Michigan's Governor Snyder signed a new set of discrimination laws yesterday.  "Senate Substitute for House Bill No. 4188" states:

"Private child placing agencies, including faith-based child placing agencies, have the right to free exercise of religion under both the state and federal constitutions.  Under well-settled principles of constitutional law, this right includes the freedom to abstain from conduct that conflicts with an agency's sincerely held religious beliefs."

Both faith-based and non-faith-based agencies receive government money.  Given the separation of church and state, it should be the case that agencies receiving federal or state money are not allowed to religiously discriminate in who they serve.  However, this separation has been eroded over the years in a multitude of ways, from President Bush's Faith-Based Initiative to the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision. 

Even so, this is a new level of affront to freedom of religion.  Hobby Lobby isn't receiving government money to do its work.  It's a for-profit organization.  Adoption is a different sort of business.  Half of adoption agencies are faith-based in Michigan -- Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, and the evangelical Bethany Christian Services. How much money are they receiving from the state?  Michigan Radio reports that it is "up to $10 thousand dollars a child." 

This is most notably an attack on same-sex couples.  The Catholics and Methodists both do not recognize same-sex marriage, and the president of Bethany Christian Services, William Blacquiere, has said, "At Bethany, we would never deny a family for their secular status, or single-parent, or anything of that nature. However, if the family would be in conflict with our religious beliefs, we would assist them to go to another agency."

Actually right now judges are stopped from granting two-parent same-sex adoptions already.  Same-sex parents who adopt usually end up with only one of them as the adoptive parent.  This is what started the court case that led to Michigan's challenge to the same-sex marriage ban.  And with a Supreme Court decision potentially changing the marriage equation, this might change, but right now this is the case.  So the religious right is getting ducks in a row to make sure that if you can get married in Michigan you can still be banned from adopting, denied housing, barred from public accommodations, and fired from your job the day after your wedding.  Seriously.  I do not exaggerate.  This is currently the case that all these forms of discrimination are legal, but our legislators are writing laws that ensure that they're not just legal by the default of having no legal protections from discrimination, but explicitly and purposefully legal.

However, it is not just same-sex couples who might be denied adoption.  So who else might conflict with the religious beliefs of these Christian organizations?

• Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and any people of non-Christian faiths
• Atheists, agnostics, and the unchurched
• Single parents and unwed couples

It wasn't that long ago that people had religious objections to interracial marriage and interracial adoption.  Even that most abhorrent form of discrimination could be seen as legal with this new legislation. Our legislature has been hard at work lately making sure that their rights to discriminate are protected at every turn.  What they're worried about, it seems, is their freedom to hate, and what the corporations want. 

What's missing in all of this, of course, is what's best for the children. 

So if living as if there is no God doesn't mean living immorally, what does it mean? 

• Without threat of eternal damnation, it means that we must take seriously the consequences of negative behaviors during our time on earth.
• Without threat of eternal rewards, it means we must live life to the fullest, appreciating the beauty, love, and kindness that we experience now, and share it with others.
• Without a God to make the rules, it means we must pay attention to our rules, create our own moral codes as individuals and a society and justify our behaviors as moral to the larger community. 
• With this as the only world we will know, it means that we must take care of it, and make ensure that our planet is livable for generations to come.
• Without a God's love and support, it means we must love and support one another.
• Without a God to blame for negative things happening, it means we must work to make a world where people are cared for in the best way possible.
• Without a God to thank for our rewards, it means we must acknowledge a randomness to life.  Some people get things easier than others.  And when we do, it's our moral responsibility to help those less fortunate.
• A truly "Practical Atheist" would be someone who believes in caring for the planet, living justly, caring for fellow humans and for animals.  

So I ask my Christian colleagues, when you hear the term "Practical Atheist" bandied about as synonymous for immoral behavior, challenge that term.  Atheists gave us the Eight-Fold Path.  Atheists gave us the Humanist Manifesto.  Atheists give us statements like this one from the American Ethical Union: "Dedicated to cultivating moral development in personal life and moral reform in society, Ethical Culture seeks to nurture relationships in which we act so as to elicit the best in others and thereby in ourselves, to provide inspiration and guidance for moral living, and to transform the way humanity views the meaning of life."

What does it mean to live as if there is no God?  It means to be responsible for one's own morality; it does not mean to live immorally.  So let's make a deal, Christians.  If people don't live up to your idea of Christianity and you don't call them "Practical Atheists," then when people don't live up to my idea of Atheism I won't call them "Practical Christians."  A better term for Christians who act immorally would be Hypocritical Christians rather than Practical Atheists.  If a Christians are not living up to your understanding of your faith, Christians, call them out on it, but don't call them Atheists.  We don't claim them; they're all yours.

A Christian colleague ran across the term "Practical Atheist" recently and brought it to a group I'm in for definition and discussion.  I wasn't familiar with it, and as probably the only thing close to an Atheist in the group (for the record, I call myself an Agnostic), offered up that it might be about a distinction between declared Atheists and default atheists (those who have not made a sort of declaration of atheism, but have no belief in God).  Other Christian colleagues in the group went with a definition of those people who might profess a belief in Christ, but live a Godless lifestyle.  Turns out, it seems they were right according to some definitions.  And that makes sense, because it's not a term that would make sense within the Atheist community, but makes sense in the Christian community.  And no term is likelier to drive Atheists hopping mad, now that I understand it better.

So here's the Wikipedia definition, which would be closer to my definition: "In practical or pragmatic atheism, also known as apatheism, individuals live as if there are no gods and explain natural phenomena without resorting to the divine. The existence of gods is not rejected, but may be designated unnecessary or useless; gods neither provide purpose to life, nor influence everyday life, according to this view."

However, I found this definition which matches my Christian colleagues' definition exactly on About.com:  "This is a category used by some religious theists to describe all those theists who technically believe in a god, but who behave immorally. The assumption is that moral behavior follows automatically from genuine theism, thus immoral behavior is a consequence of not genuinely believing. Theists who behave immorally must really be atheists, regardless of what they believe. The term 'practical atheist' is thus a smear against atheists generally."

The other top results of my Google search show that this term is generally being used in the About.com way, rather than the Wikipedia way.  For example, LifeChurch.TV says, "Practical Atheist -- You say you believe in God. Do you really? Do you live your life as if God is in the room, or do you assume He’s not paying attention? You call yourself a Christian. Are you who you say you are?" There's a video there that I chose not to watch.  If you watch it, let me know how awful it is.  Or take this article in the Christian Post as an example, about the guy behind the LifeChurch.TV video:  "S.C. Pastor Exposes 'Practical Atheists' among Christians."  It says, "Practical atheist, or Christian atheist, is defined as someone who believes in God but lives as if He doesn't exist."

The use of the term "Practical Atheist" in this way assumes morality is from God, and so those who are living amorally are atheistic, at least in practice, even if not in belief.  And it's a slam on Atheists.  But, as we've seen, people generally believe that Atheists don't have morals, because Atheists don't believe in God. 

For the record, then: living as if there is no God does NOT mean living immorally.  More on that in my next post.

In 1964, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of the American Atheists, was called "the most hated woman in America." Judging from the response to Jessica Ahlquist, the love of atheists hasn't increased much.  Indeed, in 2009, a University of Minnesota research study published in the American Sociological Review showed atheists to be the most disliked minority group of those they polled, including Muslims and homosexuals. When asked to respond to the statement, "This Group Does Not At All Agree with My Vision of American Society," 39.6% agreed atheists do not (26.3% for Muslims, who came in second), and 47.6% would disapprove of their child marrying an atheist (33.5% for Muslims, again the next highest category).

So perhaps the vehemence directed toward 16-year-old Jessica Ahlquist should not be shocking.  Ahlquist is a teenager who attends Cranston High School West in Cranston, Rhode Island.  Cranston High School West had a prayer banner that hung in their school:
(picture from The Providence Journal: http://news.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/2012/01/federal-judge-o-1.html)  Jessica, an atheist, felt that this violated separation of church and state.  It did, according to the ruling issued by the U.S. District Court Judge last week.  The judge weighed in very clearly on this question, saying, "The Court refrains from second-guessing the expressed motives of the Committee members, but nonetheless must point out that tradition is a murky and dangerous bog. While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve."

Since that time, and probably before as well, Jessica Ahlquist has received messages of hate and threats of violence and death.  She has been the victim of cyberbullying from within her community and without. Rhode Island state representative Peter G. Palumbo, who called her an "evil little thing."  Even some moderate Rhode Islanders with Cranston connections I talked to recently were saying things like, "I don't see why it can't stay there.  It's tradition.  If you don't like it, just don't look at it."

Over and over again, I see something like this, and I'm stunned.  I can't grasp what makes people so frightened, especially when they are the majority, of the actions and beliefs of a young girl.  It's a fundamental piece of my understanding of what makes America great that we create a space where people should be free from religious persecution and that the way we do this is through freedom of belief, lack of state-sponsored religion, and freedom of speech. 

Freedom of religion means that the government does not impose its religion on you.  It's what protects us from Sharia law, too.  These same people who are so incensed that a Christian banner is taken down from a public high school, well I'm sure the majority of them would not want a Muslim banner hung in its stead.  We keep hearing the panic that Sharia law is being declared in Muslim communities in America, like Dearborn, from the conservative Christian right.  But what protects us from being a country under Muslim law is exactly the same thing that demands that this banner be taken down.

But, of course, the fear of Muslims and the fear of atheists aren't logical, rational things. 

The obvious irony is that the words of the prayer call on people to grow morally, to be kind, to conduct themselves in a way that brings credit to the school, and to be good sports and smile when we lose.

If only everyone who wants the prayer to hang could at least try to live up to it.

Dashed off a letter to the UUA today.  Leaving off the official's name to whom I addressed it, the text of it was as follows:

I am writing to you as a Unitarian Universalist minister and as a Girl Scout Troop Leader and Girl Scout Troop Organizer. I’ve paid attention over many years to the “continuing struggle for inclusiveness” situation between the UUA and the Boy Scouts, as outlined at http://www.uua.org/re/children/scouting/169633.shtml.

I’m proud as a Girl Scout leader that Girl Scouts do not share the Boy Scouts’ discrimination towards atheist and agnostic scouts and troop leaders nor their discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender scouts and troop leaders. Indeed, I proudly tell my Brownie Girl Scouts on a regular basis that the Girl Scout Promise, which includes the word “God,” can be, according to Girl Scouts USA, replaced by any Girl Scout to reflect her own spiritual beliefs. I model this in my troop meetings by replacing the word “God” in the GS Promise with “love,” “earth,” “peace,” and another of other terms.

Similarly, Girl Scouts has recently been in the news for their inclusive policies on transgender Girl Scouts, and has come down on the side of believing that any child who considers herself a Girl and wants to be a Girl Scout is welcome in Girl Scouting. I confirmed this through calling GSUSA directly and asking about transgender girls being welcomed in scouting, and through conversations with my own area coordinator.

That’s why I am disturbed that right under the “UUA and BSA” page on the UUA’s website, the next link is to a list of “Alternative Scouting Organizations,” and that this page then begins with stating “In addition to the popular Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of the USA, there are other scouting organizations.” (http://www.uua.org/re/children/scouting/169569.shtml.) This statement makes it look like the UUA has problems with Girl Scouts similar to the problems with Boy Scouts, and perpetuates a common misunderstanding that Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts are related organizations that share common policies and practices, when this is not the case. Girl Scouts ought to be listed as an “Alternative Scouting Organization” along with Camp Fire USA, Navigators USA, Scouting for All, and SpiralScouts. I grew up in Camp Fire, and can say that I have found Girl Scouts every bit as welcoming, if not more so, to girls of regardless of race, religion, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation or other aspect of diversity. My little troop last year was a group of girls who through themselves and their parents represented every aspect of that list of diversity types, in fact!

I’m hoping the wording on the UUA’s webpage can be changed to represent the positive relationship that the UUA has with Girl Scouting. If you are not the person who this letter should be directed to, please tell me who I can refer this issue to. This March is the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts, and I’ll be highlighting Girl Scouts in our church this year, where several Girl Scouts have earned their “My Promise, My Faith” badge for learning about how the Girl Scout Law relates to the Unitarian Universalist Principles. I would love it if by the 100th anniversary our organization could show more support for this inclusive and supportive scouting institution.

Thank you for your care and attention to this issue.

In faith,

Cynthia Landrum
Minister
Universalist Unitarian Church of East Liberty
Clarklake, MI
Girl Scout Troop Leader & Troop Organizer

This was a comment from Chalicechick to the Discuss! thread, promoted to a post of its own for pertinence

A few months ago, as an experiment, I asked the UU theology mailing list if anyone had seen or experienced any atheists giving theists grief or vice versa IN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. I emphasize that last bit because lots of people have stories of mistreated theists that are a decade or two old, and they always seem to tell them as if they happened yesterday. I wondered if it ever happened anymore or if we just talked about it like it did.

I got one "yes" response, and that it was an incident from several years ago and soon after, his/her church got a new minister who made it clear that this behavior wouldn't be tolerated and there hasn't been an issue since.

That one "yes" aside, literally no one had seen any anti-theism or anti-atheism in their churches on the last couple of years. But several people still announced that "theism vs. atheism" was this incredibly important divide within UUism. I really don't understand why. To me it seems like the idea of people being actually mistreated and churches being divided on "theism vs anti-theism" or "atheism vs. humanism" is a big Boogeyman that scares lots of UUs but is mostly illusory.

Do you see "the God question" as something that divides your church right now? Have you seen anyone actually treated badly because of their faith in the last couple of years? If not, are se sure it's really that big a deal anymore?