Interview with Lori Lipman-Brown of the Secular Coalition
Just a quick hit to let ya’ll know there’s a great interview up at Nevada Today with Lori Lipman-Brown of the Secular Coalition. I especially enjoyed and agreed with her statement that we should, as the most hated minority group in America, try to avoid unnecessary conflicts with each other.
Do you ever worry that by lumping all nontheists, humanists, atheists etc. into a single category, and then tackling specific issues, you might be misrepresenting anyone? Can a humanist/non-religious individual be, for example, anti-abortion or against stem-cell research?
This is exactly why we do not take a position on abortion. We do however support embryonic stem cell research because attempts to protect blastacysts at that stage are based on theological notions of a soul being imbued at the moment of conception.
Occasionally some of our supporters disagree with us on an issue, but I’ve often supported groups with which I don’t agree 100 percent of the time. For example, we opposed the anti-same-sex-marriage amendment last year on the grounds that, while religious organizations are free to choose whom they will marry, we do not believe that a theological definition should be imposed on the civil contract of marriage. One of our supporters, an atheist, told me that he had very strong beliefs about gender roles and he believed civil marriage was for the purpose of men taking care of women, and therefore he saw it as a non-religious argument about gender roles.
In any event, I don’t believe it does us any good to engage in infighting. We are already the most hated minority group; we need to come together even though we are a diverse population encompassing every political, ethnic, age, etc. realm. We can disagree on some specifics, but that should never interfere with the larger goal of eliminating the prejudices and unfair treatment. That’s what the Secular Coalition for America is all about: bringing diverse nontheist groups together to support each other and make us all stronger politically. I also work well with nontheist groups that are not members of my organization, as well as theistic allies. They are also essential in our struggle.
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Thanks for posting this. I hadn’t seen it yet.
I still can’t believe that American Atheists won’t join the Secular Coalition.