Hemant Mehta is the founder and editor of FriendlyAtheist.com, a YouTube creator, and podcast co-host. He is a former National Board Certified math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago. He has appeared on CNN and FOX News and served on the board of directors for Foundation Beyond Belief and the Secular Student Alliance. He has written multiple books, including I Sold My Soul on eBay and The Young Atheist's Survival Guide. He also edited the book Queer Disbelief.
In 2010, after Dr. Wynne LeGrow retired from his career as a physician, he ran for Congress from Virginia’s 4th District, which was represented by Republican Randy Forbes, the man so conservative, he founded the Congressional Prayer Caucus. LeGrow, on the other hand, ran as an open atheist. He lost the race, but writes about the experience in his new book Last Leper in the Colony. In the excerpt below, LeGrow talks about why he chose to be an openly atheist candidate when there were other safer options available: Read more
Last week, I posted about how Taylor Bast, who was arrested on drug charges, was told by his parole officer that he had to take part in a substance abuse program or he could end up in jail. Unfortunately, all three programs offered to him by the state of California were religious, while Bast is a non-theistic Buddhist. He argued that the state was coercing him to participate in a faith-based program or else he would be punished. Thanks to the American Humanist Association, though, Bast will now have secular options for treatment programs. Read more
Susanne Werner, the chair of the Secular Coalition for North Carolina, attended the state’s Democratic Party convention last week and noticed an omission from the party’s platform on civil rights: It didn’t include anything about protecting the non-religious. She decided to say something about it. And to her surprise, people listened. Read more
To celebrate their third anniversary, the Ex-Muslims of North America recently contacted a Wegmans grocery store in Fairfax, Virginia with a simple request: They wanted to buy a cake with the group’s logo on it along with the phrase “Congratulations on 3 years!!” They weren’t asking for a drawing of Muhammad or a statement condemning Islam. They just wanted a cake celebrating their existence. It was too much for the store to handle: Read more