An Atheist at Conservative Woodstock

[cbayer]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/01/an-atheist-at-conservative-woodstock.html



AMONG THE WOLVES
03.01.15
Jack Holmes

Conservative evangelicals dominate the base of the Republican Party. Is there room for non-believers, too?
It wasn’t a coveted time slot, but Jamila Bey was happy to have it. It was day two of the Conservative Political Action Conference, and she been allotted a small window in the early afternoon to address the assembled politicos at the conservative schmoozefest in Maryland. Bey is on the board of the group American Atheists, an advocacy group “fighting for the civil liberties of atheists and the total, absolute separation of government and religion.” It was born in 1959, out of the court case Murray v. Curlett that challenged prayer in public schools.

It doesn’t seem like a faction that would be particularly welcome at CPAC’s shindig, or, indeed, in the Republican Party. Until Thursday, they weren’t.

On Feb. 24, 2014, a spokesman for the group told CNN that American Atheists would have a booth at CPAC 2014 in an effort to bring conservative atheists “out of the closet.” But the next day, Mediaite reported that they had been pulled from the event, with CPAC organizer Meghan Snyder explaining that “American Atheists misrepresented itself about their willingness to engage in positive dialogue.”

While it seems incredible that the CPAC organizers could mistake the aims of the group, considering its name, it surprised few at the time that it would not feature in a conservative event—and with good reason.

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