, so it’s an easy message to sell. Sure, you see people who seem happy and fulfilled, you meet nice people at work and such, but you know that they are going to die at Armageddon, so really, how great can that be?

Yes, it isn’t until you try to leave a cult that you start to realize it’s a cult. When the people in your organization and family immediately shun you for questioning even one of the beliefs handed down from the leaders, you know you are in some form of cult.

When I voiced a doubt or two and that got back to the elders, well, that was about when I started to get the inkling that the Jehovah’s Witness organization bore the traits of a cult.

Later, after I left, I found stronger proof: The first boyfriend I had after leaving the religion found on YouTube nearly every documentary ever made about cult members and we watched them together. I was surprised as I watched. Every cult it seemed, from the most extreme (Jim Jones in Jamestown) to the less extreme ones (that didn’t mandate death), well, they were exactly my story.

They are entirely different belief systems, but have the same systems in place to keep people in. My lines of reasoning, my thought patterns, my thought-blocking, the us vs. them mentality, all the things we had been trained to do to stay in the religion were the same things people in all these cults had been trained to do.

And while the Witnesses are not as extreme as some cults, they do mandate that people die rather than take life-saving blood transfusions. So, while they aren’t drinking Kool-Aid, they are mandating death for no reason, which isn’t that different.

It takes a lot of deprogramming to realize the religion you were raised with as “truth” is simply a mythology that has been passed down from generation to generation.

No regrets

Even given all I lost — family, friends, faith, support systems, purpose — I have never once regretted waking up and leaving. And I’ve never heard any other ex-Witnesses saying any different. People have lost their own children to the religion after waking up, have lost their livelihood, everything.

But now that I shed a belief system, it’s a lot easier for me to see culti-ness everywhere, not only in religion. We are, all of us, subject to indoctrination of some form, whether we realize it or not. Obviously, some belief systems are more extreme than others, but we all have blind spots. We are born into a family that teaches us values and ideals from birth. All of us have embedded ideas about how things must be and how we must live (marry, have children, elect a straight white man, whatever it is). This is most obvious in the religious realm, but it’s also the case in the political, social, internet, scientific and any other realm in which people identify with a way of thinking.

This is why cults exist! They are just a manifestation of the extreme end of something that is in us all. We all need to check our thinking, to ensure we aren’t succumbing to our own cult-like tendencies.

How do we do this?

Make friends with people who don’t think like us. That may sound trite, but in my story, the only reason I was able to see my blind spots was because I developed a close relationship with someone “on the outside.” The differences between us were what made it possible for me to see that not everything I had been taught to believe by my culture was absolute truth. Allowing myself to get close enough to someone so different than me was what made me see that. It wasn’t always pleasant, but I’m so grateful I didn’t back away or dismiss him.

I’ve also learned this: When we feel very sure we are right, that’s always a sign to look again, look deeper, question our strongest assumptions, never be dogmatic about anything. Always be willing to listen and readjust. Never let your identity be too stuck to a group, a belief. Step outside our comfort zone and be willing to put ourselves in positions that make us feel off kilter, because that is when we get opened up, that is when we learn.

Great tragedy

There is one postscript to my story. And that is that seven years after I left my religion, I experienced a great tragedy.

My first child, my 4-month-old son, Karl, died. I raise this because many people who know my religious background have asked me if this terrible loss made me want to go back to religion. I think it’s an interesting question.

I don’t think anyone really can be prepared for the loss of a child, but it blindsided me. I was now faced with an entirely foreign landscape: death without hope of an afterlife. Grief without religion.

My father had died when I was a Witness, when I was 18, and I was sad, but I wasn’t that sad, because I was certain that one day I would see him again in paradise. Religion was born for times like this. My faith, I realize now, had acted as a buffer to many of these more devastating aspects of being human.

And now, when I lost my son, without that faith, I experienced this death as nothingness. My child, so full of promise and health and energy, vanished. It was beyond my ability to accept losing him. But it was even farther beyond my abilities to return to any kind of belief in life after death. This was the ultimate test for someone who had once had belief.

But let me tell you what I discovered about grief without religion. It has some surprising byproducts.

I now had no choice but to live with the reality of the loss, and it made me deal with what was in front of me. What was in front of me was utter devastation on every level. But once you have been that close to death, something else happens when you can’t escape it. In the midst of this kind of grief, where you have no escape, you are forced to experience a deeper pain, but you also become more clear-eyed about life. You find you see what is beautiful in life in the midst of all this suffering. And one of those things I experienced was the great care and compassion that we as human beings possess.

When I was in such great pain, so many people, strangers and friends alike, got me through by showing love in so many ways. It was the strangest thing, to experience such an awful thing, yet at the same time, to be touched by such beauty and love.

Now, time has gone by, and without the escape of belief, I have learned a lot. I have learned how to live with everyone’s worst nightmare, I’m still alive, which honestly feels like a feat sometimes. I have learned patience and endurance and how to tolerate devastating feelings, because that is what living without your child requires.

But since I do not believe that my son is “out there” somewhere or will come back to me, it has also meant that I have kept him alive in the ways in the here and now. By talking about him to his sister, and by holding close the memories I have of him every day.

I also became an activist for a national parental-leave policy in his name. Through this work, I found that death without hope didn’t have to be death without faith.

How so? Activism is an act of faith. A faith that when there are problems, we as human beings can find ways to solve them. A faith that my son’s life and death would show others the value of every child’s life. A faith that others would join me in a fight for what was right, and they did.

In my old religion, we were taught not to put our faith in man. But if humankind is all we have, perhaps this faith, this active belief that we can change the world, is not misplaced. That’s what I learned. I’m not willing to give up hope yet.

And the fact is, once we accept reality and truly live in it, with its full range of emotion, good and terrible, that’s where life lies. Not in some fictional paradise.

The one thing that no one can take away from us is the beauty and love we can find in this world if we look for it. When I am in great pain, I remember that the depth of grief we experience is a reflection of the depth of the love we are capable of.

I don’t have all the answers now, but I can appreciate the deep mystery of it all. I feel the magic of life all around me, the great power of shared humanity. I feel gratitude.

And it’s been so lovely to be here with you today. Thank you.

This is an edited version of the speech given by Hemant Mehta at FFRF’s national convention in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 18. He was given the 2019 Nothing Fails Like Prayer Award. Hemant was introduced by FFRF Director of Strategic Response Andrew L. Seidel:

On May 5, 2014, the Supreme Court ruled that it’s totally fine for local governments to have prayers, even if they are overwhelmingly Christian. One of the reasons that the Supreme Court said it was fine was because “the town at no point excluded or denied an opportunity to a would-be prayer giver.” A minister or lay person of any persuasion, including an atheist, could give an invocation. Since we couldn’t challenge this in court anymore, we figured we’ll take them at their word. And since nothing fails like prayer, FFRF inaugurated its “Nothing Fails Like Prayer” contest. Every year, we award this to someone who has gone to their local government body that is already praying and delivered a strong secular invocation. The award comes with a plaque and a $500 honorarium.

This year’s winner is Hemant Mehta, who is a writer and editor, and runs the hugely popular “Friendly Atheist” site, which I visit 19 or 100 times a day. He edited the 2017 book, Queer Disbelief: Why LGBTQ Equality is an Atheist Issue. He wrote the Young Atheists’ Survival Guide, and, in a slightly devilish transaction, he sold his soul on eBay and wrote a very fun book about that.

He’s a brilliant mind and a huge asset to the secular movement. He’s unafraid of critiquing us to make us better as much as he is unafraid of criticizing government officials who use their public offices to promote their personal religion. So, Hemant, come on up and accept your award.

By Hemant Mehta

Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me here. I’m going to talk about something that’s not directly connected to that invocation, but something I feel very strongly about.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more atheists in public office? Of course, it would. But I don’t want them there so they can advocate for atheists. That’s not their job. I don’t need them to do the stuff that FFRF does. I want them there because having more atheists in politics has some serious symbolic value. Because it matters when my House representative is a black woman. It matters when you have a person in Congress who is a Muslim, or someone with a physical disability or someone who is LGBTQ.

We all know there’s a stigma attached to being an atheist. How many of you have gotten to know somebody, and you tell them at some point that you are an atheist. The response you get back is, “Oh, but I thought you were a good person.”

We’ve all had some sort of variation on that conversation. Let me ask you a slightly different question. When you think about the most famous atheists, who is the most famous atheist you can think of?

There’s probably a couple names that come to my mind. Maybe you’re thinking of an author or Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris or somebody like that. If you are a famous atheist author, why are you a famous atheist author? It’s because you wrote a book or two where your whole point is to have readers say, “OK, I don’t believe in this stuff anymore.” Your goal in writing the book was to get people to stop being religious. Maybe you were thinking of a comedian such as Bill Maher. When does Bill Maher talk about religion? He brings it up in his act because he wants to make you laugh and I’m glad he does. It’s funny. But his point in doing that is to get you to laugh at religion.

This is why it would be such a big deal to have atheists in government. And, for the public, think about what that means. This may be their best chance to see an atheist in public life, to see (hopefully) a respectable atheist, where their job is not to denigrate religion. And I think that would go so far in changing the public perception of what it means to be an atheist.

If you are an atheist in politics and you’re good at it, you’re not doing battle against religion. You’re trying to help everybody. That is a big deal. Yet, trying to get into politics has been this huge hurdle for atheists everywhere.

[Hemant shows image of The New Republic magazine] The cover of this magazine says, “The last taboo.” And underneath there’s a subheading that says, “Politicians keep saying we should inject more religion into our public life. But what we really need is a healthy dose of atheism.” Cool. The author is Wendy Kaminer, who is a fantastic writer and activist. But she wrote this in 1996. Really? The last taboo? I mean, we hadn’t had an African-American president, we hadn’t had a woman at the top of the ticket. Is atheism the last taboo? No.

In this article, she writes, “Atheists generate about as much sympathy as pedophiles.” Her point was that it’s really hard to be an open atheist in politics. She was right. In 1996, there were no open atheists in the U.S. Congress.

But when you say you’re religious and you’re trying to run for office, people know what that means. It means you’re a good person. It means you can be trusted. And that’s what people want when they’re voting for somebody. Is it still toxic to be an atheist in politics? I’d say, “kind of,” but that’s changing and it’s changing quickly and in ways you may not even be aware of.

Getting an edge

I’ll give you a couple examples here. Let me take you back to 2008 in North Carolina. There was a U.S. Senate race where neither candidate was an incumbent. One was Kay Hagan, a state lawmaker running on the Democratic side. She was up against Elizabeth Dole, the wife of the former Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole. This was a close race and everyone knew it. There was a lot of money being funneled into North Carolina. So, you’re looking for any way to get an edge.

Kay Hagan had a fundraiser that was held at the home of someone who was known to be an atheist activist. She went to his home, not because she’s an atheist, but because he was hosting a fundraiser. And with that information alone, I’ll tell you about the commercial the Dole campaign ran afterwards.

It’s shots of atheists appearing in the news and saying, “Let’s take God off the currency.” “Let’s take God off the dollar bills.” “Kay Hagan appeared at an atheist home.” There’s dark music in the background. And, when the screen fades to black, you hear a voice saying, “There is no God.” I’m not joking. That’s really in the ad.

So, what did Hagen promise in return? I have no idea. She promised us nothing. And yet, that was the ad Dole’s campaign ran because just the link to an atheist was enough to be an attack ad. That’s how bad it is. The good news is that it didn’t hurt her enough. Kay Hagan ended up winning that race in 2008, though she lost her re-election bid in 2014 to Thom Tillis.

Let me give you another name. Do you know Pete Stark, the Democratic representative from California? He made news across the country in 2007 when he announced he was an openly nonreligious member of Congress. He was the first one we knew about. He was openly saying “I don’t believe in a higher power.” He called himself a Unitarian, but said, “Yeah, I don’t believe in a higher power and I’m OK with the Secular Coalition for America broadcasting that.” And he said later on that he was surprised the reception was overwhelmingly positive. He thought it was gonna be really bad and it wasn’t. He got so many positive messages from people.

But here’s something that was shocking. Pete Stark ran some successful re-election campaigns even after being out as an atheist. He won again in 2008 and 2010. But, in 2012, he was up for re-election but did not win because another Democrat, Eric Swalwell, beat him in the primaries.

I like Eric Swalwell; he’s really good on TV and I agree with most of his politics. But when he was running in that primary, he was looking for any edge to beat a longtime incumbent. It turned out in 2011 that the House held a symbolic vote on whether the United States should keep “In God We Trust” as the national motto. And, this is one of those things where, of course, they’re all going to say “yes” and almost 400 of them did vote that way. But nine members of the House said no. Pete Stark was one of those nine and Eric Swalwell used that fact in his primary press release. “Do we trust Pete Stark to represent our views? The 15th Congressional District deserves a member of Congress who is in touch with its people, can work well with others and can honor our national motto.”

Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona was also elected to the House in 2012. I remember hearing during the primary that there’s this bisexual atheist running for the House in a fairly conservative area, but had a good chance of winning. When she won the primary and had a chance of winning the seat, all of the sudden she stopped referring to herself as an atheist. And when she won, there were headlines saying a bisexual atheist just got elected to Congress. Her campaign was then like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Not an atheist.”

I wrote to her campaign and asked what label she was using. This is what the campaign staff wrote back: “She believes the terms ‘nontheist,’ ‘atheist’ or ‘nonbeliever’ are not befitting of her life’s work or personal character.” They could have just said, “No, we’re busy and we’re not going to answer it.” Instead, they gave me that statement, basically throwing atheists under the bus. But I will give her this: When she was sworn into office, she took her oath on the Constitution. And again in 2018, when she ran for U.S. Senate and won, she took an oath of office on a copy of the Constitution with Mike Pence holding it. Very cool.

Survey says …

Every two years, the Pew Research Center releases a survey of the newly elected members of Congress and they ask for religious affiliation. There’s one section that says “unaffiliated” and there’s just one name: Kyrsten Sinema.

And, let me also take you to 2012. Every four years, Gallup does a survey during the presidential campaign which asks voters, “Would you vote for someone in your political party if that person were _____.” If that person were black, 96 percent of people said yes. Why would that be a problem? A woman? Yes. Most people are like, “That would be fine if I agreed with their politics.”

And where is “atheist” on this list in 2012? It’s way at the bottom. But, this was actually cause for celebration in 2012 because it was above 50 percent for the first time. Fifty-four percent basically said, “Yeah, it’s not the worst thing ever.”

A couple of years ago, Jared Huffman, another Democrat from California, said, “OK, fine, I will come out as nonreligious.” He used the word “humanist.” After he came out, I was very excited to see the Pew Research survey listing the Congress members and their religion because I was so excited to see the word “atheist” or “humanist” on that list. So, I scroll down and I’m looking for the word “atheist” or “humanist” and the closest I see is “unaffiliated.” But it shows just one, which we already know is Kyrsten Sinema. Jared, where are you? In its report, Pew said it gets the data from this political survey and Rep. Huffman didn’t return the survey. But, a couple of months ago, he updated that survey and it does say “humanist” now. In this case, the “H” word makes a difference.

Reps. Huffman and Jamie Raskin and Mark Pocan helped begin the Freethought Caucus, which has 12 members. Literally, Jared Huffman is the only openly nonreligious one on that list. But that is still cool. Those are people who are saying “atheist” isn’t really a dirty word for us. We’ll fight for church-state separation. We’ll fight for reason-based policymaking, which is still a thing. And maybe it will come back one day. I can’t wait.

But I want to tell you what’s really making me excited here. In 2016, Gallup did that poll asking if you would vote for a _____. And if you scroll down to the bottom, wait a minute, that’s not us anymore. A socialist is now the worst thing you can be. Atheists are at 58 percent. And, by the way, if you break this down by age and ask people under age 30 if they would vote for an atheist, the number is about 75 percent. It’s getting to the point where even the youngest people like atheists.

In 2018, when they had the midterm elections, with the help of the Center for Freethought Equality, which is an arm of the American Humanist Association, I started keeping track of everyone running not just for Congress (because Huffman is the only one who’s openly nonreligious), but at the state level. People running for state Houses or state Senates and how many of them were openly nonreligious. The only caveat was that I didn’t care what word they used. “Atheist”? Great. “Nonreligious?” All right. Any of it. I’ll take it all.

Freethinkers database

[Hemant shows database on screen] I kept a spreadsheet. On this database, I have purple representing people who ran for state House or state Senate and lost. I used green to represent people who won their races, some of whom were incumbents. Let me scroll through this spreadsheet for you. Look at all the greens in all of the states. I know, there’s a lot of purple, too. Don’t worry about that. That’s expected. But look at all the greens.

How many greens are on that list? How many openly nonreligious elected officials are there? There are 50 around the country. That is incredible. That is way more than I thought existed anywhere because I literally would have told you maybe five or six before I started keeping track. And then I realized there are so many more than that.

And, by the way, that was 2018. Can you imagine what that number is going to be during the 2020 election when we expect that progressives will come out in droves?

I remember seeing a piece of pro-science legislation in New Hampshire and seeing the sponsor of the bill and I thought that name sounded familiar. Oh, right. She’s one of the greens on my list. She’s an openly nonreligious state representative who filed this pro-science bill. Isn’t that awesome? Then I looked at her co-sponsors and it’s like she hit everybody in the state who is nonreligious.

I said as much on my website and I get a message from that state representative in my inbox and she wrote, “How do you think I found the co-sponsors?” She saw the list and thought, “Oh, my God, I have allies I didn’t even know about. I’m gonna go to them and do that.” I had another state representative contact me on Twitter and she said, “How come I’m not on your spreadsheet?” I responded, “Who are you?” I had to look at her bio and saw she’s a state representative. I asked if she’s openly nonreligious. She said, “Look at my Twitter feed. Every other tweet I’m swearing I have no problem with you calling me an atheist.” So, I added her right away.

So, how do we get this list upgraded? How do we get more people on that list?

Pop that balloon

I also have a story about Megan Hunt. She ran for office in Nebraska. Nebraska’s the state that doesn’t have a bicameral legislature. It’s just one unicameral body. Everybody’s a senator. She ran for one of those seats. She had never run for any elected office before, so it was her against one other woman. And I remember looking at her website saying, “OK, value-wise, I pretty much agree with her.” So, that’s great. If I lived there, I would totally vote for her. And then I saw there was an article in the local paper about the candidates. They had a sidebar where it just had some biographical details about Megan Hunt. And I remember seeing this: “Faith — Atheist” and I was thinking, “Oh, no, she’s going to lose now. You said it out loud. You’re not supposed to do that. What are you doing? It’s toxic.”

But then she won her race. She is one of six openly nonreligious state senators and maybe one of only six who uses the word “atheist.” I asked her, “How did you end up winning this race? How did this not hurt you? How were you able to get over that?” She told me that she took the air out of the balloon before the other side could pop it. She put it right out front. She wasn’t ashamed of it. She just said it. And then she talked about the issues that actually matter to voters: roads, health care, infrastructure, all those other things that people actually care about.

She just let it out and then what were they going to say? “Oh, hey, did you know you’re an atheist?” So, now she just says, “Yes, I am, and here’s what really matters to me,” and then talks about other things. This is the key. It may not be that big of a deal and it’s becoming less of a deal as the years go on.

I hope any of you can run for something. There are like 500,000 elected offices in America. They’re not all Congress. It’s OK. You can run for something. You can be an atheist. But if you’re running for public office, you don’t have to dwell on that. But you don’t have to be ashamed of it, either, and it may not even hurt you.

Thank you.

This is an edited version of the speech Rachel Laser gave at FFRF’s national convention in Madison, Wis., on Oct. 18, 2019. The award was introduced by Henry Zumach, and FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor introduced Rachel.

Henry Zumach: Over the centuries and continuing into today, the greatest harm to societies has been imposed by those who hold the irrational beliefs of fundamentalist religious teachings. Those few individuals who have had the courage to confront these beliefs have been punished and persecuted. I believe that those few who speak out and take action deserve our greatest respect and admiration.

Because of this, I started the annual Henry H. Zumach Award for Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism. After giving this award to the Freedom From Religion Foundation in 2016, we worked out the details for FFRF to permanently administer the award going forward. I contributed $100,000 to the fund, and will contribute another $100,000, and my hope is that the amount of the annual $10,000 award will gradually increase in the future.

Now, here is Annie Laurie Gaylor to introduce this year’s winner.

Annie Laurie Gaylor: Thank you so much, Hank. It’s my pleasure to introduce Rachel Laser. She’s the new president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It’s the first time they’ve had a woman and the first time they’ve had a non-Christian as president. She is a lawyer and advocate, a strategist who’s dedicated her career to making our nation more inclusive. As a member of a religious minority group, raised as a Reform Jew, she understands personally how important it is for our nation to have equal protection under the law. She previously served as deputy director of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism. Previous to that, she directed the Culture Program at Third Way, a progressive think tank in D.C., where she launched Come Let Us Reason Together. It’s an initiative to mobilize evangelical Christians and liberals to work together on critical issues, such as women’s reproductive freedom and LGBTQ equality. She drafted the first common-ground abortion bill to be introduced jointly by the anti-abortion and pro-choice members of Congress. She served as senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, where she founded the Pharmacy Refusal Project to challenge pharmacists who refuse to fill women’s birth control prescriptions. She is a graduate of Harvard and the University of Chicago Law School and she serves on the national board of Pro-Choice America.

Thank you so much, Rachel, for lending your talents to separation of state and church and joining us today.

By Rachel Laser

On behalf of Americans United, our dedicated and talented staff back in Washington, D.C., our board of trustees, our volunteer leaders and our 300,000 supporters across the country, thank you so much for this award. It’s an honor for AU to receive the Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism Award, and especially meaningful after getting to know Hank Zumach and Betty Hammond last night over dinner. It’s also an honor for me to be here with you as the first non-Christian and female leader of Americans United in our 73-year existence. I’m also thrilled to have the opportunity to share some thoughts with you about how to protect and defend our cherished principle of separation of religion and government during these precarious times.

I thought I’d start by sharing a little bit more about myself. I’m Jewish, and grew up not so far away in Chicago, attending the oldest synagogue in the Midwest — KAM Isaiah Israel. I went to KAM’s “Sunday school” because my best friend started going and I asked my parents if I could go too. Even though we lived on the North Side of Chicago, my parents joined this Reform Jewish synagogue on the South Side because they loved the intellectual and progressive Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, and they liked the idea of being part of the nearby University of Chicago community.

Over the years, my parents made many friends at KAM, and by the time I graduated from law school, the temple offered my dad the role of temple president. He accepted.

Wanting to honor my dad and uncertain how, I bought him two things that he didn’t already have: a mezuzah to hang outside of his front door and a crocheted kippah to wear when he had to sit up on the bimah during services. My dad would have none of either. He asked me to please return them both to the temple gift shop. I did.

My dad is one of many Jewish atheists I know. And he is also one of the most principled, moral people I know. But that’s certainly not how the majority of the country see atheists.

Atheists discredited

I know I don’t have to tell you that atheists are, shall we say, out of favor in America. Just the other day one of our donors called to tell me that he was bequeathing us a very large gift. I asked him how he connects to our cause. He explained that he’s from the South, and when his dad died, he was the one his dad had designated as executor of the estate. His brothers and sisters didn’t like that, and they used his atheism to discredit him on the stand in court.

Recently, the attorney general of the United States of America blamed our country’s violence, mental illness, ongoing drug epidemic and “wreckage of the family” problems on “the growing ascendancy of secularism.”

You all might already know that Americans are less willing to elect an atheist for president than any other category of candidate. A poll conducted this summer by PRRI, a nonpartisan public opinion research firm, shows that nearly one-quarter (24 percent) of Americans say small businesses should be allowed to refuse to serve atheists if doing so is against their religious beliefs. This support has climbed nearly 10 percentage points since 2014 (15 percent) — just four years ago. Hmmm . . . I wonder what’s been going on these past four years?

Here is an oversimplified three-part answer. First, starting in 2014, white Christians ceased being the majority in America. Add to that the first black president, the rapid movement toward LGBTQ equality, the #MeToo movement, the fast rise of the religiously unaffiliated or the “Nones” and the fact that America will be majority black and brown by 2046. This all has engendered great fear among white Christians particularly vested in traditional power structures.

Second, President Trump, playing off of that fear, promised his white Christian voting base that he would “make America great again,” meaning he would restore its perceived loss of power.

And third, given Trump’s promise and follow-through, Trump’s base has never felt more emboldened to say or do anything and everything to preserve its power, which includes squashing especially those who are challenging it the most. And that’s why atheists get such special treatment.

What else is this kowtowing president and fearful group of Americans doing to preserve their power? Unapologetically doubling down on keeping American symbols, rituals and rhetoric religious and Christian.

We witnessed the trifecta of Attorney General William Barr saying what he did about secularists, Trump declaring that Americans will “forever and always” believe in “the eternal glory of God” and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo bragging about how his Christianity informs his decision-making and then posting his “Being a Christian Leader” speech on the official State Department website.

Supreme Court misguided

But this crusade has reached far beyond the Trump-Pence administration.

I’m sure that everyone here is familiar with the Supreme Court’s misguided decision earlier this year allowing the 40-foot towering Bladensburg cross to remain on public land in Maryland. I’m guessing you, too, agree with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s statement: “When a cross is displayed on public property, the government may be presumed to endorse its religious content.” The court, however, ruled — seven justices to two — that the government may prominently display and endorse this Christian symbol because it’s a historical custom. In other words, it’s OK to violate the constitutional right to religious freedom for all Americans if we’ve always done it that way.

We have seen recent losses in lower federal courts, as well. In August, a federal appeals court ruled against our clients in Pennsylvania, allowing the state House of Representatives to bar atheists from giving invocations before the legislature. Citing Bladensburg, the court appealed to history, saying that legislative prayer invoking God is an American tradition.

And in Congress, we are seeing the same type of religious “traditions” remain intact. Rep. Jared Huffman, the only openly atheist member of our 535 members of Congress, recently lost his battle to make the “so help me God” part of the oath optional for witnesses testifying before his committee. All it took was Rep. Liz Cheney declaring that Democrats “really have become the party of Karl Marx” to make the Democrats back down and leave the rule in place. How absurd is it that any scientist testifying before the Committee on Natural Resources would be required to swear to God or be disqualified?

Back to the 1950s?

It’s as though we’re gearing up for another full-fledged 1950s moment — the decade when fear of communism led the government to infuse our culture with an unprecedented level of religiosity (including our national motto and Pledge of Allegiance). Or perhaps you think we’re already there.

Some people say it’s hopeless to challenge social norms around religion right now. They tell us not to devote time to cases like the Bladensburg cross and to stick to the more winnable and substantive battles, like preventing religious refusals in the realm of health care and employment.

Yes, those fights are critical and we certainly are engaging in them, but we cannot and must not give up on fighting for an inclusive baseline. The reason is simple: We will not achieve our country’s promise of true religious freedom until nontheists, the nonreligious and religious minorities are as accepted as Christians.

Our founders understood this profoundly, even back in the late 1700s. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, widely seen as the foundation for the religion clauses in the First Amendment of our Constitution, he said that its aim was to protect “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo,” and note, he included, “the infidel of every denomination.”

We know we cannot give up on the fight to change the baseline around religion to make it inclusive for all. The question is, how are we going to get there? Here’s what I know for sure: It’s not going to be easy. It’s not a five- or 10-year project. And it’s a hard question to answer.

Inspiration and lessons

But I would like to suggest that the marriage equality movement, which changed deeply embedded social norms around the institution of marriage in just one generation, offers us not just inspiration, but some excellent strategic lessons.

In 1988, when the General Social Survey first asked, only 11.6 percent of respondents said that they thought same-sex couples should have the right to marry. But by 2018, just 30 years later, the number of Americans who said same-sex couples should have the right to marry was at 68 percent. Social scientists say that it’s rare for public opinion to change this much, and this quickly, but it did.

How? Having worked on this issue as a straight ally throughout some of this critical period, three key strategies come to mind.

One is to have those who are not “the norm” come out. Public opinion research solidly demonstrates that knowing someone who is openly LGBTQ changes hearts and minds more than anything else. The LGBTQ equality movement did a phenomenal job of not only encouraging people to come out, but also creating a better climate in which to do so.

TV shows like “Will and Grace” and “Grey’s Anatomy” included LGBTQ characters, and celebrities from Ellen DeGeneres to George Michael to Melissa Etheridge started coming out (or being outed) right and left. Still, it took a huge number of brave LGBTQ people who were willing to put their relationships, family, livelihood, safety and even lives on the line to create this change.

Our equivalent is to keep encouraging non-Christians and the nonreligious, but particularly nontheists, to speak up about their religious identities (or nonreligious identities). We also need to ensure that celebrities are doing the same and popular culture is casting people in the role of loveable atheists and developing characters who don’t affiliate with any religious tradition.

FFRF continues to do excellent work with its “Out of the Closet” campaign, but we need to make a lot more noise. I challenge everyone here to share your own belief system with someone. But don’t just do so with like-minded people. The strategy here is to also tell your friends, family and communities who may have different beliefs.

The more buzz we create about the existence of nontheists and the nonreligious — and with the growing numbers of this segment of the population, more buzz should be doable — the more welcoming the environment is for others to come out, too. I want to acknowledge, however, that like with outing yourself as LGBTQ, it can be extremely difficult and even life-threatening to out yourself as a nontheist in certain parts of the country. For this reason, sadly, many of Americans United’s plaintiffs must still remain anonymous to stay safe. It takes courage and it takes risk.

A second key strategy of the marriage equality movement was to normalize not just being LGBTQ, but having romantic same-sex relationships. This is what I’ll nickname the “go for the jugular” strategy, because it went directly to one of the vulnerable spots for straight people — losing the privilege that attaches our opposite-sex relationships. Popular movies like “Brokeback Mountain” and “Call Me By Your Name” portrayed gay relationships in ways that were relatable and relatably sensual for straight people. TV shows began to include not just LGBTQ people, but gay and lesbian relationships.

I would argue that our “go for the jugular” equivalent is to go to where there is enormous privilege for religious people — the realm of moral superiority. Our efforts must engage popular culture, not just in having nontheist and nonreligious characters, but in conveying that nontheists and nonreligious people are as moral and principled as religious people are.

Some may be tempted to portray nontheists and the nonreligious as having better morals and principles than religious people. But, even if you think that’s true, the marriage equality success teaches it’s a bad idea.

A critical third strategy of the marriage equality movement was to speak to and enlist those considered the “norm” — so, in that case, opposite-sex married people. The way to opposite-sex married people’s hearts was not to tell them that same-sex marriages were better than their marriages, even if some thought they were. It was to tell them same-sex couples wanted to join their institution.

What did join mean to opposite-sex married people? Public opinion research revealed that opposite-sex married people associated marriage most with commitment, and hence a campaign was born around conveying that same-sex marriage was about commitment, too. Moreover, opposite-sex married couples — often parents or grandparents of LGBTQ people — were important spokespeople for moving the country toward full acceptance of marriage equality.

The equivalent for us is speaking to and enlisting religious leaders, but particularly Christians, who are still 65 percent of the country, in advocating for the right to be religious or nonreligious — without assigning moral superiority to either. We must speak to people of faith in a shared language and appeal to their commitment to religious freedom and the Constitution.

Uniting communities

This third strategy is where Americans United is uniquely positioned to help. The truth is, there aren’t many places where the secular and faith communities intentionally come together. But since our founding, AU has been uniting these two communities around the shared goal of church-state separation. In fact, since I joined AU, I’ve noticed that our two most passionate groups of supporters are people who have a strong tie to a faith community and strong nontheists, because both groups deeply value their religious identities and understand how important separating religion and government is to them.

I was particularly happy when Jim Winkler, the president of the National Council of Churches, an ecumenical partnership of 38 Christian faith groups in the United States, became a trustee of Americans United. He joined one of the country’s pre-eminent atheist advocates, Eddie Tabash, in serving on our board.

Friends, let’s not lose hope. Someday we’re all going to have “clean” money in our pockets (you all know what I mean by that, right?), because the Constitution is on our side, because the demographics around religion in our country are changing, and because we are smart and strategic, committed and brave.

Again, it’s an honor to accept this award on behalf of Americans United. We are so happy to have FFRF as partners in today’s unreal struggle for freedom and democracy.

Thank you.