An atheist's commiseration on being thrown under the bus.

[Goblinmonger]

I was going to post this during Snickersgate, but thought it would be too close and my point would be lost.

First, I want to make sure that everyone realizes that my comments about the Snickers ad were only intended to point out what I felt (and still feel) was a satirical jab at homophobes. I realize that isn't the "mainstream" interpretation and I can live with that. I have been reading the meta discussion about homophobia over the past week and feel somewhat confidant that what I said was not the type of posts being seen as homophobic. I hope my interpretation is correct. But, this isn't my point here.

I just wanted people in this forum to know that I, and most every other atheist on the site, feels very much the concept of being thrown under the bus and alienation here at DU. I can point most recently to the "atheist whackjob" brewhaha that was posted at RawStory and the subsequent outrage and commands that atheists just deal with it.

In short, I'm sorry for any hatred you are feeling on DU (and elsewhere) and hope you know that you have another group that can sympathize. I do what I think I can to advance the rights of GLBT in the real world. I have avoided the metadiscussion as of late because I don't want to be another "straight" that is chiming in. Let me know what I can do to help and I'll do what I can.

[Deep13]

1. Atheists pretty much live under the bus.

The only thing we have on our side is that it is easy to disguise it. We have the same acceptence in society that gays had thirty years ago.

Edit:I don't mean to suggest gays have it easy. That is not my point at all.

[jobycom]

3. My atheism has never caused me problems.

I've had more "discrimination" for having long hair and carrying a purse (manbag!), and that's usually because people see that and assume I'm gay. Frankly, I get more harrassment for being vegetarian than for anything else. I've been yelled at in restaurants for it, I was once thrown out of a restaurant for having long hair (when I was kid, too). I've never had any problems caused by my atheism. I tell people, they shrug and move on.

I don't feel that it is at all in the same category as the discrimination gays and lesbians face, in other words.

[Deep13]

6. Glad to hear it.

I mean except for the other problems you mention.

[jobycom]

10. Eh, I'm over the hair thing

especially since most of it feel out! Just a ponytail in the back of a vast desert of scalp, now. :)

[Caoimhe]

16. You have a skullet?

Say it ain't so!!!

[jilln]

11. Agreed - vegetarians get lots of discrimination

and are treated as nuts, even here on DU.

[jobycom]

12. It's still not the same type of discrimination

We get picked on, we get called nuts (and "Tofu Dude!" Well, I do, anyway!).

We don't get beaten, I've never heard an NBA star say he hated me and wouldn't accept me on his team (other than being a short white guy, but that's understandable), we can serve in the military without hiding, we are allowed to marry, if we are lucky enough to fall in love with a fellow vegetarian. Our worst discrimination is getting harassed and having very limited options at most restaurants (especially if we don't like green peppers much).

It's not the same thing.

[jilln]

13. No, I didn't mean to say it was

Although I and others I know HAVE been physically threatened for it (by hunter types and other overly aggressive people).

[jobycom]

14. You aren't confronting hunters, I hope?

If so, they will see you as the aggressive one. I'm surrounded by hunters, at work, in my family, and just around town. They don't threaten me. I get a lot of "I hate PETA!" lines, or "I belong to PETA..." (You know the routine).

I mean, they've all heard my lecture on the benefits of not eating meat, and most have heard my lectures on animal cruelty, but I'm careful not to direct the lectures at them. That's the fastest way to drive someone away from your point of view. I don't really think of hunting as any worse than regular meat eating. In some ways it is better--at least the hunter understands the cost of the meat, and accepts that cost with full understanding. The ones that upset me are the people who say "If I couldn't buy meat at the grocery store I would be a vegetarian." I hear that as "I wouldn't kill, but I have no problem paying someone else to."

Nice how I've hijacked this thread, ain't it? :rofl:

[Goblinmonger]

15. In addition to being an atheist

I'm also a vegetarian, so I know, too, of what you speak. If I were also gay, I guess I'd have the trifecta from the discussion on this thread.

[jilln]

19. plus you're a librul!

already a trifecta in some areas!

[NMMNG]

22. I'm an atheist lesbian vegetarian

I have the trifecta. :rofl:

[FreeState]

31. Nah I got you on that one

I am a short vegetarian gay mormon agnostic... (seriously - you should have seen the whole Mitt Romney is a Mormon thread before it got locked - it was just as bigoted as anything I have seen on Gays here...)


Edit to add I also do not view my self as male or female gender norm wise LOL (speaking of gender - I know Im not female because I do not have a vagina)

[NMMNG]

32. Yep, you beat me.

:-)

[jilln]

18. passing out brochures at public events...

The most vicious people feel the need to be threatening when I am being the least threatening.

I've almost been punched for handing someone a flyer. Apparently "no thanks" was not in their vocabulary.

I agree with everything you said up there... and though we may be sorta hijacking part of the thread, I bet it's something gay people can relate to - others thinking they have the right to scream at them and judge them for just being who they are, not hurting anyone in the process.

And I hate the "Oh I admire you so much, I wish I could do that... but I just love my burgers..." and "I can't watch that video, I don't want to know how it's made" (i.e., it's good enough for my mouth and stomach but too disgusting for my eyes")

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. Really? You can't get married? You can be fired? You can be denied housing?

All for being an atheist?

Wow.

[NMMNG]

23. Marriage isn't a problem

But in some backwoods areas atheists do have problems with jobs and/or housing (although this is technically illegal).

[Goblinmonger]

25. No. Yes. Yes.

Hang out in the atheist/agnostic group sometime. You'll hear the stories of people losing their jobs after they are outed as an atheist, etc., etc., etc. Check out the U of Minn study. Atheists are the lowest ranking minority in their study. People would vote for a member of every other minority group in the study, including GLBT, for public office before they would vote for an atheist. H.W. Bush declared that we shouldn't even be citizens.

I'm not trying to get in a pissing match, but I am trying to let you know that, yes, atheists and gays experience a lot of the same types of bigotry. The OP was me trying to let people in this forum that there was a group that could certainly understand and empathize about being tossed under the bus. That's it.

[Dhalgren]

2. I've noticed a serious "anti-atheist" vibe going on, here, and I have wondered

about it. I sure feel it. Do you have any ideas on the origins of this?

[Warpy]

7. Yes, misery loves company, but faith absolutely demands it

Believers know there is no empirical evidence out there for belief in the supernatural of any type beyond their own gut feelings. They absolutely depend on having other people agree with them that it's all real.

To them, it is real, something most of us unbelievers will acknowledge while we don't share it at all.

Too many of them are utterly incapable of returning the tolerance. Just knowing there are people out there who don't share what they feel is very threatening to them.

[William769]

21. Oy vey.

Pardon the pun, but talk about holier than thou! :eyes:

[Smarmie Doofus]

26. Mmmm; good one! I'm stealing it. n/t

>>>> misery loves company, but faith absolutely demands it>>>>

[idgiehkt]

30. wow, great quote

is that yours? I've never heard it explained that way.

:toast:

[Tyo]

9. Atheist and gay, checking in

Tell the truth, I haven't picked up on an ani-atheist vibe all that much here at DU. Not to say it doesn't exist, just haven't run into it much. Out in the "real world" it's a different story. People are much more comfortable with the gay part than they are with the atheist part.

Not that I go around advertising my lack of belief (the gay part is apparently pretty self-evident) but even people who are not particularly religious seem a little taken aback when they find out they are in the presence of a non-believer. Since I've been a non-believer basically since i was old enough to not-believe I'm used to it.

[NMMNG]

24. We're all evil, mean, immoral beasties.

:rofl:

[Tyo]

28. And PROUD of IT! n/t

[Warpy]

4. I'm afraid women will soon join you

pressed against the pavement while the DLC bus roars on. There is an effort out there to cozy up to religious extremists at the expense of half the party. Antichoice pols are getting more powerful in the party, and I'm afraid the civil right of women to control their own persons is going to be on the chopping block soon.

Instead of allowing the GOP to exclude more and more people until it's so pure very few are still qualified to join, the DLC, in its wisdom, is going to emulate them. They've already thrown the working class under the bus, then the GLBT community, now the atheists, and women are next.

Soon both parties will be the province of only Protestant males with money who are so unsure of their own sexuality they must disadvantage everyone else.

[Deep13]

8. I know what you mean about conservative apologists...

...but I wonder if the DLC is actually behind all that. It seems to be that procorporate DLCs and the social moderate Ds are coming from two perspectives.

[MuseRider]

17. GD right now.

It is going to happen that we are all not welcome. Where did the Democratic ideals go? I guess they are under the bus with all of us. Personally I can't think of a group of people I would rather be with than GLBT and women and everyone else who feels the heat, under the bus or not.

[Taxloss]

5. So far

I feel like I've been on the "wrong" side of the atheism debate, the antisemitism debate, and now the GLBT debate. I'm consciously limiting my involvement in this because I didn't see the Snickers ad (being in the UK), am not going to see it simply in order to feel involved, and frankly getting kicked about really isn't that fun.

That said, there are times when I think other groups feel somewhat moved to the margins - Popestock springs to mind. So I think that given a bit of time of reflect, most DUers could find themselves to be more sympathetic to these concerns than they first realised.

Somewhere out there there's a hard core of DUers who don't fall into any marginal groups. I say we find them and persecute them silly. :sarcasm:

[Smarmie Doofus]

27. Stealing this also. You get the torches....

>>>>Somewhere out there there's a hard core of DUers who don't fall into any marginal groups. I say we find them and persecute them silly.>>>>

....I'll find some pitchforks.

[Tyo]

29. Good luck finding them

Everyone falls into a marginal group of one kind or another.B-)

[TechBear_Seattle]

33. Try being a gay atheist who gets mouthy about being thrown under the bus by the Democratic Party

As far as helping, don't be afraid of looking like "another straight that is chiming in." No one can have too many allies; when they are silent, the bullies and bigots have won by default.