7 Things Atheists Should be Fighting For
By- Dean Van Drasek
“ Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters.... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” Frederick Douglass( American activist for the abolition of slavery)
It’ s sometimes said( by Richard Dawkins, among others) that organizing atheists is akin to herding cats. We’ re often denigrated as people with no purpose; just a bunch of anti-religious individuals who aren’ t really in favor of anything.
Today, humanists are achieving victories in some countries against laws inspired by religious doctrine in the areas of women’ s rights, homosexual activities and marriage. Meanwhile, in the areas of abortion and reproductive rights, the current status is mixed, with many rights being further restricted in America, while a number of other countries are making positive progress. Transgender rights hopefully will not be far behind.
But there are other areas in which the religious have rights that should be unacceptable in a civilized society that values equal rights for all its citizens. It’ s time to fight over these preferential rights.
If we are to survive and combat oppression by the religious majorities, we need to have concrete goals and agendas for effecting real change in our society.
How do we start to accomplish these objectives? By organizing and getting active. It’ s not easy to change a nation’ s laws, but recent changes by some countries in how they treat homosexuals should give us hope that our fight for equal rights will also ultimately prove successful.
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