In a recent campaign speech, presidential candidate Donald Trump said “Together, we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists and the Marxists.” He didn't say what he's going to stop the atheists from doing, but we thought we should let him know that, "Atheists are not the enemy of the people; we are a significant portion of the people."
Mr. Donald J. Trump
1100 S. Ocean Blvd
Palm Beach, FL 33480
Dear Mr. Trump,
As organizations that represent secular Americans, we are concerned about your statement at the Faith and Freedom Coalition that “Together, we’re warriors in a righteous crusade to stop the arsonists, the atheists, globalists and the Marxists.” Collectively the Secular Coalition for America has over 100,000 members, most of whom are atheists, and we have issues with the company you’re placing us in.
Atheists are not the enemy of the people; we are a significant portion of the people. Thirty percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, and nineteen percent say they don’t believe in God. Both of those numbers are growing. There are plenty of other “-ists” you could mention and we encourage you to replace us on your list with someone else. Regarding your list:
While we don’t have a position on globalism itself, we definitely oppose the oppression of religious minorities and atheists around the world: after all, we did support the Congressional resolutions in 2020 calling for the repeal of blasphemy laws in other countries.
Karl Marx was an atheist, but this does not mean atheists are Marxists — and in fact, the Secular Coalition for America does not support Marxism. The conflation of atheism with Marxism/communism in the last century was inaccurate, unfair, and we believe politically motivated. In a recent comparison with evangelicals, atheists and agnostics showed greater support for democracy and civic engagement. Atheists and Marxists have been in the same sentence far too many times already.
We are definitely opposed to arson and condemn every act of arson in this country. Please leave us out of any further discussion regarding “the arsonists.”
Again, our civic engagement is high as is our voter participation. Just because we don’t go to church doesn’t mean we are unpatriotic. There is no need to “stop us” from anything. Atheists simply want their government to avoid giving preferential treatment to the religious over the nonreligious. We hope you will see the wisdom in that.
Sincerely,
Steven Emmert
Executive Director
The Secular Coalition for America
American Atheists American Ethical Union
American Humanist Association Association of Secular Elected Officials
Atheist Alliance of America Black Nonbelievers
Center For Inquiry/Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science
Camp Quest Cultural & Secular Jewish Organization
Ex-Muslims of North America Freedom From Religion Foundation
Freethought Society GO Humanity
Hispanic American Freethinkers Military Association of Atheists and
Freethinkers
Recovering From Religion Secular Student Alliance
Secular Woman Society for Humanistic Judaism
The Clergy Project Unitarian Universalist Humanist Association
We will continue to call out any candidate trying to score points off atheists when they should be explaining why they deserve our votes.
Your advocate,
Scott MacConomy
Director of Policy and Government Affairs
Secular Coalition for America
Did someone forward this to you? You can sign up at secular.org with your email and zip code.
The Secular Coalition for America works every day to defend the separation of religion and government and to fight anti-democratic ideologies like Christian nationalism. Your support for this work is vital.
