Supreme Court rulings must spark ‘atheist’ backlash, says WaPo columnist: ‘America is not a Christian nation’
Cohen decried pro-life laws restricting abortion as ‘God-given oppression’
On Thursday, Washington Post columnist Kate Cohen proposed that America needs to embrace atheism if it is to stop the “growing power of the Christian right.”
In yet another Washington Post column decrying the recent Supreme Court decisions that overturned Roe v. Wade and protected the right of a Washington State high school football coach to pray on public school grounds, Cohen argued that the Court is promoting the tyranny of American Christians.
She opened her piece, “With its ruling last week to retract federal abortion rights, the Supreme Court essentially declared it won’t protect Americans from a powerful minority who insist their God gets to make the rules for everyone. This week, it declared it will not protect students from the coercion inherent in official-led prayers to that same God.”
In response to what she clearly presented as a dire situation, she asked, “How do we fight the growing power of the Christian right?”
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After quickly floating and scrapping the idea that we can use “another Certified Religious Group to fight back” against the Christian right. She proposed atheism, “We shouldn’t have to use one God to fight another God. We shouldn’t have to be religious to be free. What we need — and what our Constitution conveniently provides for — is freedom from all gods.”
She continued, “So how do we get there, living, as we do, in an unusually religious nation? Maybe the atheists can help. According to a recent Gallup poll, we’re already getting closer: Only 81 percent of Americans say they believe in God — a new low. It was 87 percent just five years ago,” she wrote.
Motivated by this stat, she exclaimed, “Backlash! Great idea! Atheists: Let’s lash back against Christian nationalism — and quick.” To encourage potential or discerning atheists, Cohen wrote, “Whether you come to nonbelief from disgust with organized religion, knowledge of evolutionary biology or because the whole thing just seems made up. Ask yourself: Do I believe there’s a Supreme Being in charge of the universe? No? Done.”
“Now on to our backlash,” Cohen proclaimed.
Mocking conservatives who she claimed, “work up a good backlash using bogeymen and lies,” she stated, “for our backlash, we don’t need to make anything up. To demonstrate the looming threat of theocracy, we can (as atheists tend to do) stick to the evidence: actual laws passed, platforms approved, and rulings handed down.”
Cohen then warned that “Legislators around the country are passing laws that will force women to bear children they don’t want because, in Gov. Greg Abbott’s words, ‘Our Creator endowed us with the right to life.’”
She added, “And thanks to Christian nationalism and its allies on the Supreme Court, American women have just lost all federal legal protection against this God-given oppression,” she added.
In response, she encouraged her readers to “Tell someone you’re an atheist. Start with yourself if you need to. Tell your spouse, your kids, your parents, your pastor, your political representatives. And if pollsters come calling, definitely tell them.”
“Make it clear that, to you, no legitimate public policy can be based on the supposed wishes of a supernatural being,” Cohen urged, before concluding, “America is not and has never been a Christian nation. Keeping it from turning into one may be up to us.”
