By Sikivu Hutchinson

As Prop 8’s lead attorney trotted out the standard Christian fascist “marriage is only for procreation” party line before the Supreme Court yesterday, I was reminded of a 2012 Los Angeles Times story about the changing demographics of California families.  The article leads with an idyllic portrait of a white lesbian-headed family whose daughter is asked “on a leafy drive…at a newly renovated home with cathedral ceilings and a backyard pool” why she has three mommies.  According to the U.S. Census, families are becoming less nuclear, headed up by more single parents, childless couples and LGBT couples with children.  Yet family diversity is only a revelation in the mainstream media, which continue to promote the model of nuclear family-hood, even if it is provisionally represented by elite white gay “The Kids Are Alright-style” yuppie throwbacks with photogenic children.  Historically, families of color have always been diverse by culture, economic necessity and social obligation.  Extended African American family networks of adult caregivers, gay and straight, related and un-related, have always contributed to childrearing.  When racist/sexist criminal sentencing policies, joblessness and inequitable access to housing loosened or precluded “traditional” family ties, multi-generational family networks were the glue.  As the recession intensifies these stressors, grandparents, aunts, adoptive parents, foster parents and “play cousins” from all walks of life increasingly become frontline providers for African American children.  Thus, the Times’ snapshot of affluent comfort contrasts with the realities of many LGBT families of color who struggle to stay above the poverty line.  Further, the depiction of white childrearing and parenting as the de facto norm contributes to the national narrative that non-traditional families of color can never represent an authentic model of family.

In reality, the numbers of same-sex families of color are increasing, especially in traditionally conservative Bible Belt regions in the South.  African American strongholds like Atlanta have seen a new black “re-migration” driven by the ripple effect of high unemployment, foreclosures, and gentrification in northern urban black communities.  According to Family Equality, LGBT families are “more racially and ethnically diverse than families headed by married heterosexual couples.  Of same-sex couples with children, 41% are people of color, compared to 34% of married different-sex couples with children.”  Impacted by racism, sexism, heterosexism, and segregation, same-sex families of color are also more likely to be near the poverty line and hence more reliant on public social welfare and health care assistance.  Nonetheless, when textbooks, TV shows, and Hollywood films envision culturally “diverse” LGBT families it is through the lens of privileged white middle class folk who have “benevolently” decided to adopt a child of color (ala the white gay couple on the sitcom “Modern Family”) or used expensive reproductive technology to have children.  In this context, marriage equality merely secures white wealth and white patriarchy, as white gay families also benefit from segregated neighborhoods and schools, tax credits for middle class homeowners, and higher-paying jobs.  Complex families of color that are either headed by single gay or straight parents are marginalized as inherently dysfunctional, welfare-dependent and socially borderline.  Loving gay partners of color with children are nonexistent.

This media white-out has insidious implications for both straight and gay children of color.  If gay children of color don’t see loving adult gay and lesbian caregivers then they will continue to internalize their own dehumanization.  If straight children of color don’t see loving representations of LGBT parents and families of color, gayness will still be viewed as a lifestyle choice, a sin in the eyes of God and “white” deviance.  In 2011, the California State Assembly passed a bill requiring that the contributions of LGBT communities and historical figures be taught in K-12 classrooms.  There is little evidence that this well-intentioned law has any teeth, as Ellen DeGeneres is the only prominent lesbian most high school students seem to know and most dialogue on homophobia never progresses beyond a token lesson on bullying.  In my gender justice work with high school students, I’ve used films and texts such as That’s a Family, Straightlaced, Rethinking Schools and Christine Sleeter’s “Turning on Learning” guidebook.  Yet there are virtually no secondary school resources that address the racialization of gender and sexuality.  Curricula and pedagogy that deal with the particular way hetero-normativity plays out for youth of color in a white supremacist culture where black and Latino sexuality is already demonized as savage and pathological, are few and far between.

Moreover, the absence of public conversation around the role religious bigotry plays in the epidemic of homelessness amongst African American youth is a critical blind spot.  Despite all the hype around gay-friendly congregations (as well as recent data suggesting black gays and lesbians are just as invested in religious communities as straights), cultural messages about the sin of homosexuality as an affront to masculinity and the “ideal” of strong black families headed by good black patriarchs are still widespread in black communities.  Nationwide, increasing numbers of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning) youth of color are becoming homeless due to overt anti-gay harassment, emotional/physical abuse and lack of social acceptance by their families and communities.  LGBTQ black and Latino youth are also more likely to be suspended and expelled than are white LGBTQ youth.  With African American children comprising nearly 40% of the nation’s foster care and homeless youth populations, culturally responsive feminist approaches to caregiving and family sustainability are crucial. Living in a culture in which they are reminded daily of their non-existence by a white supremacist heterosexist nation that deifies straight white beauty ideals and views affordable housing as a privilege, some LGBT homeless youth of color resort to destructive behaviors like survival sex and drug abuse.   Demographic patterns have long shifted to make whites a minority in the U.S.  Yet mainstream media is still in the segregationist Ozzie and Harriet era when it comes to the realities of families of color, buttressing bankrupt social welfare policies that expose the Christian fascist sham of American “family” values.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars and the forthcoming Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels.

March 14th is the International Day to Defend Apostates and Blasphemers. We stand in solidarity with the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and courageous activists like Maryam Namazie to highlight and protest cases of draconian persecution worldwide:

“Countless individuals accused of apostasy and blasphemy face threats, imprisonment, and execution. Blasphemy laws in over 30 countries and apostasy laws in over 20 aim primarily to restrict thought, expression and the rights of Muslims, ex-Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

On 14 March 2013, we, the undersigned, call for an international day of action to defend apostates and blasphemers worldwide by highlighting ten cases though there are countless more…”

Alex Aan, Indonesia: 30 year old atheist, in prison for blasphemy for saying there is no god on Facebook. Sign Petition Here.

Abdul Aziz Mohammed Al-Baz (also known as Ben Baz), Kuwait: Blogger and atheist charged with blasphemy.  Support him here.

Turki Al Hamad, Saudi Arabia: Novelist in prison for Tweets critical of Islam and Islamism. Write Letter Here!

Raif Badawi, Saudi Arabia: Charged with apostasy for setting up a website that “harms the public order and violates Islamic values”. Sign Petition.

For a complete list of individuals see:

http://ex-muslim.org.uk/2013/03/14-march-2013-international-day-to-defend-apostates-and-blasphemers/

By Paula Giddings

By Sikivu Hutchinson

At an early age, black girls are branded as public menaces. They are suspended and expelled for “defiance” at greater rates than white boys who commit actual felony offenses. They pack the juvenile halls and adult prisons of the most prolific “first world” jailer on the planet. In textbook history, their connection to radical social change begins and ends with a saintly defanged Rosa Parks, while white women assume center stage in the women’s movement. There is little mainstream feminist discourse linking black women’s historical erasure with their criminalization; no women’s rights outrage over how the disfigurement of black women’s image buttresses mass incarceration.

In their landmark 1982 anthology on black feminism, Gloria Hull, Barbara Smith and Patricia Bell Scott proclaimed that “all the women are white, all the blacks are men, but some of us are brave.”  Perhaps no other early twentieth century feminist embodied the spirit of this sentiment more fiercely than anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells.  A giant of the independent black press, and an early media literacy educator, Wells’ leadership and uncompromising vision continue to reverberate for black women. In an era in which International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month inspires only token attention — and then mostly to heroic white women – in American public education, her visionary organizing has been criminally marginalized.  Long before daycare and leave time, Wells, like scores of other “faceless” activist black women, was a caregiver navigating the divide between her domestic responsibilities and her life’s work as the most militant media watchdog of her time.

Accused of not knowing her place because she challenged the vacuum in male leadership around lynching, Wells struggled for recognition and compensation for her work.  The constant juggling of her roles as writer, activist, orator and mother loomed large in both her public and private stance on women’s rights.  Wells once boasted that she was perhaps the only nursing mother to travel nationwide to give political addresses.  After the birth of her second child she announced that she was retiring from public activism to devote all her energies to motherhood.  Three months later she came blazing back onto the national stage in protest of the lynching of a black postmaster and his family.

In her fearless defense of lynching victims and African Americans’ right to due process, Wells often bucked the backward conventional wisdom of the era.  When she began her campaign against lynching in the late 19^th century there wasn’t consensus among African Americans that lynching was worthy of a national social justice movement, nor was there agreement about the terroristic sexual politics that motivated white lynch mobs.  Wells was perhaps the first journalist to speak out on the racist and sexist implications of lynching.  In her editorials she consistently blasted the hypocrisy of white savagery against black men accused of raping white women and exposed the long history of black female sexual exploitation by white men.  Catapulted into twenty first century America, Wells might not be surprised at the power that this legacy has had on contemporary media images of black femininity.  She might not be surprised that reconciling black liberation struggle with feminism is still dicey.  As an outspoken suffragist and defender of the black female image she would have choice words for the young woman who told me recently that it’s ok when she’s addressed as a bitch or a ho because “I know I’m not one.”  As a Chicago organizer ever skeptical of black politicians, she might have initially celebrated the election of Barack Obama then used her bully pulpit to separate the rhetoric of post-racial inclusion from the reality of racial apartheid.  And as an early critic of western gunboat diplomacy she would have seen a clear connection between the U.S. government’s interventionist policies and its imperial relationship with over-incarcerated black communities.

Despite her challenges to the American criminal justice system, her long record of publication at home and abroad, and her influence on Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois (both of whom were ambivalent if not threatened by her single-mindedness), Wells’ legacy remains undervalued.  Eclipsed by the cult of charismatic masculinity that privileged the contributions of male leaders like Douglas and DuBois, her relative obscurity parallels her conflicts with a black political establishment that deemed her too radical for her gender.  Remarking that “the people must know before they can act, and there is no educator to compare with the press,” Wells remains a beacon of justice and a testament to the radical power of black feminist media literacy.

In a nation in which economic inequality, racial wealth gaps, mass incarceration of people of color and Christian fascist mobilization have become the rule, what are some examples of culturally relevant atheist and humanist activism?

On Friday, March 8th at 7pm, the DePaul Alliance for Free Thought, in association with the Secular Student Alliance, Center for Inquiry, African Americans for Humanism, and the Women’s Center at DePaul will host a groundbreaking panel on the state of atheism, its current predicaments regarding discrimination, and attempts to chart a path towards greater involvement in the world at large. Among other things, this provocative, timely discussion will unpack the barriers to a social, gender and racial justice vision and agenda of atheist/humanist activism.

This event is free and open to the public.

Room 103 of DePaul’s Arts and Letters Hall
2315 N. Kenmore Ave.
DePaul University
Chicago, IL 60614

Featured Panelists are:

Ian Cromwell

• Activist and writer at FreethoughtBlogs

Sikivu Hutchinson

• Founder of the Women’s Leadership Project
• Writer and senior intergroup specialist for the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission
• AAH Advisor

Ashley F. Miller

• Writer and activist, blogger at FreethoughtBlogs
• Currently getting PhD in Mass Communications, focusing on Women’s Studies and Reality TV

Anthony Pinn

• Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies at Rice University
• First African American to hold an Endowed Chair at Rice University
• AAH Advisor

Stephanie Zvan

• Assistant President of Minnesota Atheists
• Blogger at FreethoughtBlogs

By Sikivu Hutchinson

“If you’ve seen a black or Latino person portrayed as a criminal on TV within the past twenty-four hours stand up.  If you’ve seen a black or Latino person portrayed as a professional on TV recently stand up.”  These were the two powerful icebreaker questions my students asked the audience in a room packed with

9-12^th graders during a recent Youth of Color college panel at Washington Prep High School in South Los Angeles.  Virtually everyone in the room stood up for the first question.  Six people stood up for the second.  One student wanted clarification on what a professional was.

According to the Education Trust-West, only “20 percent of African-American ninth-graders who graduate from high school four years later do so having completed the A-G coursework needed for admission to the University of California or California State University”.  The report estimates that “if current trends continue” only one in twenty black students in Los Angeles county will go on to a four year college or university.  Massive sequestration-generated cuts to early childhood education and K-16 will only deepen these disparities.

At the college panel, young African American and Latino first-generation graduates of Princeton, UCLA, UC San Diego and the California Institute of the Arts spoke candidly about the high stakes climate students of color face in higher education.  A decade of racist anti-affirmative action propaganda has sanitized public discussions about racial politics in higher ed.  Indeed, many education activists predict that the ultra-conservatives on the Supreme Court will strike down affirmative action policy in a landmark case involving the University of Texas.  But, for many student activists, pretending like the racial playing field is level, and that white college students face the same conditions as students of color, is no longer an option. Skyrocketing unemployment amongst African American college graduates has permanently stymied upward mobility for many working class blacks struggling to “make it” into the middle class. According to a 2005 Princeton University study, even white former felons got offered jobs at slightly greater rates than did black job applicants with no criminal records.*  The cultual presumption of white innocence (despite a criminal past), coupled with the stereotype of black incompetence/untrustworthiness, is still deep and intractable.

During the forum, Princeton University graduate and community organizer Brandon Bell talked about the assumption some white biochemistry instructors had that he wouldn’t be able to cut the rigorous coursework.  Coming from the highly-regarded King Drew Medical Magnet in Compton, he was saddled with the perception of being an affirmative action admission (while his white legacy peers skated by with their meritocratic silver spoons in their mouths).  Undocumented youth activist Edna Monroy spoke of being one of only three Latinas in her graduating class to go to UCLA.  California’s draconian Proposition 209 prohibited affirmative action at public colleges and universities and dramatically reduced black and Latino admissions to elite UCs.  Even though she’d been a straight-A student in high school, Edna struggled during her first year at UCLA because she hadn’t had college caliber coursework before.  Graduate student Diane Arellano spoke of being viewed as less than competent because she was the only Latina in the photography department at prestigious Cal Arts; where high profile disciplines like directing and animation (fount of the Pixar empire) were almost exclusively white male.  Brandon and Edna’s experiences highlight the institutional challenges that often prevent students of color from even getting to college—i.e., inadequate preparation at the middle and high school level, overcrowded classrooms, low caliber teachers, and racist/sexist stereotypes that translate into low academic expectations.  The Ed Trust report criticizes racially disparate suspension policies that disproportionately “pipeline” black students to juvenile detention.  Coupled with federal policy (such as the Obama administration’s Race to the Top “accountability” initiative) that mandates high stakes tests and relentlessly promotes charter schools, the over-suspension of black students is a national travesty.

Following a national trend, billionaire outsiders like Michael Bloomberg, the Walton Family Foundation, and the Broad Foundation have poured millions into Los Angeles charter schools.  Charter privatization is a major driver of school re-segregation.  Charter re-segregation buttresses disparities in home buying, homeownership, and employment amongst African Americans of all class backgrounds.  A recent Brandeis University report concluded that the wealth gap between blacks and whites has increased dramatically from 1984 to 2009.  White wealth derives from greater home equity, investments, and inheritances from family.  By contrast, the bulk of black and Latino wealth comes from one place—homeownership.  Because whites of all classes live in higher income neighborhoods than do African Americans (and have benefited from lower interest rates, longer term homeownership, greater access to social amenities, living wage job centers and better-resourced schools), white privilege continues to be the engine for white upward mobility.

But there is no federal policy that specifically addresses these disparities.  The Obama administration’s “colorblind” remedies for the mortgage meltdown have been piecemeal, fragmented, and grossly inadequate for the economic crisis of communities of color.  Even as President Obama forges ahead with a more “liberal” second term agenda, the administration’s robber baron race-to-the-bottom corporate education policy and its indifference to the scourge of mass incarceration underscore the lie of the American dream.  It means that students like Brandon, Edna, and Diane know that they will have to work ten times as hard as their white counterparts who can still bank on earning a nice wage of whiteness in a “post-racial” age.

*The study was based on testers (some posing as ex-offenders) applying to nearly 1500 job openings in New York city and concludes that, “Black job seekers fare no better than whites just released from prison.”

By Frederick Sparks

On the day the statue honoring civil rights icon Rosa Parks was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol,  stark reminders  of persistent socio-economic disparities between blacks and whites remain.  And comments from a sitting Supreme Court justice show inexcusable blindness in high places.

A Brandeis University study found that the gap in racial wealth has tripled since the Reagan era, The gap between black and white wealth rose from $85,000 in 1984 to $236,500 in 1989, with the median net worth for white households at $265,000 versus $28,500 for black households.   The research reveals that the disparity in home ownership is a significant factor, with the homeownership rate for whites being 28% higher than the comparable rate for blacks. The study notes the higher rate of home equity growth for whites is attributable in part to the historical wealth advantages that make it far likely for white homeowners to receive family assistance or inheritance that allow them to both purchase their first homes sooner and make larger down payments and upfront payments which lower interest paid, as well as residential segregation which places a cap on home equity in majority black neighborhoods.  The disparities have also been exacerbated by the Great Recession and accompanying meltdown in the housing market.

Against this backdrop the Supreme Court is in the process of considering the constitutionality of provisions of the Voting Rights Act that require states and municipalities with a history of racial discrimination to seek preclearance from the Justice Department or a federal court before making changes to their voting laws.  Despite well-known voting problems during the most recent presidential election that appeared to disproportionately impact black voters, the plaintiffs are arguing that these enforcement positions are no longer necessary.  And Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia called the repeated reauthorization of Section 5 of the voting rights act  “a perpetuation of racial entitlement” which creates a situation that would spell political suicide for any poor politician voting against it.   Scalia’s comments so shocked fellow Justice Sonia Sotomayor that in the final moments of closing arguments she asked one of the lawyers for the challengers if he agreed with Scalia’s description of “racial entitlement”;  the lawyer declined to endorse Scalia’s statement.

Sotomayor also had perhaps the best comment of the day, directed towards attorneys representing Shelby County, Tenn, which is seeking to overturn the enforcement provisions : “Assuming I accept your premise, and there’s some question about that, that some portions of the South have changed, your county pretty much hasn’t,” Sotomayor said of Shelby County, which is 90 percent white. “In the period we’re talking about, it has many more discriminating -­- 240 discriminatory voting laws that were blocked by Section 5 objections. … You may be the wrong party bringing this.”  Thank you, wise Latina.

Handicappers however place the odds fairly high that Shelby county will prevail, given the 5 “conservative” justices who appear lined up to rule in their favor.

by Frederick Sparks

A few years ago I wrote a post overviewing the (limited) portrayals of black atheist characters in popular television and film. In it, I argued that more numerous portrayals of black nonbelieving characters (particularly in a positive light) would go a long way in normalizing the experience of black nonbelievers, in the same way that I believe increasing portrayals of gay characters in popular culture both reflects and influences growing gay acceptance.

Well, we certainly aren’t there yet, as the Friendly Atheist describes in his post about a recent episode of “Belle”, a sitcom offering on TV One, a black oriented cable network. In the episode, the daughter of the main family brings home a seemingly perfect beau who reveals one “flaw”..he’ s an atheist.

As Hemant points out, the writers pass up the opportunity to challenge the traditional thinking around this issue, instead choosing to easily dispatch of the controversy by having the young woman doubt her beau’s “heart” because he’s a nonbeliever.

By Frederick Sparks

Black Skeptics Los Angeles observed the Day of Solidarity for Black Non-Believers with a visit to the California African-American Museum (CAAM) followed by lunch at a south Los Angeles restaurant.

CAAM is located in Exposition Park, part of a complex of museums  (including the science museum that now houses the Space Shuttle Endeavor) near the University of Southern California, and began formal operations in 1981 with the mission to “research, collect, preserve and interpret for public enrichment the history, art and culture of African Americans with an emphasis on California and the western United States.”  The collections toured by the group included one titled  “Go Tell it On the Mountain” , which focused on the role of Christianity in black American life, including a commentary on religious hypocrisy that has apparently solicited negative reactions from some of the museum’s religious patrons.   Also of note was an exhibit devoted to the history and art collection of the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, the largest black owned insurance company in the western United States, which was established in the mid 1920s to offer life insurance policies to African Americans otherwise unable to obtain policies.

The group followed the museum visit with lunch at Post and Beam, a welcome addition to an area of South Los Angeles that suffers the distinction of being a “cuisine desert” of mostly fast food restaurants despite being adjacent to one of the largest concentrations of affluent African Americans in the state. A collaboration between former Spago chef and Inglewood native Govind Armstrong and Los Angeles restauranteur Brad Johnson, Post and Beam also features a patio area with a herb and vegetable garden that provides ingredients for the restaurant’s selections.

Karly Jeter

Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) student and Gardena High School senior Karly Jeter recently won a prestigious Posse Foundation Scholarship to attend the Hobart and William Smith Colleges in the fall as a pre-med student.  She is a cancer survivor, and her experiences have inspired her to be an oncologist.  Although she is passionate about science and medicine, Karly is typically only one of two or three black students in her Advanced Placement classes at Gardena.  Reflecting back on her junior year, she recounted when her AP English teacher excluded her from a list of students (all Asian and Latino) he predicted would pass the mock AP exam.  When she was one of the few who passed he accused her of cheating.   In her chemistry class she and other African American students were routinely criticized by their teacher as having no other ambition in life besides playing sports.

By Naima Washington

It is a sad fact that people of color, particularly African American nonbelievers, are alienated within the secular community.  Among the ‘faith’ communities, even those with the most racist and sexist doctrines, continue to do whatever it takes (and make no apologies) as they aggressively recruit and make space in their communities for people of color.  Based on their disinterest in any recruiting efforts, the leadership of the secular community is apparently very proud of the fact that they, on the other hand, have few people of African descent in leadership positions as well as very few members.  While there is no genuine intent or concerted plan to change this situation, many attempt to explain this phenomena by claiming that black folk are just too addicted to religion; otherwise, those of us who aren’t addicted to religion are either nominal or closet atheists, and therefore, need not be taken seriously.  During the past 25 years, I belonged to many secular organizations; it was indeed a challenge to remain in them.

When African American atheists attempt to expand their visibility and participation in the secular community by organizing with other nonbelievers—especially those who have been historically ignored by the leadership of the secular community—to publicly celebrate their freedom from religious dogma; when we ask everyone in the secular community to celebrate along with us, and we set aside one day out of the entire year to do so, there’s a problem! Last year, some very intelligent and insightful atheists declared efforts to organize a Day of Solidarity for Black Non-believers as segregation! Those same people are otherwise dead silent about the segregation, hostility, and alienation directed towards black atheists within the secular community year-round.

In 2012, author Donald Wright and I sent out nearly 400 written requests to secular organizations as well as individuals asking that they support the Day of Solidarity by posting a promotional piece on their websites and asking that they plan a Day of Solidarity in their own communities.  Over 90% of those requests were met with silence, not only from white atheists, but from people of color as well. There were also positive responses to the Day of Solidarity. And, quite frankly, the secular community is better off because of those responses and the entire secular community ought to celebrate not only independent thinkers but independent activists as well. Yet the current trend is to support inertia, self-promotion, and those who aren’t particularly motivated to make waves.

While I can think of none, there may be legitimate reasons to not support the Day of Solidarity; however failing to support it because it represents independent actions on the part of independent thinkers in the secular community isn’t a legitimate reason. The Day of Solidarity can be celebrated by anyone who cares to do so; and while it is hoped that many people celebrate it, that fact is that its ‘success’ isn’t dependent on any one group and whether two people in 20 communities or 20 people in two communities plan events is irrelevant. Its success lies only in the fact that those who want to mark the fourth Sunday in February—Black History Month—will do so in their own community in their own way. Who would be harmed by these independent actions?

In 2011, Donald Wright first proposed holding a Day of Solidarity for Black Non-believers without asking anyone’s permission; he didn’t wait to see if hundreds of people would line up behind the idea before taking that first step and creating a Day of Solidarity in Houston, Texas. Although there doesn’t seem to be much promotion for the Day of Solidarity this year, no one has to wait for permission to celebrate the Day of Solidarity either. If anyone, anywhere, wants to celebrate the DoS, please, go right ahead and create your own event; contact other nonbelievers in your own community and decide how you’d like to spend that time with each other: share a meal; visit an art gallery or museum; go see a movie or a play; go ice-skating; etc. Make some phone calls, post your event on your own Facebook page as well as on the DoS Facebook page; celebrate, and remain an activist—not just a joiner—for the rest of the year; make a commitment to social change. Right now, what society needs are people who are committed to social change; we have enough talkers, and in order to create meaningful change, we must each assume leadership by doing the right thing—with or without company!

The future as well as the integrity of the secular community depends not on people who do as they are told, but on those of us who are both independent thinkers and activists.