Can the American Secular Movement Listen to Its Better Angels?

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Editor’s notes: Shortly before press time, Chrissy Stroop received notice that the Freedom From Religion Foundation will be honoring her with a Freethought Heroine award in October. This award was not offered in exchange for favorable treatment or other consideration in this article, which had already entered copyedits at the time of the notification. Also, Gmail might clip this post due to its size. In case you’re unable to see the whole post, click here to read it on browser.

I’m trying to assess the state of the secular movement in the United States, and I want to believe Kat Grant when they tell me “progress is slow, but it is happening.”

Grant’s optimism is noteworthy in light of the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s choice to publish a disinformation-packed anti-trans screed on their Freethought Now blog last December as a cruel rejoinder to Grant’s own pointed post debunking reductionist biological definitions of womanhood. FFRF published the bigoted response in that spirit of “free inquiry,” “debate,” and just plain cranky contrarianism that old-fashioned atheists romanticize—and which often drives younger and marginalized nonreligious folks away from humanist, atheist, and so-called freethinking organizations. Grant worked for FFRF for almost three years. And if an advocate like Grant—who was harassed mercilessly during the FFRF blog brouhaha—tells me they’ve seen “a ton of improvement” in secular institutions over the last few years, that means something.

The effectiveness of secular organizing and lobbying matters more than ever these days, since the United States finds itself in the ever-tightening grip of a fascist regime backed primarily by right-wing Christians.