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Introduction Ryan Cragun &Christel Manning Introduction What would happen to ahighschool senior deep in the bible belt of the United States if they told theirhighschool administrators thatthey would contact the AmericanCivil LibertiesUnion (ACLU) if the school had aprayerathis high school graduation?This isn’tahypothetical scenario – it happened in 2011. Damon Fowler,asenior at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, informed the su- perintendent of the school district that he knew school-sponsored prayer was il- legal and that he would contact the ACLU if the school went ahead with aplan- ned, school-sponsored prayer at the graduation ceremony. Damon’sthreat was leaked to the public. What followed weredeath threats from community mem- bers and fellow students, weeks of harassment,and eventuallyhis parents dis- owning him and kicking him out of their home. One more thing happened, which is whywerecount this story at the begin- ning of this book on organized secularism: the secular community came together to support Damon. As his story made its wayinto the local, national, and even- tuallyinternational press,nonreligious¹ and/or secular individuals made offers of aplace to stay, protection,and transportation, and acollegefund was set up for Damon since his parents had cut him off financially. Various secular or- ganizations explicitlyoffered Damon help. The Freedom From Religion Founda- tion gave him a$1,000 collegescholarship and other organizations volunteered to help him legally. Damon’sstory should be surprising in acountry that prides itself as amelt- ing pot of races,ethnicities, cultures, and religions. Yet, it is alsoanot entirely uncommon scenario in the United States, whereatheists’ moralityisesteemed at about the same level as is rapists’ (Gervais,Shariff, and Norenzayan2011) and onlyabout 50%ofAmericans would vote for an atheist for President (Edgell, Gerteis,and Hartmann 2006). Damon’sstory also serves to highlight several im- portant characteristics of the organized, secular community in the US.First,per- haps to the surprise of manyAmericans, thereactuallyisanorganized secular community in the US.While the numbers are stillquite small (see below) relative to the total proportion of the US population thatisnonreligious, those involved in the community are not insignificant.Second, the response of the organized secular community to Damon’ssituation also illustrates thatorganized secular- Manypeople use the terms non-religious and secular interchangeably, but scholars continue to debatetheir precise meaning. OpenAccess. ©2017 Ryan Cragun &Christel Manning,published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the CreativeCommons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110458657-002 Brought to you by | Sacred Heart University Authenticated Download Date | 1/11/18 4:00 PM 2 RyanCragun&Christel Manning ism in the US is oftenreactive. Manyofthe formal organizations exist specifically because they are reactingtothe privileging of religion in American culture and the law(Blumenfeld, Joshi, and Fairchild 2008;Schlosser 2003). Likewise, many of these organizations spring into action preciselywhen religious privilege moves from the abstract or implicit into the concrete and blatant,undermining the rights of secular individuals.Third, secular organizations in the US share a common goal: to normalize nonreligiosity.Inother words, the aim of manyof these organizations is to make it so people who are not religious, whether they are atheists,² agnostics,³ or thosewho are unaffiliatedwith anyreligion, can live ordinary liveswithout fear of unequal and discriminatory treatment. While in many ways Damon Fowler’sstoryisatragedy – afailureofpublic schools to follow the lawand protect minorities and atragic failureofparental support – his story also helps delineate the characteristics of organized secular- ism. Before we go much further,weshould be clear in what we mean by “organ- ized secularism.” The term “secular” originated to distinguish the thingsofthis world (e.g., work, food, sex) from religious things(e.g., prayer,heaven, god). Secular can most simplybedefined as “not religious” (though how we determine what is religious and what isn’tremains amatter of debate). “Secularism,” in its primary meaning, is atheory,philosophy, or ideologythat distinguishes the sec- ular from other(usuallyreligious) phenomena.⁴ In its most common use, secu- larism refers to apolitical philosophythat there should be aseparation between religions and government (Berlinerblau2013). Thelogic behindsuch asepara- tion is that,whengovernment and religion are intertwined, typicallythereisfa- voritism towardcertain religions and therefore implicit or explicit discrimination against otherreligions and those with no religion. Secularism can and does man- ifest itself in manywaysaround the world, from French laïcité (Bowen 2013), to Turkey’sunique restrictions on Islam despite being apredominantlyMuslim country (Hurd 2013), to the supposed “wall of separation” that exists in the US (Smith 2013). Regardless of the particular manifestation of secularism, the idea remains that the safest waytomanage religiouslypluralistic populations is with agovernment that is separate and distinct from religion. Secularism in the sense described aboveisaneutral term. Over time,how- ever,partlyinreaction to cultural and/or state resistancetosuch neutrality, sec- By “atheist” we mean those whodonot have abelief in agod. By “agnostic” we mean those who do not believethereisany waytogain knowledge about a god. See the Oxford Dictionary of Atheism for moredetailed discussion of these and related defi- nitions. Brought to you by | Sacred Heart University Authenticated Download Date | 1/11/18 4:00 PM Introduction 3 ularism has acquired asecond,more ideological meaning: not just the separa- tion of religious and non-religious phenomena, but the celebration and promo- tion of the secular as aworldview or value system thatisthe functional equiv- alent of religion. Secularism, then, is what nonreligious people believeand practice. Just as religion comes in avariety of different flavors such as Christian- ity,Hinduism, or Islam, there are different kindsofsecularism includingHuman- ism, Atheism, and Freethinkers. Andjust as religious people tend to see their particularworldview as the truth, or at least the most sensible waytolive, so do secular people. The differenceisthatsecularism, at least in the United States, is aminorityworldview.Itissecularism in this second sense that is of interest in this volume. By combining “secularism” with “organized,” we are making explicit refer- ence to the manywaysthat individuals have come together around one common interest – their shared desire to celebrate that they are not religious and find ways to normalize their nonreligiosity.Specific aims of secular organizations mayvary (seeChapter 7, Schutz), as some bring secular individuals together to socialize and others gather for educational purposes or for political action. But all secular organizations in the US have at least one shared goal: the normal- izing of nonreligion in the US (Cragun2015b). Thus, by “organized secularism” we are referringtogroups of people who have some sense of togetherness and are organized around theirshared desire to be openlyand safelysecular in the US.All of the chapters in this volume relatetoorganized secularism in this sense, though how individual authors define secularism varies slightly and is explained in those chapters. As justnoted, organized secularism takesmanyforms – from regular meet- ingsinbars to discuss philosophytosecular parentinggroups and charitable or- ganizations.While Damon Fowler’sstory illustrates how organized secular groups in the US can come together, thereisanother sidetoorganized secular- ism in the US.Manyofthe now prominent,national secular organizations have been around for decades, and their relationships with otherprominent secular organizations have not always been amicable (see Chapter 4, Fazzino and Cra- gun). There is along and somewhat sordid history of infighting,competing over donors, splintering, and tension among these organizations (seeChapter 3, Rechtenwald). Perhaps still the most well-known leader of asecular organization in the US – at least among acertain generation of Americans – was Madalyn Murray O’Hair,who for aperiod in the 1980s was billed as “the most hated woman in America” (O’Hair and O’Hair 1991). O’Hair gained fame (and notoriety) for her involvementinacourt case, Murray vs.Curlett (later combined with Abington School Districtv.Schempp), which banned school official led Bible read- ing in public schools. O’Hair latercreated several organizations to fight for the Brought to you by | Sacred Heart University Authenticated Download Date | 1/11/18 4:00 PM 4 RyanCragun&Christel Manning rights of atheists and other nonreligious Americans. O’Hair literallydisappeared from the organized secularism movement when she was abducted by an employ- ee, along with one of her sons and agranddaughter,extorted for money she had raised through her secular organizations, and then murdered along with her son and granddaughter (LeBeau 2003). Yether legacylives on in the secular organ- ization she founded, AmericanAtheists, which is widelyknown as the secular organization thatplaces prominent billboards espousingsecular values around Christmas, among other provocativeactions. Several chapters in this volume (Chapter 2, Richter;Chapter 3, Rectenwald, and Chapter 4, Fazzino and Cragun) provide detailed informationonthe
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