If we’ve learned anything in this election, it’s that atheists may be the final group of people in the United States that it is okay to discriminate against. Muslims are apparently still in the running, but atheists are fair game to all, and supported by none.

Take for instance the Senatorial race in North Carolina, where incumbent Elizabeth Dole is facing a challenge from Democrat Kay Hagan. In the last week, Dole has put out a campaign video accusing Hagan of being “godless”, accepting “godless money”, and dubbed a fake voice-over of Hagan saying “there is no God.”

There are three major problems I have here:

One, that playing to her base, accusing someone of atheism is about as bad of an insult as Dole can throw. There are many, many people who would not vote for someone just because of their lack of belief in God. Hagan attended an event that was hosted by some people associated with an atheist organization. This, in North Carolina politics, is apparently as bad as not believing. “Palling around with atheists” is as bad as palling around with terrorists, it seems.

Two, Kay Hagan isn’t even an atheist, she just apparently knows some. Hagan is a former Sunday School teacher, and her church-going resume is distinguished. She’s being called an atheist as a lying insult by Dole. Can you really be guilty by association for knowing atheists?

And three, that spitting on atheism, as if it’s some infectious disease, is completely acceptable. Everyone is rushing to the defense of Hagan here, and calling Dole’s campaign dirty, but no one has stood up for atheists. You know, we actually get a vote. We’re not all convicted felons. Some of us are good people, and like it or not, you need our vote. There’s way more of us out here than you want to admit or acknowledge, Mrs. Dole.

In a related story, Barack Obama’s aides may or may not have severely insulted atheists at a recent event. According to the atheists.org No God Blog, this quote was linked to someone at an Obama event:

“Senator Obama has a policy director and an advisor for many different faiths. He has nothing on atheists or agnostics. There’s not this grand effort for the Democrats to reach out to a group of pagans to try to get them to vote for Senator Obama.”

I say someone because they are having some difficult pinning down just who the quote gets attributed to. There have been some phone conversations back and forth, so check back with the No God Blog for updates.

But more than likely, someone said it. Obama has a large amount of support from atheists, even if they are just people running from conservative Christians. I would think that they should be doing all they can to not upset atheists. In today’s world, you can’t openly associate with or support atheists (see above), but you don’t have to be so outright insulting. Maybe Obama should make some type of grand effort to get the Pagan vote.

We’ve seen in the past, religion is a major factor in elections. And we also know that over the years, the number of non-religious or atheist people has continued to grow.

The only logical conclusion you can draw from all of this is that atheism is still despised by all, and no one with any real power in this country gives a damn about those of us “godless” people with a vote. Hell, Lou Dobbs apparently didn’t even know we existed.

Every one of us was born an atheist. Just because you learned to believe in a God doesn’t make you any better than me. More importantly, it doesn’t make me any worse than you.

Sadly, I would have a better chance of winning public office if I said I believed in Zeus, than if I were to say that I was an atheist. But that’s politics in the 21st century.

Since nobody will elect an atheist, I suppose we need someone already in office to support us. Perhaps someone in Congress will grow some balls and take a chance on supporting people who are discriminated against so openly.

I can dream, right?

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