Inauguration “Non-believers” News Roundup

[Originally posted at Bloc Raisonneur]

It did not go unnoticed in the mainstream press that Obama explicitly highlighted atheist Americans in his inaugural address today, though coverage of that notion was mainly relegated to blogs and obscure, isolated paragraphs.

First, the passage in question (emphasis mine):

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.

We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.

Laurie Goodstein, writing for the New York Times’ important Caucus blog called the mention of nonbelievers “startling,” and leaves commentary up to Steve Waldman of BeliefNet:

[Said Waldman,] “It’s quite customary for presidents to invoke a range of different faith traditions, but they often leave non-believers out. So I thought that was notable that he included them in the pantheon. Even though in the rest of the speech he included lots of religious language, so he’s certainly not shying away from his religious roots.”

And indeed, plenty of folks are noting his heavy use of religious language as well, and noting the contrast between his and George W. Bush’s.

Also in the Caucus, Basil Katz reports on the reaction to the speech in France:

One of the things that struck the French was the overall religiosity of the inauguration. France is highly secular, and religion is seldom cited in the public sphere. Obama’s inclusion of “non-believers” in his address struck some as being notable, new, and important.

Beatrice Toulon, 53, a journalist covering cinema, said: “It really hit me when Obama cited the non-believers in his speech. It isn’t often in the States, which are very religious. To have included the non-believers testifies to his great intelligence.”

The Times‘ editorial board blogs on the topic as well, but offers little analysis or opinion beyond noting its unusualness:

To hear most American leaders tell it, the Constitutional freedom of religion allows you to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Christian Scientist, a Sikh — well you get the idea. Basically, a member of any religion. But they never talk about people who do not participate in an organized religion, or are even — gasp! — atheists.

[…]

As for his reference to atheists, the answer could be simple: Mr. Obama actually meant it when he said, “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

USA Today uses the “non-believers” mention in the headline for its piece, but really only gives it a passing mention in the lede, followed by a quote from the University of Washington’s David Domke who called it “a signature moment in American inaugural history.” Indeed it is. Similarly, BusinessWeek merely calls it “an unusual nod to atheists.”

The Wall Street Journal’s “Washington Wire” blog also reports from Seattle (why is everyone in Seattle?) that the inauguration watchers there certainly noticed atheists’ inclusion:

Muted hissing and booing could be heard from the group when an image of outgoing President George W. Bush was flashed on two large screens onto which an MSNBC broadcast was projected. There was raucous applause when the channel showed boxes being loaded into a moving van outside the White House. When President Barack Obama referred to the country as a “nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers,” cheers erupted at the mention of “non-believers” from the pews of Town Hall, a converted Christian Science church.

Phil Bronstein of the San Francisco Chronicle also mentions local cheers in relation to the same moment on his blog, but I can’t make heads or tails with his sentence construction:

… when that president gave his own speech, there was big applause throughout. I’m pretty sure, however, that nowhere else but here did the line, “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and non-believers” get its biggest ovation on the “non-believer” part.

Does that mean there was more applause or less?

Anyway, the Indianapolis Star’s blog also recognizes the significance in the context of current events:

The same may also be true for Obama’s reference to non-believers. Ironic that it should come after atheists and agnostics, the out and out secularists, have so loudly complained that the Obama inauguration had become inundated — swamped, if you will — with religious fervor. Importantly, Obama recognizes that — under America’s big tent — there is a place too for those who check ‘none of the above’ on the question of faith.

The AP notes the mention at the beginning of its piece on the overall religiousness of the ceremony:

The clergy were Protestant, and so was the new head of state. But the inauguration Tuesday of President Barack Obama aimed for a much broader audience: an increasingly diverse America, where people want their beliefs acknowledged in the nation’s most important ceremony. In his address, Obama referred to God and Scripture, saying, “the time has come to set aside childish things,” from 1 Corinthians.

But he also reached out to American secularists, calling the United States, “a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.” The Center for Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism, based in Amherst, N.Y., called recognition in the inaugural address “truly historic and remarkable.”

The most negative reaction I’ve seen, surprisingly, has been from the Great White North in the form of Chris Selley’s blog for Canada’s National Post.

Though no doubt well intentioned, it’s a weirdly formulated argument that smacks of a last-minute, ballpoint pen addition. Not believing in God isn’t a heritage, and to the extent non-believers form a community — which is quite a limited and annoying extent—I can’t think of a single thing that community has done to strengthen the nation. In fact, non-belief in God isn’t just not a heritage; it isn’t anything. The fact that I don’t believe in God, that I never believed in God, that nobody ever asked me to believe in God, that I’ve never seen any reason to suspect God exists—this forms precisely zero per cent of my identity, same as my non-belief in numerology, a flat earth and Hubbard Dianetics. Were I an American atheist, however, I’d probably still appreciate the sentiment, however forced. It would reinforce my feeling that the overall tone in the Oval Office had gotten a little bit less millennial.

I can’t tell from this if Selley is himself an atheist but irritated with American atheists, or using “I” as a hypothetical, as in, “if I were an atheist…” Either way, it’s an awfully unfair and brusque dismissal of an entire community of people, and can only be the work of someone who hasn’t read Susan Jacoby’s Freethinkers.

And to take a look at less-than-mainstream outlets (who knows what counts anymore?), we first turn to BeliefNet itself, which seeks commentary from the Secular Coalition for America’s outgoing director Lori Lipman Brown (hint to the Coalition: I’m available!):

Despite a handful of overt religious references, Obama’s nod to “non-believers” reflected the journey of a man whose parents were religious doubters, who didn’t find faith until he was an adult, and whose extended family practices diverse religions.

“The fact that he mentioned non-believers leads me to think that he is cognizant of not leaving us out,” said Lori Lipman Brown, director of the Secular Coalition of America.

Brown was also heartened at Obama’s pledge to “restore science to its rightful place,” a veiled reference to criticism that religious ideology trumped research during the Bush administration — especially in the field of bioethics.

Also heartened is Jonathan Cohn at the New Republic’s ”The Plank”:

… if the standards of polite political discourse now require accepting people who pray to god in different ways, it doesn’t require recognizing those who choose not to pray at all. At least not yet. That made [the "non-believers" mention] in Obama’s address significant […]

Perhaps this is another barrier, albeit a rhetorical one, that Obama intends to tear down over the next few years.

Here’s hoping he’s right.

The Hotline’s blog puts “non-believers” in the title of its post, but then says only, “Had to be a first reference in inaugural history.” That’s it.

Oddly, Maggie Gallagher of the National Review’s The Corner blog only saw significance in the addition of Hindus to the list of faiths.

Steven Waldman blogs at the Huffington Post that the mention was the “most consequential” part of the speech:

As far as I can tell, this is the first reference to non-believers in an inaugural address.

Non-believers are one of the largest political constituencies that politicians rarely want to acknowledge. A recent Pew Center paper reports that while 16.1% of Americans say they’re religiously unaffiliated, not a single member of Congress identifies that way. Basically, Christians, Mormons and Jews are, statistically, over-represented and unaffiliateds, agnostics and atheists are underrepresented.

Not surprisingly, they greeted Obama’s inaugural declaration with some surprise and joy. “In his Inaugural Address today, President Barack Obama finally did what many before him should have done, rightly citing the great diversity of Americans as part of the nation’s great strength and including ‘non-believers’ in that mix,” said Ed Buckner of American Atheists. “His mother would have been proud, and so are we. “

Interestingly, one of the most thoughtful reactions comes from a blog post for the Jewish Journal, in which Marty Kaplan of the USC Annenberg School for Communication (and former Mondale speechwriter) calls the shout-out to non-believers “breathtaking,” and writes:

Non-believers! For eight years, the now-departed administration’s media enablers on cable and talk radio have spat out the phrase “secular humanists” as if it denoted a species worse than communists, a traitorous fifth column of un-American doubters determined to destroy our republic. And now, finally, we have a president unafraid to declare that skepticism and rationalism have just as legitimate a claim on the public sphere and just as privileged a place in private hearts as any other approach to the mysteries of the cosmos.

Now, I bet this guy has read Freethinkers!

Let’s see if this turn of events generates even more chatter over the next couple of days, and let’s also watch how secularist/atheist groups take advantage of it. If you come across any more notable mentions and/or analysis, send ‘em on over.

Update: BBC’s Justin Webb blogs:

Non-believers are welcome in Obama’s America! [The "non-believers" mention] from his speech struck me as a rather pointed effort to include a group of Americans – those who are not blessed by God – in the general mood. […]

Not in itself a dramatic move away from faith – and he certainly was not referring to himself —but a shuffle at least away from the religiosity of the Bush years. It will be these tonal changes that make Obama’s America much more palatable to Europeans. Freethinking, in the old-fashioned sense of not professing a religion, is about to become acceptable in polite American society in a way it has not been since Richard Nixon first began the tradition of invoking the Lord whenever possible.