MADISON, WISCONSIN BECOMES FIRST CITY IN U.S. TO OFFER CIVIL RIGHTS PROTECTIONS TO ATHEISTS

By Miriam Raftery

April 22, 2015 (San Diego)--Madison, Wisconsin has become the first city in the nation to give legal protections to atheists in housing, employment and public accommodations.

Despite gains made civil rights for racial minorities, women and gays, atheists who claim no religious beliefs continue to face discrimination across the United States in politics, education, military service and more, Christian Science Monitor reports.

Eight states have laws that actual prohibit atheists from holding public office, according to the Washington Post.  Even the U.S. military classifies “lack or loss of spiritual faith” as a risk factor for suicide – a criteria that some contend is discriminatory and unconstitutional. 

Negative views of atheists are widely held, however.  A Pew Research Poll in 2014 found that 53% of Americans surveyed said it is necessary to believe in God to be moral and 40% admitted to having negative views of atheists. 

But conversely, a lack of religious affiliation is on the rise in America.  Pew Research found that 7% of those surveyed said they do not believe in God or a universal spirit an 20% said they are not affiliated with any religion in 2012, up from 15% five years earlier.

In 2012, the American Humanist Association sent a report to the U.S. State Department documenting discrimination against atheists worldwide. This include countries that allow atheists to have citizenship revoked, refused passports, or prohibited from marrying.  In addition, atheists may be put to death for their non-beliefs in Afghanistan, Iran, the Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan.

Those policies would have denied the world some of its most creative minds, including these famous atheists: inventor Thomas Edison, rock star John Lennon, physicist Albert Einstein, Apple computers co-founder Steve Wozniak, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, artists Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh,  actress Katharine Hepburn, classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein, humorist Mark Twain, women’s rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.