secular humanism

<font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">term went out of style for a while?</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></div><div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">1021 ah an</font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">When arch-conservative Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming criticizes President Joe Biden's economic policies, it is obvious that she still considers him the loyal opposition — and the feeling is mutual. But there is a school of right-wing thought that doesn't regard Biden or any other Democrat as the loyal opposition. In an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/10/claremont-ryan-williams-trump/620252/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">article published by The Atlantic</a>&nbsp;on October 1, journalist Emma Green takes a look at far-right MAGA Republicans who fear that the irreconcilable differences of Red America and Blue America may lead to an all-out civil war.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Members of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/08/trump-authoritarianism/" target="self" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Claremont Institute</a>, a far-right think tank, have been saying that Republicans and Democrats aren't just members of competing political parties, but are, in effect, living in two separate countries</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Describing&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Claremont as the "intellectual home of America's Trumpist right,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">" Green notes that&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Claremont President Ryan Williams and his colleagues "believe that America has" become "two fundamentally different countries, not least because of the rise of </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">secularism</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">."</span></b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During an interview with Green,&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Williams claimed, "The Founders were pretty unanimous, with (George) Washington leading the way, that the Constitution is really only fit for a Christian people."</span></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Williams, during the interview, didn't say that another civil war is something he looks forward to. But he fears that the United States' political divisions will lead to major violence. The Claremont president told Green, "I worry about such a conflict. The Civil War was terrible. It should be the thing we try to avoid almost at all costs."</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0);">On March 24, Claremont's website, the American Mind, published a&nbsp;<a href="https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">controversial essay</a>&nbsp;by senior follow Glenn Ellmers, — who wrote, "Most people living in the United States today — certainly more than half — are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term." Ellmers' article was headlined "'Conservatism' Is No Longer Enough" and explained why Claremont rejects traditional conservatism.</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Green asked Williams, "What does it mean to declare that more than half of the people residing in the country are not truly American?" — to which he replied, "Glenn was, of course, being provocative and polemical. But if Claremont thinks real Americanism is a belief in the principles of the American founding, we have to acknowledge that a good portion of our fellow citizens don't agree with our principles and conclusions about what politics is for.&nbsp;<b>If we differ on those fundamental things, we're really two Americas."</b></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Williams added, "Even during the Civil War — I think we're more divided now than we were then. As (President Abraham) Lincoln said, we all prayed to the same God. We all believed in the same Constitution. We just differed over the question of slavery."</font></p></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/william-barr-promotes-christian-tyranny-in-latest-speech/"><font size="4" color="#000000" face="Times New Roman">https://www.alternet.org/2020/02/william-barr-promotes-christian-tyranny-in-latest-speech/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>William Barr promotes Christian tyranny in latest speech</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Chrissy Stroop / Religion Dispatches February 29, 2020</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">I’ve said it before, and if you’re reading this, you’ve very likely heard the same thing darkly muttered among liberals and progressives if you haven’t said it yourself: I never thought anything could possibly make me miss Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. And yet, with his willingness to throw away our norms, checks, and balances, to politicize the Justice Department, to sacrifice the rule of law itself on the altar of Trump—current Attorney General William Barr has done it. As authoritarian as he was, invoking Romans 13 to defend the Trump administration’s indefensibly inhumane policy of caging children separated from their asylum-seeking parents, Sessions had at least enough genuine concern for the rule of law to recuse himself from the Mueller investigation, against the tweeter-in-chief’s explicit wishes.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In other ways, however, Sessions and Barr are clearly cut from the same cloth.&nbsp;</b>Sessions, a Methodist, has asserted that without belief in God it is impossible to believe in truth, suggesting that non-believers are unfit to serve in government. In recent months, Barr, a Catholic, has expounded the same views much more forcefully and at much greater length, including in a speech he delivered Wednesday at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. NRB is an international evangelical organization whose board members include John Fuller of far-right powerhouse Focus on the Family and Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association, a Southern Poverty Law Center designated anti-LGBT hate group.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Featuring predictable dog whistles about “federalism” (i.e., “states’ rights”) and “the corporate—or ‘mainstream’—press,</b>” Barr’s speech to NRB was divided into sections focusing on “religion, the decentralization of government power, and the free press,” all of which, Barr claims, have “have eroded in recent decades.” But today I’ll focus largely on&nbsp;<b>Barr’s view of religion and its ideal place in society and the public sphere.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Barr’s exposition weaves together a variety of reactionary tropes, many of which have roots in the nineteenth century. (While it would be impossible to tease them apart and trace their relationships and genealogies in a short commentary, for those interested in an&nbsp;<b>academic unpacking of Barr’s rhetoric, “The Russian Origins of the So-Called Post-Secular Moment: Some Preliminary Observations,” which I wrote for State, Religion and Church, will provide a helpful overview.)</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The attorney general’s speech was likewise full of so many tensions, contradictions, and weak arguments that it resembles the “Gish gallop” style of debate, making it difficult to believe that they were all offered in good faith. In typical Christian nationalist form, Barr quoted American Founding Father John Adams: “We have no government armed with the power which is capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Asked to comment, Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Andrew Seidel, author of The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism is Un-American, maintained, “Barr is misreading Adams.” To substantiate the point, he observed, “Adams, like the other founders, thought religion and morality were two separate entities; Barr thinks they are one and the same. The founders thought religion could be a substitute for morality. We now know that they were wrong on this point.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>What Seidel means here, as he details in his book, is that as Enlightenment elites, the Founding Fathers believed that they were educated and cultivated enough to be moral without religion, but that the masses were too uncultivated to do the same. The masses would therefore require religion. Seidel maintains that the founders were wrong on this point, and we can admit as much while still admiring their positive achievements.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">Seidel adds, “If the founders believed that religion was important to ensure moral behavior for the masses but not for themselves, that means that the founders were moral without religion. It also means they founded the American government on their own morality, not religion,” concluding that “Barr is inadvertently refuting his entire argument by trying to co-opt Adams.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Seidel’s work can also help us see that Barr is twisting Tocqueville in his attempt to marshal the nineteenth-century French observer of American democracy in support of his view that moral behavior is impossible without religion. A claim, by the way, that is entirely fact-free.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Seidel is certainly correct that Sessions and Barr go much further than the Founding Fathers in claiming, as Barr did in his NRB speech, that moral values “must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.” Despite Barr’s whiggish praise of “the Anglo-American political system” and his espoused disdain for Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau, his views on the necessity of an external, transcendent source of morals in order for humans to achieve virtue is much more prominent in Continental European thought than in the English-speaking world.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>But Barr is a smooth gaslighter, and he represents his argument for theocratic authoritarianism as a defense of “liberal democracy.”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;Barr’s European (and sometimes American) antecedents were often more honest, admitting that they viewed liberal democracy, due to its supposed godlessness and concomitant lack of truth, as a failure that would have to be replaced with either “totalitarianism” (the “ersatz religions” of fascism or Communism) or “a religious society.”</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Indeed, Barr’s claim that “the right way to transform the world is for each of us to focus on morally transforming ourselves” is almost a direct quote from the early twentieth-century anti-Communist Nikolai (Nicholas) Berdyaev, who might well have influenced the attorney general, if not directly, then through Berdyaev’s profound influence on late Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whom he cites. While Solzhenitsyn’s bravery in exposing the brutal Soviet GULAG system of prison camps should never be forgotten,&nbsp;<b>Solzhenitsyn was no fan of the West.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1978, he gave a famous speech lambasting the West’s supposed decline in terms that would surely be congenial to Sessions and Barr. And later Solzhenitsyn, who had been expelled from the USSR, voted with his feet,&nbsp;<b>accepting Russian citizenship from Vladimir Putin’s government and returning to his homeland, pleased with the way that Christian nationalist authoritarianism had replaced Communism as the Russian state’s guiding ideology. The closeness of Putinist Russians and American right-wingers that has come to light in recent years should not surprise us. But we should be very clear that what both parties want is neither democracy nor pluralism, however much Barr may claim to support both.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Barr claims he supports separation of church and state, but the claim is clearly disingenuous:</b>&nbsp;“While most everyone agrees that we must have separation of Church and State, this does not require that we drive religion from the public square and affirmatively use government power to promote a culture of disbelief.”&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The tell here is that the attorney general conflates the idea of a religiously neutral public square with “using government power to promote a culture of disbelief.” The notion that there’s no religious neutrality, and that therefore,<b>&nbsp;if public institutions are not promoting religion, they are promoting secular humanist ideology by default,</b>&nbsp;is a hallmark of dominionist Christian thinking. His NRB audience would have no trouble getting the message.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Like authoritarians, narcissists, and abusers of all kinds, Christian extremists seek to paint themselves as victims,&nbsp;</b>and Barr’s speech is a prime example of this powerful rhetorical tactic. In it, the attorney general blames supposedly nefarious secularists for the contentious state of American politics when, in fact, data shows us that precisely the opposite is true—America’s polarization has been driven by our radicalized, mostly Christian, Right.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Trump’s toady of an attorney general may wax poetic about his fear of the potential tyranny of a secular majority, but he is transparently trying to promote Christian tyranny, only in the guise of “liberal democracy.” It doesn’t take much digging beneath the surface to see that Barr’s authoritarian approach to religion derives from a very dark view of human nature. Authentic supporters of democracy, by contrast, understand that despite our human limitations—which are quite real but not nearly so severe as those posited by the toxic doctrine of “original sin”—it’s possible to build a society around a shared social contract grounded in the simple recognition of our shared human condition, and on that basis to foster functional institutions and a healthy respect for pluralism.</font></div></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"></font></div></div><div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/william-barr-is-on-a-theocratic-mission-to-use-the-power-of-the-doj-to-deliver-america-from-eternal-damnation-columnists/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/william-barr-is-on-a-theocratic-mission-to-use-the-power-of-the-doj-to-deliver-america-from-eternal-damnation-columnists/</font></a></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>William Barr is on a theocratic mission to use the power of the DOJ to deliver America from eternal damnation: columnists</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Written by Matthew Chapman / Raw Story December 30, 2019</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Attorney General William Barr is worse than a simple right-wing partisan, wrote religious nationalism biographer Katherine Stewart and former&nbsp;<b>American Constitutional Society</b>&nbsp;president Caroline Fredrickson for The New York Times.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Rather, they argued, he is best understood as a fanatical theocrat who believes America is damned to burn in hell — and seeks to use the powers of his office to course correct the nation’s sinful ways.</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Why would a seemingly respectable, semiretired lion of the Washington establishment undermine the institutions he is sworn to uphold, incinerate his own reputation, and appear to willfully misrepresent the reports of special prosecutors and inspectors general, all to defend one of the most lawless and corrupt presidents in American history? And why has this particular attorney general appeared at this pivotal moment in our Republic?” they wrote. “A deeper understanding of William Barr is emerging, and it reveals something profound and disturbing about the evolution of conservatism in 21st-century America.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“At least since Mr. Barr’s&nbsp;</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">infamous speech at the University of Notre Dame Law School, in which he blamed ‘</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">secularists’</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> for ‘moral chaos’ and ‘immense suffering, wreckage and misery,’&nbsp;</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">it has become clear that no understanding of William Barr can be complete without taking into account his views on the role of religion in society,” they wrote. “</span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">For that, it is illuminating to review how Mr. Barr has directed his Justice Department on matters concerning the First Amendment clause forbidding the establishment of a state religion.”</b></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“In Maryland, the department rushed to defend taxpayer funding for a religious school that says same-sex marriage is wrong,” they noted. “In Maine, it is defending parents suing over a state law that bans religious schools from obtaining taxpayer funding to promote their own sectarian doctrines. At his Department of Justice, Mr. Barr told law students at Notre Dame, ‘We keep an eye out for cases or events around the country where states are misapplying the establishment clause in a way that discriminates against people of faith.’”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“When religious nationalists invoke ‘religious freedom,’ it is typically code for religious privilege,”</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;they wrote. “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The freedom they have in mind is the freedom of people of certain conservative and authoritarian varieties of religion to discriminate against those of whom they disapprove or over whom they wish to exert power</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;… Mr. Barr has a long history of supporting just this type of ‘religious liberty.’ At Notre Dame, he compared alleged violations of religious liberty with Roman emperors forcing Christian subjects to partake in pagan sacrifices. ‘The law is being used as a battering ram to break down traditional moral values and to establish moral relativism as a new orthodoxy,’ he said.”</span></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As they pointed out, Barr has been espousing this worldview long before Trump. “In a 1995 article he wrote for The Catholic Lawyer, which, as Emily Bazelon recently pointed out, appears to be something of a blueprint for his speech at Notre Dame, he complained that ‘we live in an increasingly</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"> militant, secular age</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">’ and expressed his grave concern that the law might force landlords to rent to unmarried couples. He implied that the idea that universities might treat ‘homosexual activist groups like any other student group’ was intolerable.”</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And while Barr is one of the most visible and powerful elements of the administration seeking to impose Christian supremacy under law, he is not alone.</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Mr. Trump’s presidency was not the cause of this anti-democratic movement in American politics. It was the consequence,” they concluded. “<b>He is the chosen instrument, not of God, but of today’s Christian nationalists, their political allies and funders, and the movement’s legal apparatus</b>. Mr. Barr did not emerge in order to serve this one particular leader. On the contrary, Mr. Trump serves a movement that will cynically praise the Constitution in order to destroy it, and of which Mr. Barr has made himself a hero.”</font></div></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">april 2012</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/behind-the-rights-phony-war-on-the-nonexistent-religion-of-secularism-238757/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/behind-the-rights-phony-war-on-the-nonexistent-religion-of-secularism-238757/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">rick p!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">O<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">nce upon a time, in early 2004,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2004-07-13/news/the-church-of-bush/" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">I attended</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">one of hundreds of “Parties for the President” organized nationwide for grassroots volunteers who wanted to help reelected George W. Bush, at a modest middle class home in Portland, Oregon. At one point, a nice old lady politely pressed into my hand a grubby little self-published pamphlet she had come upon, purporting to prove that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had faked the heroics that had won him three purple hearts in Vietnam. I added it to my mental store of the night’s absurdities that I expected to hear rattling across the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> wingnutosphere the entire fall: “I&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">still</em>&nbsp;believe there are weapons of mass destruction”; “There is an&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">agenda—</em>to get rid of God in this country”;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> “John Kerry attended a party in which there was bad language!” What I didn’t expect was to see Kerry’s war-hero cred earnestly debated night after night on CNN. Then came August and “Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” — and that little old lady’s fever dream began dominating the media discussion of the campaign, and the rest, as they say, is history.</span></font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p data-gtm-vis-recent-on-screen-9326027_26="25151" data-gtm-vis-first-on-screen-9326027_26="25151" data-gtm-vis-total-visible-time-9326027_26="100" data-gtm-vis-has-fired-9326027_26="1" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That’s the way, in my experience, the <b>ecology of right-wing smears works: Insane horror stories </b>– Clinton is running cocaine out of an Arkansas airport! Barack Obama had gay sex in the back of a limo! – bubble up from the collective conservative Id at the outset of an election year; professional conservatives in Washington identify the ones that seem most promising and launder them through the suckers in the “balance”-hungry mainstream media; and&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">presto,&nbsp;</em>before you know it, it’s death-panel-palooza, 24/7.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Responsible political reporting, of course, would seek to penetrate this process while it’s going on. But we don’t&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">have&nbsp;</em>responsible political reporting – or reporters who understand enough about the historical matrix from which these predictable discourses emerge to recognize the contending lies for what they are before they nose across the finish line. Let me venture my own attempt<b>. You might not have heard about Mitt Romney’s utterance in Milwaukee that Democrats desire to “establish a religion called secularism.”</b></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">At present this storyline is reverberating only across the fearful precincts of the right, but it may soon be the “debate”&nbsp;</span><em style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased">du jour&nbsp;</em><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">on a cable news channel near you, starring befuddled, blind-sided Democrats,&nbsp;</span><em style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased">à la&nbsp;</em><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">Kerry’s surrogates in 2004, forced to defend their presidential candidate against a charge that two seconds ago seemed too surreal to be worth swatting away, but which might well end up sounding just credible enough</span><em style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" webkit-font-smoothing="webkit-font-smoothing" antialiased="antialiased">, if only by virtue of the fact that it’s being debated,</em><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">&nbsp;to sway some anxious swing voters.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Here’s some background those befuddled Democrats need to know: One of the most robust and effective conspiracy theories on the right, the notion that “secularism” – or, just as often, “Secular Humanism” – is a religion is meant to be taken entirely literally: right wingers genuinely believe it refers to an actually existing&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">religious&nbsp;</em><em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">practice.&nbsp;</em></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">How do conservatives know? Because, they say, the Supreme Court said so. It was, as religious historian and Lutheran minister&nbsp;</span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NfrtslWF15sC&pg=PA107&lpg=PA107&dq=%22can+date+precisely+the+birth+of+a+religion%22&source=bl&ots=5tKASImLv4&sig=70taCp3zIlxQZGjp0bAobMTp6X4&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22can%20date%20precisely%20the%20birth%20of%20a%20religion%22&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Martin E. Marty has written</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, “an instance where one can date precisely the birth of a religion: June 19, 1961.” That was the day the Court ruled in the case of&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Torcaso v. Watkins&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">striking down the Maryland Constitution’s requirement of “a declaration of belief in the existence of God” to hold “any office of profit or trust in this state” — specifically, in atheist Roy Torcaso’s case, the office of notary public. In his decision, Justice Hugo Black, writing for a unanimous court, further asserted that states and the federal government could not favor religions “based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs” – </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">and, in a&nbsp;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=rmTvmwm_n6wC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=%22martin+marty%22+%22secular+humanism%22&source=bl&ots=zOIVbQbWzA&sig=Y-t2KxEf3oOK32pjvBl40-oSdOs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1GHzTrK8N4nAgAek5N2kAg&ved=0CCQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=marty&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">fateful, ill-considered, and entirely offhand footnote</a>&nbsp;explained: “Among religions in this country which do not teach what would be generally be considered a belief in the existence of God are&nbsp;<a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=367&invol=488#f11" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Buddhism, Taoism, Ethical Culture, Secular Humanism and others</a>.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">From here, things get wacky. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">As&nbsp;</span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NfrtslWF15sC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=%22since+humanism+is+now+considered+%22&source=bl&ots=5tKASInCw7&sig=HXFOahtV9VhF8_7sAPIxdrt-Ezg&hl=en" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">unearthed by the outstanding scholar Carol Mason</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;in her masterpiece&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reading-Appalachia-Left-Right-Conservatives/dp/0801475813/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334944581&sr=1-1" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Reading Appalachia from Left to Right</a>,&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">in 1974 a Jesuit priest and Fordham University law professor named Edward Berbasse argued that “since humanism is now considered by the court to be a religion , it must be prevented from being established by the government.” An activist asked him if that meant they could win their fight to ban the satanic textbooks being forced down their children’s throats in Kanawha County, West Virginia by taking the matter to the Supreme Court. “I think you may have the material if you can get a crackerjack lawyer,” Father Berbasse responded. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Supreme Court case was never actually attempted – not least because, as&nbsp;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Md1aRhWNk1QC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=%22called+secular+humanism+is+a+conspiracist+myth%22&source=bl&ots=HoQdbrLPRb&sig=Zsg4KkCZ4I8XX3sr1Hot-uTYDxc&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22called%20secular%20humanism%20is%20a%20conspiracist%20myth%22&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons have pointed out</a>, “While historically there has been an organized humanist movement in the United States since at least the 1800s, the idea of a large-scale quasireligion called secular humanism is a conspiracist myth.”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> <b>In Kanawha County, the textbook fight was&nbsp;</b></span><a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9SNbAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aU8NAAAAIBAJ&pg=3249,1588909&dq=kanawha+dynamite+textbooks&hl=en%3E" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative;"><b>fought out with dynamite</b></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>&nbsp;instead</b>. Nationwide, however, the conspiracist myth took on a life of its own – even unto the halls of Congress.</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">For Secular Humanism was not just an imaginary religion. It was, as the subtitle to a </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">1984 </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">book&nbsp;</span><a href="http://concen.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=38132" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">still revered by religious conservatives,</a><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">put it,&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">The Most Dangerous Religion in America.&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">How so? Because it held that man, not God, determines human affairs. From that, as</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">&nbsp;<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NfrtslWF15sC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=%22when+a+textbook+does+not+mention%22&source=bl&ots=5tKASInFp8&sig=sB5BJNd5vdXuYDbD7eGDdUbHkoA&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22when%20a%20textbook%20does%20not%20mention%22&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Martin Marty explained</a>, the ascendant religious right developed the claim that “when a textbook does not mention the God of the Bible … it necessarily leads to a void which it must fill with the religion of Secular Humanism.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">” (It’s a&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">religion.&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Thus the&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Capital Letters.</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">)</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>And that any textbook which does not mention the guiding hand of God is rock-solid proof that the “secular humanist” conspiracists had written it; the absence was the presence.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Liberals, dumbfounded by irrationality in that patented liberal way, pointed out that the number of people&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">calling themselves&nbsp;</em>“secular humanists” was only a handful, so how could they possibly possess such omnipotence. Well, fundamentalists would counter, doesn’t that just prove the success of their conspiracy?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Ain’t America grand?</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The professional right had found its substitute for the Red Menace</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> In many ways “secular humanism” was Communism’s superior as an organizing tool, because it so handily took the fight directly to the bloodiest crossroads in our political culture: the space between the public school and the home. There is no more effective way to organize against liberalism than to argue that liberals are invading the sacred precinct of the nuclear family – the basic unit of government under God’s covenant, as the “Christian Reconstructionist” Rousas J. Rushdoony, father of the home-schooling movement, argued in his 1972 book&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">The Messianic Character of American Education</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">. The power-grabbing would-be-messiah government must be defeated, argued Connie Marshner, a Heritage Foundation staffer influenced by Rushdoony, if Christians were to “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);"><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NfrtslWF15sC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=%22reverse+the+coming+of+the+secular+humanist+state%22&source=bl&ots=5tKASInHo5&sig=PzG9aoEJPIqiXZA09Ik2YTTV8rk&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22reverse%20the%20coming%20of%20the%20secular%20humanist%20state%22&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">reverse the coming of the secular humanist state</a>.”</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>For the Leviathan’s grubby fingerprints were everywhere. </b>As a magazine called&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Christian Harvest Times&nbsp;</em>explained (h/t&nbsp;<a href="http://lapa.princeton.edu/peopledetail.php?ID=318" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Kevin Kruse</a>), “To understand humanism is to understand women’s liberation, the ERA, gay rights, children’s rights [the movement to help minors in abusive families, in which Hilary Clinton did a little work as a young lawyer, &nbsp;Exhibit A for consrvatives in the 1990s seeking to prove her diabolical wickedness], abortion, sexual education, the ‘new’ morality, evolution, values clarification, situational ethics, the separation of church and state, the loss of patriotism, and many of the other problems that are tearing America apart today.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">This is incredibly seductive stuff for any right-leaning ordinary citizen who finds the changing world they’re forced to navigate frightening and alien. As Connie Marshner argued in her 1978 “parents’ rights” manifesto&nbsp;</span><em style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Blackboard Tyranny,&nbsp;</em><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;“</span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=NfrtslWF15sC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=%22Mothers+have+long+observed+that+after+the+%22&source=bl&ots=5tKASIoFq7&sig=mMgG6cm2QiNeuxu5knqVPAjxwdE&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22Mothers%20have%20long%20observed%20that%20after%20the%20%22&f=false" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Mothers have long observed that after the</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;first child starts school, the rest of the family starts catching more colds and flus. But other forms of disease are not so evident. What about the personality traits that start developing? What about the dissatisfaction with family rules and routines?… Why do children suddenly begin to complain about responsibilities toward little brothers or sisters? Why do they resent doing unaccustomed chores? Why does off-color language or unfamiliar slang suddenly crop up in a child’s conversations?” The liberal state here is an infection, responsible for all of the family’s manifold ills – a reassuringly straightforward story, especially when there are politicians in Washington ready to swoop in to the rescue. Around this time the </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Heritage Foundation published a report titled&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Secularism Humanism and the Schools: The Issue Whose Time Has Come</em>&nbsp;(another&nbsp;<a href="http://christianfaithinamerica.com/web-resources/is-humanism-molesting-your-child/" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">still-beloved</a>&nbsp;volume) for an elite Washington audience. An issue whose time has come, indeed.&nbsp; Politicians, of course, may or may not really care about the “unfamiliar slang” infecting their constituents’ kitchen tables — does Mitt Romney, really? — but it’s sure a <b>handy way for the 1 percent to enlist them in crushing the liberal state that, say, peskily insists on regulating credit default swaps.</b></span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 1976, an Arizona congressman named John Conlan – now obscure, but at one time Evangelicals’ first choice for president – introduced an anti-secular humanism bill. It passed a House of Representatives in which Democrats outnumbered Republicans 291 to 144. This is potent stuff</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The conservative group Concerned Women for America began donating legal services for parents wishing to challenge the supposed teaching of secular humanism, predicting that 300,000 school districts might come under challenge <b>in 1986. Megachurch minister Tim LaHaye (who later co-authored the “Left Behind” series) said secular humanists were not qualified to hold government positions </b>–</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> neatly inverting the very Supreme Court decision,&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">Torcaso v. Watkins,&nbsp;</em>grounding their “Constitutional” crusade in the first place</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. And in 1985, congress passed the Education for Economic Security Act to improve science education, including funding for magnet schools — to which conservatives added an amendment prohibiting its use for “teaching secular humanism,” conveniently omitting to define “secular humanism,” except to note that local school boards could define it themselves. (Read about these in this&nbsp;</span><a href="http://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2851&context=wlulr&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fclient%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26q%3D%22education%2Bfor%2Beconomic%2Bsecurity%2Bact%22%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8#search=%22education%20economic%20security%20act%22" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">PDF law review article</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.)</span></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The vagueness is deliberate </b>— it means new issues can be sluiced into the discourse as historical convenience dictates. For instance the secular humanism golden oldie, ever pliant, slots perfectly into the religious right’s new phony crusade for “religious liberty,” which in turn serves so marvelously in the corporate right’s crusade to do away with even the faintest gesture toward healthcare equality. “I think there is in this country a war on religion,” Romney said before raising that above-noted specter of Obama’s “desire to establish a religion in America known as secularism.” He continued, “They gave it a lot of thought,” this business of forcing the Catholic Church “to violate its principles and its conscience (since when do institutions have “consciences”?) and be required to provide contraceptives, sterilization, and morning-after pills to the employees of the church” (a lie, by the way:&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">employers</em>&nbsp;don’t have to provide anything).</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" /><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Note the careful language: Democrats want “to&nbsp;<em style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">establish&nbsp;</em>a religion” — a precise quotation of the First Amendment’s’ Establishment Clause banning same</b>. And the claim that “they gave it a lot of thought” insinuates a deliberate conspiracy. But conservatives would not fall for it, the stalwart Romney announced: “Those of us who are people of faith recognize [what] this is—an attack on one religion is an attack on all religion.”</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A marker has been laid down. Heed it well. Universal healthcare is the Trojan Horse in Obama’s radical religious crusade to undo orthodox religion. Could a notion so crazy possibly have legs? Crazier things have penetrated the fog before — and this one has the advantage of tickling the most abiding anxiety of conservative-minded citizens: that liberalism is contributing to the sexual dissolution of their very own homes and hearths. Romney’s recycling of the smear may already have helped him assuage the doubts of the religious right that he is one of them.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And Democrats losing their nerve, backing away from defending desperately needed reform out of fear stepping on mysterious “deeply held” beliefs that are actually the invention of hucksters with right-wing agendas? Well, that’s happened before, too.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Don’t let it happen again.</font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Rick Perlstein is the author of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/188-5741354-6558707" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Before-Storm-Goldwater-Unmaking-Consensus/dp/1568584121/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/188-5741354-6558707" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America.&nbsp;</a>He writes a weekly column for RollingStone.com.</font></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; margin: 0px; padding: 0.9375rem 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-weight: 700;">Also by Rick Perlstein</span><span style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-weight: 700;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;">•&nbsp;</span></span><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/Rick%20Perlstein%20is%20the%20author%20of%20Before%20the%20Storm:%20Barry%20Goldwater%20and%20the%20Unmaking%20of%20the%20American%20Consensus%20and%20Nixonland:%20The%20Rise%20of%20a%20President%20and%20the%20Fracturing%20of%20America.%20%20Read%20more:%20http:/www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/what-mitt-romney-learned-from-his-dad-20120117#ixzz1kfkijKON" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Romney and Son: What Mitt Learned from his Dad</a><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-weird-truth-behind-newts-contract-scam-20120126" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;"><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></a>•<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-weird-truth-behind-newts-contract-scam-20120126" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">&nbsp;Why Newt Gingrich’s Greatest Triumph Was Founded on a Scam<br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></a><a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/the-weird-truth-behind-newts-contract-scam-20120126" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">• Why Mitt Romney’s Mormonism Doesn’t Matter<br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/ronald-reagan-welfare-queen-of-montana-or-tax-tips-for-mitt-romney-20120207" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Ronald Reagan: Welfare Queen of Montana (or: Tax Tips for Mitt Romney)”<br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></a>•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/obama-at-halftime-how-he-fumbled-why-hes-recovering-20120217" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Obama at Halftime: How He Fumbled, Why He’s Recovering</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/Rick%20Perlstein%20is%20the%20author%20of%20Before%20the%20Storm:%20Barry%20Goldwater%20and%20the%20Unmaking%20of%20the%20American%20Consensus%20and%20Nixonland:%20The%20Rise%20of%20a%20President%20and%20the%20Fracturing%20of%20America.%20He%20writes%20a%20weekly%20column%20for%20RollingStone.com.%20%20Also%20by%20Rick%20Perlstein%20%E2%80%A2%20Romney%20and%20Son:%20What%20Mitt%20Learned%20from%20his%20Dad%20%E2%80%A2%20Why%20Newt%20Gingrich%27s" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">What Obama Needs to Change to Win<br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></a>•<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-democrats-have-a-problem-with-young-voters-20120228#ixzz1oMhCQF3x" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">&nbsp;Why Democrats Have a Problem With Young Voters<br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" /></a>•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/obama-and-the-cult-of-college-why-rick-santorum-had-a-point-20120307#ixzz1pI7MxOIS" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Rick Santorum Was Wrong About Obama and College – But Not Completely Wrong</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-conservatives-are-still-crazy-after-all-these-years-20120316#ixzz1pn4ue4sY" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Are Conservatives Crazier Than Ever?</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/preview.php/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-occupy-needs-to-start-making-demands-20120321#ixzz1r0dDx5fO" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Occupy Wall Street: Time to Make Demands</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-rahm-emanuel-hates-democracy-20120403#ixzz1regQc2S3" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Rahm Emanuel’s Problem With Democracy</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-gop-mega-donor-sheldon-adelson-is-mad-bad-and-a-danger-to-the-republic-20120410#ixzz1sExzw9CO" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Sheldon Adelson: Mad, Bad and Dangerous</a><br style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased;" />•&nbsp;<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/van-jones-progressives-have-another-century-to-win-20120417#ixzz1syc9JnkJ" rel="nofollow" target="blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; transition: color 0.24s cubic-bezier(0.215, 0.61, 0.355, 1) 0s; text-decoration-line: none; position: relative; font-weight: 600;">Van Jones: We’ve Got Another Century to Win!</a></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">s<b style="">ecular humanism</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">is a philosophy or</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_stance" title="Life stance" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">life stance</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">that embraces human</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason" title="Reason" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">reason</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_ethics" title="Secular ethics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">secular ethics</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_naturalism" class="mw-redirect" title="Philosophical naturalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">philosophical naturalism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">while specifically rejecting religious</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogma" title="Dogma" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">dogma</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernaturalism" class="mw-redirect" title="Supernaturalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">supernaturalism</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition" title="Superstition" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">superstition</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">as the basis of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality" title="Morality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">morality</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">and decision making.</span><sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-1" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[1]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-americanhumanist_2-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-americanhumanist-2" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[2]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-oxford-secularhumanism_3-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-oxford-secularhumanism-3" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[3]</a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-humaniststudies_4-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-humaniststudies-4" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[4]</a></sup></font><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secular humanism posits that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion" title="Irreligion" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">without religion</a>&nbsp;or belief in a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity" title="Deity" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">deity</a>. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil" title="Good and evil" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">good or evil</a>, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance emphasizes the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. Along with this, an essential part of secular humanism is a continually adapting search for truth, primarily through&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science" title="Science" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">science</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">philosophy</a>. Many secular humanists derive their moral codes from a philosophy of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism" title="Utilitarianism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">utilitarianism</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism" title="Ethical naturalism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">ethical naturalism</a>, or&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_ethics" title="Evolutionary ethics" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">evolutionary ethics</a>, and some advocate a&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_morality" title="Science of morality" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">science of morality</a>.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanists_International" title="Humanists International" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Humanists International</a>&nbsp;is the world union of more than one hundred humanist,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationalist" class="mw-redirect" title="Rationalist" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">rationalist</a>, irreligious,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism" title="Atheism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">atheist</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brights_movement" title="Brights movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Bright</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularity" title="Secularity" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">secular</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_movement" title="Ethical movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Ethical Culture</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freethought" title="Freethought" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">freethought</a>&nbsp;organizations in more than 40 countries. The "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Human" title="Happy Human" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Happy Human</a>" is recognized as the official symbol of humanism internationally, used by secular humanist organizations in every part of the world. Those who call themselves humanists are estimated to number between four and five million people worldwide.</font></p><div id="toc" class="toc" style="border: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); padding: 7px; display: table;"><input type="checkbox" role="button" id="toctogglecheckbox" class="toctogglecheckbox" style="direction: ltr; position: absolute; opacity: 0; z-index: -1; display: none;" /><div class="toctitle" lang="en" dir="ltr" style="direction: ltr; text-align: center;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><ul style="margin: 0.3em 0px; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Terminology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Terminology</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#History" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">History</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Secularism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Secularism</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Positivism_and_the_Church_of_Humanity" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Positivism and the Church of Humanity</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-5" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Ethical_movement" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ethical movement</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-6" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Secular_humanism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">2.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Secular humanism</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-7" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Manifestos_and_declarations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Manifestos and declarations</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-8" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#International_Humanist_and_Ethical_Union" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">International Humanist and Ethical Union</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-9" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Council_for_Secular_Humanism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Council for Secular Humanism</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-10" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#American_Humanist_Association" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">3.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">American Humanist Association</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-11" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Ethics_and_relationship_to_religious_belief" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Ethics and relationship to religious belief</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-12" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Modern_context" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">5</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Modern context</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-13" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Humanist_celebrations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">6</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Humanist celebrations</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-14" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Legal_mentions_in_the_United_States" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Legal mentions in the United States</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-15" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Hatch_amendment" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Hatch amendment</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-16" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Case_law" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Case law</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-17" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Torcaso_v.Watkins" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;"><i>Torcaso v. Watkins</i></span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-18" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Fellowship_of_Humanity_v.County_of_Alameda" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;"><i>Fellowship of Humanity v. County of Alameda</i></span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-19" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Washington_Ethical_Society_v.District_of_Columbia" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;"><i>Washington Ethical Society v. District of Columbia</i></span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-3 tocsection-20" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Peloza_v.Capistrano_School_District" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.2.4</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;"><i>Peloza v. Capistrano School District</i></span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-21" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Controversy" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">7.3</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Controversy</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-22" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Notable_humanists" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">8</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Notable humanists</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-23" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Manifestos" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">9</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Manifestos</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-24" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Related_organizations" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">10</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Related organizations</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-25" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#See_also" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">11</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">See also</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-26" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Related_philosophies" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">11.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Related philosophies</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-27" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Wikibooks" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">11.2</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Wikibooks</span></font></a></li></ul></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-28" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Notes_and_references" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">12</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Notes and references</span></font></a></li><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-29" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Further_reading" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">13</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Further reading</span></font></a><ul style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 2em; padding: 0px; list-style-image: none; list-style-type: none;"><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-30" style="margin-bottom: 0.1em;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#Primary_sources" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000"><span class="tocnumber" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0.5em;">13.1</span><span class="toctext" style="display: table-cell; text-decoration: inherit;">Primary sources</span></font></a></li></ul></li></ul></div><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Terminology">Terminology</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secular_humanism&action=edit&section=1" title="Edit section: Terminology" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The meaning of the phrase&nbsp;<i>secular humanism</i>&nbsp;has evolved over time. The phrase has been used since at least the 1930s by Anglican priests,<sup id="cite_ref-5" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup>&nbsp;and in 1943, the then&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archbishop_of_Canterbury" title="Archbishop of Canterbury" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Archbishop of Canterbury</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Temple(archbishop)" class="mw-redirect" title="William Temple (archbishop)" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">William Temple</a>, was reported as warning that the "Christian tradition... was in danger of being undermined by a 'Secular Humanism' which hoped to retain Christian values without Christian faith."<sup id="cite_ref-6" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-6" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[6]</a></sup>&nbsp;During the 1960s and 1970s the term was embraced by some humanists who considered themselves anti-religious,<sup id="cite_ref-7" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-7" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[7]</a></sup>&nbsp;as well as those who, although not critical of religion in its various guises, preferred a non-religious approach.<sup id="cite_ref-what_8-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-what-8" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[8]</a></sup>&nbsp;The release in 1980 of&nbsp;<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Secular_Humanist_Declaration" title="A Secular Humanist Declaration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">A Secular Humanist Declaration</a></i>&nbsp;by the newly formed Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH, later the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_Secular_Humanism" class="mw-redirect" title="Council for Secular Humanism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Council for Secular Humanism</a>, which with&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_the_Scientific_Investigation_of_Claims_of_the_Paranormal" class="mw-redirect" title="Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">CSICOP</a>&nbsp;in 1991 jointly formed the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Inquiry" title="Center for Inquiry" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Center for Inquiry</a>&nbsp;and in 2015 both ceased separate operations, becoming CFI programs) gave secular humanism an organisational identity within the United States; but no overall organisation involved currently uses a name featuring "secular humanism".</font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, many adherents of the approach reject the use of the word&nbsp;<i>secular</i>&nbsp;as obfuscating and confusing, and consider that the term&nbsp;<i>secular humanism</i>&nbsp;has been "demonized by the religious right... All too often secular humanism is reduced to a sterile outlook consisting of little more than&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism" title="Secularism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">secularism</a>&nbsp;slightly broadened by academic ethics. This kind of 'hyphenated humanism' easily becomes more about the adjective than its referent".<sup id="cite_ref-Doerr_9-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-Doerr-9" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[9]</a></sup>&nbsp;Adherents of this view, including&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanists_International" title="Humanists International" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Humanists International</a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Humanist_Association" title="American Humanist Association" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">American Humanist Association</a>, consider that the unmodified but capitalized word Humanism should be used. The endorsement by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) of the capitalization of the word&nbsp;<i>Humanism</i>, and the dropping of any adjective such as&nbsp;<i>secular</i>, is quite recent. The American Humanist Association began to adopt this view in 1973, and the IHEU formally endorsed the position in 1989. In 2002 the IHEU General Assembly unanimously adopted the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdam_Declaration" title="Amsterdam Declaration" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Amsterdam Declaration</a>, which represents the official defining statement of World Humanism for Humanists. This declaration makes exclusive use of capitalized&nbsp;<i>Humanist</i>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<i>Humanism</i>, which is consistent with IHEU's general practice and recommendations for promoting a unified Humanist identity.<sup class="reference plainlinks nourlexpansion" id="ref_Webbs" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a class="external autonumber" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#endnote_Webbs" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none !important; padding: 0px !important;">[2]</a></sup>&nbsp;To further promote Humanist identity, these words are also free of any adjectives, as recommended by prominent members of IHEU.<sup class="reference plainlinks nourlexpansion" id="ref_Blackham" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a class="external autonumber" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#endnote_Blackham" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none !important; padding: 0px !important;">[3]</a></sup>&nbsp;Such usage is not universal among IHEU member organizations, though most of them do observe these conventions.</font></p><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); font-weight: normal; margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); font-family: " linux="Linux" libertine="Libertine" georgia="Georgia" times="Times" serif="serif" line-height="line-height"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="History">History</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secular_humanism&action=edit&section=2" title="Edit section: History" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h2><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanism#History" title="Humanism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Historical use of the term humanism</a>&nbsp;(reflected in some current academic usage), is related to the writings of&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Socratic_philosophy" title="Pre-Socratic philosophy" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">pre-Socratic philosophers</a>. These writings were lost to European societies until Renaissance scholars rediscovered them through Muslim sources and translated them from Arabic into European languages.<sup id="cite_ref-10" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-10" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[10]</a></sup>&nbsp;Thus the term humanist can mean a humanities scholar, as well as refer to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Enlightenment" class="mw-redirect" title="The Enlightenment" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">The Enlightenment</a>/&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance" title="Renaissance" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Renaissance</a>&nbsp;intellectuals, and those who have agreement with the pre-Socratics, as distinct from secular humanists.</font></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span class="mw-headline" id="Secularism">Secularism</span><span class="mw-editsection" style="user-select: none; font-weight: normal; margin-left: 1em; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1em; white-space: nowrap; unicode-bidi: isolate;"><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-right: 0.25em;">[</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Secular_humanism&action=edit&section=3" title="Edit section: Secularism" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">edit</a><span class="mw-editsection-bracket" style="margin-left: 0.25em;">]</span></span></font></h3><div class="thumb tright" style="clear: right; float: right; margin: 0.5em 0px 1.3em 1.4em; width: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="thumbinner" style="min-width: 100px; border: 1px solid rgb(200, 204, 209); padding: 3px; background-color: rgb(248, 249, 250); text-align: center; overflow: hidden; width: 172px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font><div class="thumbcaption" style="border: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; padding: 3px; text-align: left;"><div class="magnify" style="float: right; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holyoake2.JPG" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none" /></div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holyoake2.JPG" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none">George Holyoake coined the term "secularism" and led the secular movement in Britain from the mid-19th century.</a></div></div></div><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holyoake2.JPG" class="internal" title="Enlarge" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: linear-gradient(transparent, transparent), url(" w="w" resources="resources" src="src" mediawiki.skinning="mediawiki.skinning" images="images" magnify-clip-ltr.svg="magnify-clip-ltr.svg" e="e" display="display" block="block" text-indent="text-indent" px="px" white-space="white-space" nowrap="nowrap" overflow="overflow" hidden="hidden" width="width" height="height" user-select="user-select" none="none">In 1851&nbsp;</a><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Holyoake" title="George Holyoake" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">George Holyoake</a>&nbsp;coined the term "secularism"<sup id="cite_ref-11" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-11" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[11]</a></sup>&nbsp;to describe "a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions, the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life".<sup id="cite_ref-Secularism_101_12-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism#cite_note-Secularism_101-12" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[12]</a></sup></font></p><p style="margin: 0.5em 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The modern secular movement coalesced around Holyoake,&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bradlaugh" title="Charles Bradlaugh" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Charles Bradlaugh</a>&nbsp;and their intellectual circle. The first secular society, the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_Secular_Society" title="Leicester Secular Society" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Leicester Secular Society</a>, dates from 1851. Similar regional societies came together to form the&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Secular_Society" title="National Secular Society" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Secular Society</a>&nbsp;in 1866.</font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><a href="https://quillette.com/2019/04/11/is-secular-humanism-a-religion/"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://quillette.com/2019/04/11/is-secular-humanism-a-religion/</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">it&nbsp;<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">is now a rather old story: secular humanism is a religion. A</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloza_v.Capistrano_School_District" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: " libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border-width="border-width" border-top-style="border-top-style" initial="initial" border-right-style="border-right-style" border-bottom-style="border-bottom-style" solid="solid" border-left-style="border-left-style" border-top-color="border-top-color" border-right-color="border-right-color" border-bottom-color="border-bottom-color" rgb="rgb" border-left-color="border-left-color" border-image="border-image" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" outline="outline"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">court case</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">&nbsp;</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">in 1995 examined the issue and concluded, rightly, that science, in the form of the theory of evolution, is not a religion. In 2006, the BBC aired a program called</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6MrktRKfJU" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-family: " libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border-width="border-width" border-top-style="border-top-style" initial="initial" border-right-style="border-right-style" border-bottom-style="border-bottom-style" solid="solid" border-left-style="border-left-style" border-top-color="border-top-color" border-right-color="border-right-color" border-bottom-color="border-bottom-color" rgb="rgb" border-left-color="border-left-color" border-image="border-image" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline" color="color" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" outline="outline"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Trouble with Atheism</i></span></a><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">&nbsp;</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">which</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">&nbsp;</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">argued that atheists are religious and made the point via a series of interviews with prominent atheists who claimed their beliefs were “proved” by science. The presenter, Rod Liddle, concluded that Darwinism is a religion. That is wrong, as 18th century philosopher David Hume showed many years ago. Science consists of facts, but facts alone do not motivate. Without motive, a fact points to no action. Liddle was half-right: both religion and secular humanism provide</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem" box-sizing="box-sizing" border-box="border-box" margin="margin" px="px" padding="padding" border="border" vertical-align="vertical-align" baseline="baseline">motives</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" font-size="font-size" rem="rem">, explicit in one case, but covert in the other.</span></font></div><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What&nbsp;<i style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is</i>&nbsp;religion? All religions have three elements, although the relative emphasis differs from one religion to another—Buddhists are light on the supernatural, for example.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The first is the belief in invisible or hidden beings, worlds and processes—like God, heaven, miracles, reincarnation, and the soul.&nbsp;All these are unverifiable, or unseen and unseeable, except by mystics under special and generally unrepeatable conditions. Since absence of evidence is not, logically, evidence of absence, these features of religion are neither true nor false, but simply unprovable. They have no implications for action, hence no bearing on legal matters.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The second element are claims about the real world: every religion, especially in its primordial version, makes claims that are essentially scientific—assertions of fact that are potentially verifiable</b>.&nbsp;These claims are of two kinds.&nbsp;The first we might call timeless: e.g., claims about physical properties—the four elementary humors, for example, the Hindu turtle that supports the world, properties of foods, the doctrine of literal transubstantiation.&nbsp;The second are claims about history: Noah’s flood, the age of the earth, the resurrection—all “myths of origin.” Some of these claims are unverifiable; as for the rest, there is now a consensus that science usually wins—in law and elsewhere. In any case, few of these claims have any bearing on action.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The third property of a religion are its rules for action—prohibitions and requirements—its morality</b>. All religions have a code, a set of moral and behavioral prescriptions, matters of belief —usually, but not necessarily—said to flow from God, that provide guides to action in a wide range of situations.&nbsp;The 10 Commandments, the principles of Sharia, the Five Precepts of Buddhism, etc.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Secular humanism lacks any reference to the supernatural and defers matters of fact to science.&nbsp;But it is as rich in moral rules, in dogma, as any religion. Its rules come not from God but from texts like Mill’s&nbsp;<i style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">On Liberty</i>, and the works of philosophers like Peter Singer, Dan Dennett and Bertrand Russell, psychologists B. F. Skinner and Sigmund Freud, public intellectuals like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, and “humanist chaplains” everywhere.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In terms of moral rules, secular humanism is indistinguishable from a religion.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It has escaped the kind of attacks directed at Christianity and other up-front religions for two reasons: its name implies that it is not religious, and its principles cannot be tracked down to a canonical text. They exist but are not formally defined by any “holy book.”</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But it is only the morality of a religion, not its supernatural or historical beliefs, that has any implications for action, for politics and law. Secular humanism makes moral claims as strong as any other faith. It is therefore as much a religion as any other. But because it is not seen as religious, the beliefs of secular humanists increasingly influence U.S. law.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The covert nature of these principles is a disadvantage in some ways, but a great advantage in the political/legal context. Because secular-humanist morals cannot be easily identified, they cannot be easily attacked. A secular judgeship candidate can claim to be unbiased, not because she has no religious principles, but because her principles cannot easily be seen. Yet belief in the innocence of abortion or the value of homosexuality, the “normality” of the LGBTQ+ community, or the essential sameness of men and women (scientifically false, but having many legal implications), may be no less passionate, no less based on faith—no less unprovable—than the opposite beliefs of many frankly religious people.&nbsp;</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Here are three examples of how secular morals have affected law.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> As the marriage rate has declined and rate of cohabitation has increased—as marriage itself seemed to become less important—the legalization of</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> same-sex marriage </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">became a hot topic. It was once a&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/changing-attitudes-on-gay-marriage/" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">minority position</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;among American citizens and their elected representatives, but dwindling opposition led to swift legalization of gay marriage in&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417717613/supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-allow-same-sex-marriages" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2015</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">.</span></font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This bouleversement actually changed the meaning of the word marriage and introduced unnecessary uncertainty into both social and sexual intercourse (“Hi Fred, is your wife here? What is her name?” Fred: “Sebastian…”). Why did this happen, given the declining importance of marriage itself, the availability of civil-partnership contracts, and the historical opposition of all major religions? The answer lies in a secular-humanist commandment as powerful as any of the familiar 10: the omnipotence of personal passions. The different status and social value of same-and different-sex liaisons, for example, is dwarfed by this personal imperative.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Secular humanists also have blasphemy rules. Dressing in blackface as a teenager or actually saying the N-word, even in an educational context, can lead to severe consequences</b>. Virginia Governor Northam may yet have to resign over a decades-old blackface incident; but Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal survived what many would consider a more serious sin: exaggerating his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/nyregion/18blumenthal.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">military experience.</span></a>&nbsp;Young Northam committed racist blasphemy, while Blumenthal merely lied.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And finally, there is the 40-foot Bladensburg (Md.) cross, erected in 1925 with private money but on public land, to commemorate soldiers who died in World War I. Fred Edwords, a former official of the American Humanist Association, is one of the plaintiffs seeking to get the cross declared illegal.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> “This cross sends a message of Christian favoritism and exclusion of all others,”&nbsp;</span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/us/politics/bladensburg-cross-supreme-court.html" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">says Mr. Edwords</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. Not that anyone else is excluded from erecting their own monument. It seems to be the faith of a&nbsp;</span><i style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">competitor</i><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">&nbsp;that Fred objects to. Evidently toleration is not one of the secular humanist commandments, but Christianity as anathema is.</span></font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Religiously affiliated candidates for high office are&nbsp;<a href="http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/18/leftists-wi-supreme-court-candidate-cant-good-judge-youre-christian/" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; border-top-style: initial; border-right-style: initial; border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-style: initial; border-top-color: initial; border-right-color: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-color: initial; border-image: initial; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration-line: none; outline: none;"><span class="s2" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">often quizzed</span></a>&nbsp;about their religious beliefs. This is both unfair and largely irrelevant. Whether a candidate believes in transubstantiation or the virgin birth has no bearing at all on how he or she will judge the rights of litigants. Beliefs about religious stories and transcendental matters do not guide action</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">What matters are the person’s moral beliefs, whatever their source; and their willingness to disregard them if they conflict with the constitution. Secular candidates have just as many “unprovable beliefs” as religious candidates. The only difference is that secular morality is not written down in a single identifiable source. It is not easily accessible.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Candidates, both religious and non-religious, should all be subject to the same range of questions—questions not about their religion but about what might be called their “action imperatives.” What should be prohibited? What should be encouraged? In short, what are their “goods” and “bads” and how would they act if their beliefs are in conflict with settled law?&nbsp;</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The point is to understand the moral beliefs of the candidate and how he or she is prepared to reconcile them with the law, not his or her adherence to a recognized faith. As it is, many passionate, “religious” beliefs of secular candidates go undetected and unquestioned. Thus, they become law by stealth.</font></span></p><p class="p3" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; line-height: 1.73;" libre="Libre" baskerville="Baskerville" georgia="Georgia" serif="serif"><span class="s1" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /><span style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">John Staddon is James B. Duke Professor of <b>Psychology and Professor of Biology,</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Emeritus, at Duke University.</span></span></font></span></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">===</font></div></div></div></div></div></div>