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From Real Change, Aug.29 - Sept. 4, 2012

A 10-year-old Washington, D.C.-based lobby for the separation of church and state is creating state chapters to counter what its members see as a greater number of state laws that have their roots in religion.

The Secular Coalition for America {SCA} held an initial organizing call for Washington state July 17. The group will train volunteers, who will run the chapters, on how to lobby lawmakers in the state capitol.

"We are seeing so many laws introduced at the state level that attempt to muddy the waters between church and state," said Laura Youngblood, communications manager for the SCA, which has until now only lobbied for secular legislation on the federal level.

The group receives support from people and organizations who agree government is not the place to convert people to a religion or tell people they are wrong in their beliefs.

"Separation of church and government is the best freedom for all Americans," Youngblood said.

The group aims to raise the respect and visibility of nontheistic view points, and lobby on government issues of separation of church and state.

On the state level, SCA will counter "everything from bills that question evolution in public schools to laws that allow adoption agencies that are religious but receive taxpayer money, to discriminate based on sexual orientation or if the person doesn't believe in God."

Local atheists expect the group to draw attention to their segment of the population.

Wendy Britton, founder of SeattleAtheists.org and Washington state coordinator for American Atheists, said the difficulty for atheists is they are an invisible minority. While other minority groups are at least pandered to by lawmakers, atheists are often ignored, she said.

Youngblood agrees. "Just getting lawmakers to recognize us is a big thing," she said of atheists.

"In Obama's inauguration speech he mentioned nontheists. That, for us, is a big win because we have been largely invisible to politicians, and sometimes half of our job is to get [lawmakers] to recognize they have nontheists, and they represent us, too."

Atheists and nontheists are not as visible as their religious counterparts in policymaking. The SCA is one of a handful of national secular lobbying groups, in contrast to the more than 200 federal religiously affiliated lobbying groups, according to a 2011 report by the Pew Center.

Britton said accurate statistics on atheists and agnostics are hard to come by. She said generally people think about 10 to 15 percent of the American public doesn't have any formal religious ties, but she believes the number is much greater. She estimated about 25 percent of Washingtonians are nontheists, and on the west side of the mountains the divide is about 50-50.

Still, she said, she feels discriminated against based on her beliefs or lack thereof. "The problem with being an invisible minority is that it is invisible when people discriminate against that minority."

For more information, see secular.org.

[by Sarah Aitchison]

Every week I send a "comment" of mine, to President Obama at the White House. {For all the good it does! Oh well, I think SOMEbody reads those -- an Intern or someone like that. Well, it might get thru to someone.} {I also send a postcard on some issue -- a different one. For all the good THAT does! Oh well, same thing, it must be read by some Intern or somebody, SOMEwhere! So I keep on doing it.....}

Here is the one I just sent this week, in regard to the notorious KONY 2012 video:

The American Public is too wise to be stampeded into yet ANOTHER endless War, this time in Uganda, the Sudan and Africa, for Africom and control of Africa's Natural Resources and Oil. That inaccurate and irresponsible film KONY 2012, is NOT going to fool very many of the people very much of the time. It is so much PROPAGANDA for another - yet another! - War we DON'T WANT. We KNOW it will not be a "limited" engagement in either time, or in numbers of troops or "advisors". After all, that is just how things started in VietNam, isn't it? We have learned SOMEthing from that.... And we DON'T want The Family, who sponsored the film, to dictate Foreign Policy... This manipulative "hard sell" film is NOT selling us!

In an ideal, perfect world {where's that?}, the Nobel Committee would be nothing but a bunch of starry-eyed idealists, awarding the prize to other starry-eyed idealists. ALWAYS. Well, SOMETIMES it works that way. {I could list a few of these "deserving" recipients if I had the time.}

At other times, the Nobel Prize Committee, just like everyone else on the Planet it seems, is Playing Politics -- and it has been so from the very beginning. Look at the HISTORY of the Nobel Peace Prize! It was awarded to such "warriors" as: Teddy Roosevelt! {Spanish-American War}; Woodrow Wilson! {took the US into WWI}; Yasser Arafat! {sortof a "terrorist", wouldn't you say?}; and - even! HENRY KISSINGER! {one of the WORST of the warmongers.....!}. Yes, it was a matter of "encouraging" certain people and actions by these people and "trends". Not awarded necessarily because these people were "saints and angels". It could even be called, "interfering in the affairs of another country"; and that's NOT NECESSARILY a Bad Thing, when that country has power on a WORLD stage like the US does!

I think this action by the Nobel Peace Prize Committe was a stroke of GENIUS. It seems to me, irrelevant whether the prize was "deserved" in a strict sense, or not! {President Obama was very gracious about saying he felt he "didn't deserve it". Now, he has EVEN MORE TO LIVE UP TO! That's a GOOD thing!!!}

This prize award has CHANGED THE COMPLEXION OF POLITICS IN THE USA. For one thing, THE REPUBLICANS AND THE FAR-RIGHT ARE MAKING TOTAL PUBLIC IRREDEEMABLE FOOLS OF THEMSELVES! That ALONE is worth it! You see, the Repukelicans and the Far Right NEVER DID ACTUALLY HAVE THE PUBLIC SUPPORT THAT THEY CLAIM TO HAVE. The only way they can APPEAR to have any support, is because THE MEDIA GIVES THEM ALL THAT PUBLICITY. While these clowns PRETEND to be leading a "grassroots movement", teabaggers, anti-health-care dupes, etc.; the movement is in actuality, nothing but {I LOVE that phrase!}, an "ASTROTURF" movement!!! {For those to whom English is a second language, "Astroturf" is a kind of ARTIFICIAL grass, used in sports stadiums, etc.}
This is PROVED by the fact that POLLS SHOW that all the efforts of the Right-wingers HAVE NOT CHANGED PUBLIC OPINION {on Health Care, for example}, by any significant number of percentage points!!!!!
However, the Media by giving undue PUBLICITY to the ranting bigots, and virtually NONE to even huge protests by OUR side; give a completely DISTORTED view.

Well, there is such a thing, apparently hard-wired into most human beings, such a thing as PATRIOTISM. Even birds and animals, LOVE and defend their "home base", their territory, their Homeland! The Repukes have PUT THEMSELVES ON THE WRONG SIDE; by being snide about their favorite hate-object, Obama, getting the award!!! But, all the LATENT PATRIOTISM of MOST folks, as well as the CONTINUING SUPPORT FOR OBAMA that in some instances has been INTIMIDATED and muted into silence, has NOW come to the fore!!!!!

Whether on purpose or not {and I think these Norwegian guys are quite a savvy bunch!}, this comes at a time when the SEEMING power and influence of the Far Right APPEARED to be out-of-control. This giving of the award sure CUTS THEM DOWN TO SIZE!!! Not only do WE, up-to-now ignored by the Media, WE get our VOICES back; but I feel, with all the irresponsible Right-wing rant encouraging actual VIOLENCE, I feel that GIVING THIS AWARD AT THIS TIME MAY HAVE EVEN SAVED OUR PRESIDENT FROM ASSASSINATION. Because THAT's where all this "talk" was headed, make no mistake!

Of course I am very pleased for President Obama, his supporters in the government, his family both in the US and in Kenya, our country and those who had the good sense to vote for Obama {without waiting for the "perfect person" to come along}. This award will INDEED "ENCOURAGE" certain types of good, peace-tending policies; which WAS the original intent of the founder of the Prize, Alfred Nobel. Its net result will ALSO be, perhaps even more importantly, to ENCOURAGE the supporters of President Obama, including even some of the previously dis-illusioned ones, to PUSH EVEN HARDER for the policies for Peace that WE want to see instituted: leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, no drone bombers, dis-mantle American bases, even MORE nuclear disarmament, etc. etc. etc. This has been SOOOOOOO good for our country; and for what we want!

And the Far Right, our deadly enemies, self-destruct EVEN FASTER...... leaving the path for Reform that much clearer.......

Si Se Puedes! Yes We Can! HOPE is back to the foreground......!