Atheism: The electorate's last hurdle

A historic election. Two once seemingly insurmountable obstacles, being a women and being an African-American, now have taken their respective positions along side being a Catholic as once unelectable qualities.

These breakthroughs are evidence that the electorate can evolve and, indeed, expand its collective tolerances. But are there limits to this evolution?

As Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama struggle for the right to be called the first, there sits a particular quality that seems light years away from even being considered electable - atheism.

There are several politicians who consider themselves atheists, but Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) is the nations first member of Congress who has openly admitted his nontheism. Stark was outed by a constituent who entered his name into a contest sponsored by the Secular Coalition for America, which was looking for the highest elected official who considered themselves to be non-believers. For their effort, the constituent received $1,000.

Despite the efforts of Secular Coalition, Stark was the only one of 535 federal politicians forthright enough to admit that he had nontheist beliefs.

This reluctance of atheists to run for public office, or for politicians to admit their atheist views, is well founded. According to a recent gallup poll, less than half of the country said they would vote for an atheist candidate, even if they deemed that the person was well qualified otherwise.

This presents an interesting dichotomy. Over 70 percent of American's agree that their should be a separation of church and state, that's good. But, those same Americans refuse to elect a president who says that as commander-and-chief their decisions will not be influenced by religious underpinnings, confusing.

It is an interesting observation. People inherently want to claim that the church and state divide is a good thing, almost reactionary. But for many there appears to be a similar divide between what they practice and what they preach.

Because democracy is a function of free citizens electing public servants, the reluctance of these citizens to vote for an atheist president, in essence, takes a wrecking ball to the wall that has always, at least in theory, stood between religion and the state, thus creating a defacto collaboration between the two.

Noted atheist and apparent supporter of all things ironic, Ron Reagan, the son of former President Ronald Reagan, sums up the reaction that any openly atheist would receive if they were to run for president:

KING: Do you ever think of running for office?

REAGAN: No...

KING: You've got a pretty good name going in.

REAGAN: It seems to work for some people.

KING: Wouldn't hurt you.

REAGAN: No, I'm not really cut out to be a politician. You know that I sometimes don't know when to shut up. That could be a drawback. I'm an atheist. So there you go right there. I can't be elected to anything because polls all say that people won't elect an atheist.

The buzz surrounding the '08 election is that Washington is broken and this is the most important election of our lifetime. This is interesting. If our political system is so broke; corruption, waste, bathroom rendezvous, could it not be deduced that a system that elects only 'religious' men might be the problem? You would be hard pressed to find a voter who would not say that change is needed, again, reactionary. But what does real change mean? If the faithful screwed it up, why shouldn't the non-faithful at least be given a legitimate chance to help fix it? Whatever it is.