The National Atheist Party

From the Huffington Post, with snippets from yours truly:

Atheists face uphill climb with new political party

By Kimberly Winston| Religion News Service

How viable is a political party with the word “atheist” in its name?

Troy Boyle, a corporate legal representative for a finance company, thinks very viable. Last March, he and a friend founded the National Atheist Party, which they believe to be the first American political party organized on the belief that God does not exist.

The N.A.P. is the second atheist American political party, actually... 

Boyle, 45, got the idea to start the party while watching an interview with Richard Dawkins, the British evolutionary biologist and author of several “New Atheist” manifestos, including the best-selling “The God Delusion.” In the interview, Dawkins wondered why atheists did not organize to influence politics.

Atheists wait patiently for instructions from Dawkins.  

“It struck me like a bolt of lightning when he said it,” Boyle recalled.

Bad metaphor for an atheist. Be careful of lightning, Troy.

From his home in Elsmere, Ky., he started researching atheists in politics. “And I found nothing.

Yea. Atheists have scrupulously avoided political involvement, except for a few piddling and oh-so-tentative forays (1789, 1793, 1848, 1917, 1922, 1932, 1936, 1949, 1956, 1961, 1968, 1975. A few still dabble.

So I picked up the gauntlet. I decided to start a political party.”

There's a nice book about atheism's insignificant little dips in the political pool that Troy might peek at. 

First called the Freethought Party, its original Facebook page attracted only a couple hundred members. But when the name was changed to the National Atheist Party, supporters started streaming in, currently more than 8,200.

8,000 Brights didn't know that Freethought meant atheist.  

“It immediately began growing much quicker and with less argument and controversy among members,” Boyle said. “Everyone seemed to understand implicitly what the National Atheist Party would stand for.”

We understand.  

What it stands for, Boyle said, is no governmental favoring of religion — including no religion.

Mandatory Civic Atheism isn't a religion, you see.  

“We are convened with the idea that the Founding Fathers had it right,” Boyle said in an interview.

"All men are Created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..." 

Boyle isn't bothered by cognitive dissonance.

“The separation of church and state, the establishment of the U.S. as a secular nation — those two concepts are our watchwords.

Neither is anywhere in the Constitution. We are most emphatically a Christian nation, founded on Christian concepts. Our roots, our culture, our shared values and assumptions are emphatically Christian.

The distinction between secular and church power is also a distinctly Christian idea ("Render unto Caesar..).

North Korea, for example, is an explicitly secular nation with a very effective separation of church and state. It has a vibrant atheist party. The only party. 

Atheist parties have an uncanny propensity to become wildly popular once they gain power. In fact, nobody ever even thinks about starting another political party in nations governed by atheist parties. Once you go atheist, ya' never go back.

We don’t want government to impose a religion,

Except Civic Atheism.

and we don’t want government to impose no religion.

Except Civic Atheism.

We want government to be silent with regards to religion.”

Civic Atheism means that you have the right to remain silent. An obligation, actually. 

Boyle says the NAP has 7,500 members and a chapter in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The largest chapter is Florida, with 200 members, and the smallest is Alaska, with two.

The two atheists in Alaska have no doubt each formed his own chapter. Atheists are a fissiparous lot.  

Bridget Gaudette, a 33-year-old medical case manager, joined the Florida chapter after visiting NAP’s Facebook page. She now volunteers as NAP’s deputy vice president and focuses on outreach.

Atheist outreach in in the 20th century. 

“I am a big advocate of civic participation in government and I’m an atheist, so I loved the idea of a political party that could be the voice of atheists,” she said.

Another political party that could be the voice of atheists, she means. Why do they always forget?

The party’s platform was decided on by a vote — again via Facebook — and includes hot-button issues such as gay marriage (for it) gun control (tighten it), abortion (a woman’s decision), immigration (reform it), energy (green it), and the economy (legalize recreational drugs to create revenue and jobs).

Why vote? Could've guessed the party platform in my sleep. I wonder how they feel about Christmas creches on public property? 

Currently, the NAP is registered with the Internal Revenue Service as a 527 political party, which means it is a nonprofit that can put money behind issues, but not behind specific candidates.

Sorry, Jong-Un. Their support for specific fellow atheist politicians will have to remain spiritual, not financial.

Boyle hopes his party will support candidates sometime in the future.

Kim Jong-Un is mortal.  

There could be quite a wait.

He's only 28.

A November poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 67 percent of Americans said they would be “uncomfortable” with an atheist in the White House.

They didn't ask the other 33%, who would be uncomfortable, too.

In 2007, the Pew Research Center found that a candidate who doesn’t believe in God would have the hardest time gaining support from voters, with 63 percent “less likely to support” an atheist, outranking a gay candidate (46 percent), a philanderer (39 percent) or a Mormon (30 percent).

To date, only one “out” atheist serves in Congress, Rep. Pete Stark, a California Democrat.

 Hopefully he'll be even more "out" in 2012. 

“Relative to other religious minority groups, atheists tend to anchor the low end of the favorability scale,” said Robert P. Jones, CEO of Public Religion Research Institute, who ties it to the Cold War image of “godless communism.”

Atheism is a religious minority? So Mandatory Civic Atheism is an establishment of religion? 

John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron and an expert on religion and politics, says the NAP may be the first American political party to organize itself around atheism.

Except...

But such issues-based parties have a long history of dotting the American political landscape — before disappearing.

Atheism doesn't disappear. It just flares up periodically and makes mankind miserable. Like herpes. 

Sometimes, their concerns are absorbed by a major party, and other times, they fade away, Green said. 

“One of the reasons it is hard for a minor party to sustain itself is they don’t win very much,” Green said. “It is easier to keep people interested when it comes to ideas — you follow them on Facebook, subscribe to their magazine and you go to their convention. That is an easier thing to do than to try and mobilize millions of voters.”

Historically, in many parts of the world, atheists have stayed in power quite effectively. They only have to win once.  

None of this fazes Boyle, who says donations are coming in and membership is growing.

8,201....8,202.... 

“We know we are a minority and we know that is not likely to change in the near future,” he said. “We simply want the right to exist.

The right to exist? The right to exist? The right to exist?

Atheists aren't persecuted. There are no atheist martyrs. Atheists are the only religious group in history that has never suffered significant persecution. 

Atheists are persecutors, on a scale unparalleled in history. Atheists in power deny other people the right to exist. Every atheist government has been totalitarian. No exceptions. 

The American public's distrust of atheists isn't "persecution". Americans don't like atheists because they think atheism is idiotic and atheists are bullies. Americans understand atheists.

And if that doesn’t turn into a majority landslide of popular support,

In atheist countries, the atheist party always wins elections with a landslide. It's like it's preordained.

whoever thought it was going to? But an election on an issue or on a candidate can be swayed by a small group of people. ...

Look how effective atheists have been in using the judicial process to censor civic expression of Christianity. Imagine how much anti-Christian hate they can stir up in the legislative process.

In two or 10 or 20 years, who knows how many of us there will be and when we vote on an issue it will matter.”

A bright future for the Brights! And what about an acronym for the National Atheist Party? NAP's? No. Not catchy.

Why not the National Socialists National Atheists?

Hmmm... The National Atheism Party... The Na(s)te Party.

Pronounced the "Nasty" Party.

Heck, no need to explain the acronym.