{"id":73549,"date":"2018-09-08T16:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T20:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=73549"},"modified":"2018-09-08T15:58:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T19:58:20","slug":"wsj-nonbelievers-seek-political-power-to-match-their-growing-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=73549","title":{"rendered":"(WSJ) Nonbelievers Seek Political Power to Match Their Growing Numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

As November\u2019s\u00a0midterm election<\/a>\u00a0approaches, nonbelievers in the U.S. are trying to build something that has long eluded them: political power.<\/p>\n

The portion of U.S. adults who don\u2019t identify with any religious group rose to 24% of the population in 2016 from 14% in 2000, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. But their political influence has lagged behind: Just 15% of voters in 2016 identified as not belonging to a religious group, according to exit polls.<\/p>\n

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A coalition of secular organizations is now determined to close that gap. This summer, they kicked off a nationwide voter registration drive, which will culminate with a get-out-the-secular-vote campaign in the fall. Their goal is also to politically galvanize nonbelievers around issues like separation of church and state and access to abortion.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s just one catch: How to unite a group of people whose common denominator is what they don\u2019t believe? And even on that point, they are heterogeneous: 16% of religiously unaffiliated Americans still describe themselves as a \u201ca religious person,\u201d according to PRRI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t meet every week. That\u2019s an issue,\u201d said Ron Millar, PAC coordinator for the Center for Freethought Equality, a nonprofit group dedicated to boosting secularists\u2019 political power.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Nonbelievers hope to translate their growing numbers into more political power, but their aversion to proselytizing can be a hurdle https:\/\/t.co\/KC1BiTQWab<\/a><\/p>\n

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n