American Atheists Will Finally Apply to Join the Secular Coalition for America

The Secular Coalition for America — the group in Washington D.C. that lobbies on behalf of the non-religious — currently consists of nine member organizations:

There are two notable exceptions from the freethought community not on that list: American Atheists and the Center for Inquiry.

One of those groups will finally be applying for SCA membership: American Atheists.

It’s not a done deal or anything. The current membership still has to vote on AA’s inclusion. But if that all goes well, we’ll be that much closer to having at least a strong sense of unity (if not total unity) between all these groups. Historically, they haven’t all worked together on many things. SCA is an exception to that rule.

CFI, it’s your turn now.

Reginald Selkirk

Sounds good, but the SCA needs to change its name. 1) Don’t want to be confused with the Society for Creatinve Anachronisms 2) Why bother calling the Worldwide Atheist Conspiracy anything else?
Ian

Know any reasons for CFIs holdout? Perhaps their obsessed with their “transnationalism?”
Corey Mondello

I wonder if the ‘Military Religious Freedom Foundation’ http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ would want to part of this ‘Secular Coalition for America’?
Epistaxis

I wonder if the ‘Military Religious Freedom Foundation’ http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.org/ would want to part of this ‘Secular Coalition for America’?

Almost certainly not. The Secular Coalition specifically lobbies for the rights of atheists and other nonbelievers, while the MRFF (like Americans United for Separation of Church and State) defends the Constitutional rights of all Americans, including believers.
«bønez_brigade»

It’s not a done deal or anything. The current membership still has to vote on AA’s inclusion.

Herb Silverman (SCA’s pres.) spoke about this in Atlanta on Friday night, and he sounded optimistic about it.
Trina Hoaks

I was at the convention this weekend. It was great!

According to David Silverman, National Spokesperson for AA, it is now official. They are joining.
Danny

Paul Kurtz has a history of being a splitter, not a joiner.
Sabio

My impression of CSI is that their political agenda is more important than their skeptical agenda.
Pseudonym

Reginald Selkirk:

Why bother calling the Worldwide Atheist Conspiracy anything else?

Oh, you whacky Americans, thinking that just because “for America”, it’s world-wide.