A billboard featuring a pediatric nurse proudly proclaiming “I’m an atheist and I vote” is going up this week at 14th Avenue and Fox, east of Speer, facing west in Denver, as part of a national multi-media secular voter campaign launched by the Freedom From Religion Foundation in this critical election year. The billboard will be up in time for the Independence Day weekend.
Claudette StPierre, representing Colorado in the FFRF campaign, will also be featured in a full-page ad headlined “I’m Secular and I Vote,” running in the Denver Post on Sunday, July 3, which pictures her in front of the state Capitol.
StPierre, a founder of the Denver chapter of FFRF, is one of 75 million nonreligious Americans who want Congress, state legislatures, public officials and courts to listen to “secular values voters” by keeping religion out of government and social policy — and that includes on the urgent question of abortion rights.
Says StPierre: “Religion has and continues to hold humanity back in making a better world. Let logic, critical thinking, and reason prevail! I hope to free and empower others by sharing my worldview — one person at a time. My deepest concerns are recent events that demonstrate that Christian nationalism and theocracy continue to have a stronghold on many aspects of our government.”
She’s served on the chapter’s board since its inception in 2013, and has helped host two successful Colorado Secular conferences.
“FFRF is putting public candidates and officials on notice that the nonreligious now represent nearly a third of all adult Americans, says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We are the true ‘values voters’ and it’s critical that our secular viewpoint be heard and represented.”
In the ad, StPierre, who identifies herself as “Pediatric nurse, gardener, Coloradan . . . Atheist,” notes: “The ‘Nones’ (those of us unaffiliated with religion) are now 29 percent of the U.S. population. We are the largest ‘denomination’ by religious identification!”
In fact, in Denver County, 36 percent of adults identify as religiously unaffiliated.
FFRF is running the billboards and newspaper ads in time for the July 3-4 weekend in about half of the United States, with the rest appearing around Sept. 17, Constitution Day.
The campaign is particularly timely coming on the heels of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Gaylor observes that 98.8 percent of FFRF’s membership supports Roe, which is consistent with a YouGov analysis showing that atheists, at 91 percent overall, are the most likely to identify as pro-choice.
Gaylor called the Supreme Court trend to privilege religion, as well as the likely banning of abortion in more than half the states, alarming. “That’s why our secular voices must be heard.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation serves as the largest association of freethinkers in North America, with more than 36,000 members including nearly 1,146 in Colorado and works as a state/church watchdog to safeguard the constitutional principle of separation between state and church. To learn more, visit: ffrf.org.
