  Meeting
Report
January 19, 2003
Eddie Tabash
Breaking the Final Taboo:
Electing Atheists to Public Office
 Eddie
Tabash, who is an attorney, was the only open atheist with a reasonable
chance of winning to run for election to any legislative body in America
during 2000. He ran in the Democratic primary for an Assembly seat in the
Los Angeles area. He was defeated in the primary by a Christian Hispanic
woman who went on to win in the general election.
After an introduction by HAGSA member (and new AHA
Secretary), Ron Fegley, Eddie Tabash began by quoting poll results that
show that the electorate in America is more opposed to electing atheists
to public office than persons from any other ethnic or religious group. An
openly atheist candidate would be opposed by a majority of the voters for
that reason alone, the only non-criminal group for which that is true. Not
even openly homosexual candidates fare that badly. Mr. Tabash said that
this kind of attitude by the public is no less immoral than is racial
bigotry.
He proposed that nonbelievers adopt a strategy to elect
some of their own to public office. He used gay candidates and their
tactics as a model. He suggested that nonbelievers put aside differences
on secondary issues whenever possible and support their own candidates
when they do run. He also suggested "stealth" campaigns in which religion
would not be mentioned by a non-believing candidate. He claimed that this
tactic is justified by unreasonable public prejudices and that there is no
point in the self-defeating practice of voluntarily admitting nonbelief,
especially before taking office. He mentioned that Barney Frank did not
come out of the closet until after he had served in Congress a few years.
Mr. Tabash closed by stressing the importance of denying
George W. Bush a second term as president. The reason is that we have at
present a 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court that still supports the basic
constitutional rights of non-believers. Another Bush term will give him a
chance to appoint enough justices to change the Court’s orientation and
uphold laws that would make us second-class citizens and end the principle
of church-state separation. If that happened our only hope would be a rear
guard action in the state legislatures to preserve our rights. In that
situation, it would help if we had elected some of our own to office.
Report
prepared by Wayne Luney, HAGSA Recorder
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