Democrats diss atheists, but still count on our votes

August 20, 2016 1:08 PM
By ROBYN BLUMNER
Robyn Blumner is CEO of the Center for Inquiry, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes reason, science and secular values.
rblumner@centerforinquiry.net

Unlike Bernie Sanders, I am an atheist. Why is the Democrat Party taking me for granted?

Why did members of the Democratic National Committee think it OK to tar Sanders, who says he’s Jewish, as an atheist? Bradley Marshall, the now former chief financial officer of the Democratic National Committee, thought this would be a way to hobble Sanders’ appeal in Kentucky and West Virginia. “My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist,” Marshall wrote in an email to DNC colleagues.

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Democrats in officialdom need to ask themselves why they fight for the dignity and respect for every other marginalized group — racial and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities — except atheists. If the answer is because they can, since the Republican Party shills for the Religious Right and liberal atheists have nowhere else to go, for shame.

We deserve welcome and appreciation. Absent that, the least the Democratic Party can do is acknowledge that we’re in the room.

http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article96809767.html

Or what? One issue politics leads to bizarre consequences.