Malcontent’s Gambit Podcast Interviews Edwina Rogers August 17, 2012

Malcontent’s Gambit Podcast Interviews Edwina Rogers

By Hemant Mehta
August 17, 2012

Alan Litchfield just did an interview for his Malcontent’s Gambit Podcast with the Secular Coalition for America’s Edwina Rogers. They spoke about the SCA’s 50-state expansion, the current presidential race, and her Republican party affiliation.

One of the things the struck me was when she was asked about the #1 issue the secular community faces that she’s working on. She responds by mentioning the White House Faith Based Initiatives office and how religious groups are getting taxpayer money (and discriminating in their hiring along the way). A couple of months ago, I called her out for not saying that, so it sounds like she’s really settling into this role and learning about our concerns.

Despite her past work (on non-social-issues) with really awful politicians, Rogers seems to be doing a pretty good job in her new position.

Just sayin’.

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  • SwedishSJ

    I was initially critical of her appointment due to the fact that she has worked with some politicians who have questionable records (and I remain critical of her insistence that her party and its platform is not as antagonistic to secularism as many believe, which is untrue), but Edwina Rogers has been doing good work.  As far as I’m aware, her Republican Party affiliation has not compromised her ability to effectively lobby for secular causes.

  • SwedishSJ

    Also, I think there are conservatives who support those same causes (as being supportive of secularism hardly requires that one makes themselves a liberal), and we should not let political affiliations determine whether they feel accepted in our communities or not, just as we should feel comfortable working with progressive Christians who understand the importance of secular government and policies.

  • SwedishSJ

    (I say Christians, but there are also other religious denominations, many of them minority groups, that understand how secularism can protect their religious freedoms too.)

  • I do think she hit the ground sprinting.  She hasn’t won me over yet, but I’m determined to judge her on ‘now’ not ‘then’, and she’s doing it.

  • Wild Rumpus

    I am loving that Edwina Rogers is broadening the minds of all of us as to what an American Republican is and forcing all of us to look at nuances and subtleties in our ideologies. 

  • SwedishSJ

    Honestly, I disagree with Rogers that the Republican Party as it currently stands isn’t hostile to secularism – because its most influential members are, and by a large margin – but I agree that secularism can be advocated for by people of all political ideologies and affiliations. 

  • SwedishSJ

    So an American who is a Republican can disagree with their party’s platform and support secularism, but the Republican Party and the American far-right generally don’t…and I think Rogers’ avoidance of that clear reality is problematic.  Despite that, she has been an effective lobbyist, no matter what party she belongs to.

  • NH Baritone

    I speculate that her chilly welcome from the atheists/skeptics’ community may have goaded her into working all the harder to win the hearts of the liberals. Perhaps it is a small thing, but early in her tenure she perpetuated the FauxNews/Republican habit of referring the President’s party as the “Democrat Party.” Recently, however, she has begun to show more respect and refer to it as the “Democratic Party.” She is walking a tightrope, but she must not alienate the SCA’s natural constituency while she tries to woo the right wing into supporting church-state separation.

  • She strikes me as a better-than-adequate business executive. Regardless of her history, she so far seems able to morph into whatever is needed in a given leadership role, and she’ll do the job admirably. At least I hope so. Judgment reserved for sure; she’s made notable headway in the short time she’s been in office.