a long night for atheist voters

[RussBLib]

Election night was not a long one for me: I didn't bother watching any live programming, just stuff on my DVR. But the Washington Post had an article about atheist voters that was interesting. Interesting primarily for the mere fact that they ran a story around atheist voters.

Bad news:

Daniel Moran, a Democrat and an atheist running for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, lost his race, as did James Woods, an Arizona Democrat and atheist who was looking for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Woods was the only openly atheist candidate seeking a seat in Congress.

Good news:

Election night was not a total loss for atheists. Democrat Juan Mendez, an atheist who led a secular invocation from the floor of the Arizona Statehouse, won a second term as a representative there.

And voters rejected two Rhode Island politicians who criticized Jessica Ahlquist, the teenage atheist who successfully fought to remove a religious banner from her high school in 2012. Peter Palumbo, who called the 17-year-old Ahlquist an “evil little thing,” lost his bid for that state’s Legislature, and Allan Fung, mayor of Ahlquist’s town, won’t be the state’s new governor. Fung, a Republican, wanted the prayer banner to stay.

“Good riddance,” wrote atheist activist Hemant Mehta on his Friendly Atheist blog, referring to Palumbo. “Finally, a Democrat whose loss doesn’t upset me.”

Another result atheists are trumpeting is the defeat of Illinois Republican congressional candidate Susanne Atanus. Atanus announced to a local newspaper’s editorial board that “I believe in God first” and characterized bad weather, autism and other diseases as a divine punishment for gay marriage.

a bit more here

What do we expect from Susanne Atanus? She's got "anus" right in her name!!

I'm glad to see those two Rhode Island assholes get the boot. There will be some atheists running for and winning offices soon. Some are characterizing the GOP wins as "putting God back in office" which I find to be hysterically ignorant and laughable. The GOP is full of repressed homosexuals and pedophiles. That shit will come out.

[onager]

1. Rhode Island must be a hotbed of Fundamentalist Assholes...

A Pew survey of Rhode Island residents' religious self-identification showed...the largest denominations are the Roman Catholic Church with 456,598 adherents, the Episcopal Church (United States) with 19,377, and the American Baptist Churches USA with 15,220 adherents. (Wikipedia)

Oh. Er, uh, never mind...

[RussBLib]

2. Roger Williams is spinning in his grave