By SEAN FAIRCLOTH - RDFRS
Added: Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:30:15 UTC - An RDFRS Original

Richard Dawkins has a distinguished British pedigree. Struggling working class he is not. Prof. Dawkins is widely described as “strident.” Indeed the word “strident” almost seems to be a standard honorific associated with Richard Dawkins, as in “The Strident Prof. Richard Dawkins.”

Given all this, why should I care in the slightest whether the owner of some country club in Michigan cancels a reception for The Strident Prof. Dawkins? It’s a fair question. After all, the owner of the country club in question, the Wyndgate, learned from one Bill O’Reilly that The Strident Prof. Dawkins is …hold on to your chair…an atheist.

Dawkins has nice digs in Oxford. The owner or owners of this formerly obscure Michigan country club did not put the lash to the Dawkins back. Dawkins was not broken on the wheel. Dawkins will continue to be invited to receive honorary degrees and be honored at fine dinners throughout the world. Indeed Dawkins will continue to be revered by scientists and atheists from Dubuque to Darjeeling.

One Facebook post, from an atheist, called on Dawkins to quit whining. (Though, for the record, Dawkins has not whined to my observation, nor does he even plan to sue the country club despite a solid case).

However, let us also concede this entirely accurate point: Richard Dawkins will survive Wyndgate’s cancellation. The owner of the Wyndgate is apparently atheist-averse. And why can’t the owner of this Michigan country club simply make his own business decisions? It’s his country club after all?

His club. His business. His name. His decision! Quit Whining, you Strident Atheist Dawkins you!

Right. Fine. But, when you want to think differently (or think different), it’s always a good idea to think about the Beatles – so let’s:

On February 9, 1964 the Beatles landed at the newly renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport, then performed that evening on the Ed Sullivan show before the largest television audience in American history to date. America was suffering something of a clinical depression after the loss, less than three months earlier, of the man for whom the international airport had so recently been renamed.

The Beatles conveyed an optimism, an idealism, a wit, a joyous passion for life that reminded the American people that those qualities – optimism, idealism, wit, joy, passion -- did not die with one man.

Almost a half century later, February 9, 1964 is remembered with great fondness by those who survive to remember the Beatles landing; and also honored by the historians who record that day’s singularly happy place in American cultural history.

But February 9, 1964 had a much darker, and less reported side. For the New York Times reported that day on a vote of the U.S. House of Representatives. That body had passed an amendment to President Kennedy’s civil rights bill, an amendment that cut to the heart of the legislation. The entire point of the Civil Rights bill was to prohibit discrimination based on labels such as race and religious viewpoint. Yet the House had voted that there would be one specific exception to that principle: discrimination against atheists would be specifically permitted.

In accordance with the House vote, a person like Walt Whitman – some argue America’s greatest poet – could be ejected from a restaurant. Clarence Darrow – perhaps the greatest lawyer who ever lived – could be thrown out of a public accommodation such as a hotel or country club.

The future American citizen John Lennon, who later wrote the line “imagine no religion”, embodies the dual irony of February 9, 1964. Richard Nixon, in later years, was adamant that John Lennon not be accepted as an American citizen. Our House of Representatives, in February 1964, sought to offer a specific legal authorization for the Nixonian hostility to John Lennon and his godless ilk.

With a law so arbitrary, perhaps a Clarence Darrow could have pointed out, in the witch trials that surely would have ensued, that he called himself an agnostic – not an atheist, and therefore should be welcome, like a black person or a Jew, to dine in a restaurant or address a gathering at the local country club.

But when people like Richard Nixon have power -- and throughout our history there have been quite a number of people like Nixon with power -- this express authorization to discriminate would be a handy club indeed. This dirty club, designed to hit another human being because of their ideas, is an poison-tipped stick that Thomas Jefferson wanted to remove from the hands of any would-be Nixon with governmental power at his disposal.

I’m of the old-fashioned view that America is indeed the greatest nation ever to have been. I believe in American exceptionalism – as Mr. Gingrich would have it – but for an entirely different reason. I believe American exceptionalism is real, in large measure, because of the Virginia Declaration of Religious Freedom crafted by Thomas Jefferson and spearheaded by James Madison. Thomas Jefferson was clear cut: the “infidel” was expressly protected under Jefferson’s definition of religious freedom. This Virginia law became the model for the First Amendment to the Constitution, insisted upon by Jefferson, and spearheaded by Madison. Jefferson described the First Amendment as a “wall of separation” between church and state.

In our most bloody war, Abraham Lincoln aspired to apply the protection of minority rights, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, not only to federal law, but to the states as well. There were cries of “states rights” -- and local control -- but Lincoln and his allies were of the view that human rights cannot and must not be voted away by the majority, whether the thugocracy was national or local. When the 14th Amendment passed shortly after Lincoln’s assassination, one might imagine that justice would be finally enforced. As it turned out, the enforcement of that principle – civil rights for all, both federal and state – was many decades in coming.

Shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination, the Civil Rights Act, for which Kennedy had so eloquently called, was still at risk of failure, almost one hundred years since the passage of the 14th Amendment, and almost two centuries after passage of the Virginia Statue of religious freedom.

The Civil Right Act of 1964, as it turned out, ultimately did not include the vicious House amendment authorizing discrimination against atheists. The United States Senate -- yes these things sometimes happen -- did the right thing, and rejected the ugly amendment that so directly contradicted the values of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Atheists, America decided in 1964, are actually human beings -- to be treated like any other human being. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is justly revered as the greatest legislation of the 20th Century because – finally – the law enforced the ideals that Jefferson espoused and Lincoln hoped to secure in our horrific Civil War.

When the Beatles landed in 1964, America felt their joyousness, their optimism, their idealism and their passion. America also felt their irreverent – sometimes very irreverent – honesty and candor. Like Jack Kennedy, the Beatles made us glad to be alive. Some people radiate passion and candor has a beauty all its own. Certain people can exude the truth so energetically, so passionately, that they almost crackle -- like a dynamo – like an electric force.

The infidel poet Walt Whitman was such a person. The infidel lawyer Clarence Darrow was such a person. The infidel songwriter John Lennon was a person. And the infidel scientist Richard Dawkins is such a person. Such rare people challenge us to be true to our better selves. It is up to each one of us whether we choose to be the better for it, or we choose, as many do, to retreat into timidity -- armed with petty excuses and recriminations.

The timid among us, those who are threatened by truth and idealism and integrity and passion, resort to calling Whitman “strident”. They call Darrow “strident” because honesty forces the timid to see their own timidity -- and they are ashamed -- and so the timid form a gang bent on tearing down those whose honesty is so discomforting. Recently, during a televised Republican CNN debate Newt Gingrich stated “how can you have judgment if you have no faith? And how can I trust you with power if you don't pray?” There is an irony to the concept of Newt Gingrich asserting that his judgment and trustworthiness are superior to Warren Buffett, Bill Gates – and Richard Dawkins. But watching a politician pander is better even than a weatherman if you want to know which way the wind blows. And the pandering of Gingrich, Perry and their ilk has never been more craven.

So, yes, being tossed from some obscure country club won’t hurt Richard Dawkins. Richard Dawkins is a man who, through earning his own way as a great scientist, does indeed hold a place of privilege, yet that earned rank of merit is sometimes dismissed -- because the timid find his honesty threatening. When the Detroit Free Press reported that Dawkins – an atheist, they blared – had been booted from a Michigan country club, the paper did not mention his many honorary degrees. They did not mention that he earned his way, through scientific reasoning and many eloquent books, into both the Royal Society and the Royal Society for Literature. To the Detroit Free Press apparently, once an atheist, that is all you are. No, they did not list his qualifications, but the qualifications Dawkins has earned, through the power of his mind and effort, do protect him more than others in society as a whole.

And this, in the final analysis, is why we should care that Richard Dawkins was booted from a country club in Michigan. Because if this can happen to Richard Dawkins – if the Detroit Free Press can ignore his vast qualifications and define Dawkins almost exclusively as an atheist – then what can happen to the woman of principle who is the clerk in a store and gets fired because of her honest adherence to her own values? What can happen to the school teacher dismissed from a school because of his honest lack of religious belief?

I have catalogued in my book numerous ways in which religious bias harms real people. We are not talking about a cross on public land (which I oppose). We are talking about religious bias in American policy that harms real people in the military, at the end of life, as children, in health care, in employment discrimination, in land use law, in education, and in other areas of American life.

In truth, the injustice to Richard Dawkins, by virtue of his very prominence, underscores the more insidious, more widespread, and most frequently ignored injustices to average citizens as a result of religious bias in American policy.

We are forced to ask, if this can happen to Richard Dawkins (who has the clout to speak for himself), who will speak out for the janitor, the school teacher, or the clerk when they dare to stand up to a thuggish bully like the owner of the Wyngate Country Club?

The Richard Dawkins Foundation US stands ready to confront these bullies -- like the owner of the Wyndgate, and the blustery politicians who will say anything to pander to the loud crowd. We will stand up to those who dare to smear their oily maliciousness on the Constitution of the United States of America. We will stand up to those who trash the most revered legislation of the 20th Century, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Richard Dawkins Foundation stand ready to work with you, to organize, and speak out.

Here is the email of the Wyndgate Hotel: info@thewyndgate.com

Make sure to let the owner know, by expressing yourself with a dignity worthy of Jefferson, that he betrayed our Constitution and the values of our founders, the values of Lincoln and the values enshrined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We politely demand an apology on behalf of all Americans who revere justice.

Sean Faircloth, is the Director of Strategy and Policy RDFRS U,S.. He is author of the upcoming book Attack of the Theocrats: How the Religious Right Harms Us All and What We Can Do About It. Advance copies are available in the RDFRS store in the link above. Faircloth served ten years in the Maine legislature. In his final term he was elected Majority Whip by his caucus colleagues. At the Secular Coalition for America Faircloth devised and led the Secular Decade strategic plan. Faircloth speaks widely on separation of church and state, the Constitution, and secular strategy.

Faircloth served as opening speaker for Richard Dawkins' Fall 2011 tour of the United States, and he will do so again in spring 2012.

TAGGED: ATHEISM, RICHARD DAWKINS