{"id":218,"date":"2012-10-26T23:15:20","date_gmt":"2012-10-27T03:15:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/?p=218"},"modified":"2012-10-26T23:21:01","modified_gmt":"2012-10-27T03:21:01","slug":"atheists-in-politics-now-is-the-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/2012\/10\/26\/atheists-in-politics-now-is-the-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Atheists In Politics: Now Is The Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We need a rational voice in government and right now there is only one congressman who is an open atheist and a strong supporter of our secular values. That congressman is Rep. Pete Stark, Democrat from California\u2019s freethinking 15th. Now Stark is under fire in a tough political race with a fellow Democrat who just so happens to hate atheists.<\/p>\n<p>Stark\u2019s opponent, Eric Swalwell, issued a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.swalwellforcongress.com\/do_we_trust_pete_stark_to_represent_our_views\" target=\"_blank\">press release last year<\/a> attacking Stark for voting against the reaffirmation of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/congress-endorses-god-instead-of-creating-jobs\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cIn God We Trust\u201d on our money<\/a>. This was of course a meaningless vote that\u00a0didn&#8217;t\u00a0do anything accept pander to religious wackos. But it is also an attack on our secular values and the US Constitution. Swalwell claims that Stark can\u2019t be trusted because he\u00a0doesn&#8217;t\u00a0support forcing religion down everyone\u2019s throats.<\/p>\n<p>This election is close and I am asking every atheist to donate at least $10 or more to <a href=\"https:\/\/act.myngp.com\/Forms\/7926616819148783616\" target=\"_blank\">Stark\u2019s campaign<\/a>. If you are in CA-15, vote for Stark and help campaign in that district. We need to keep our only representation in Washington. We also need to send a message that if you fuck with us, we are going to be a voting bloc and fuck you up politically. I know times are tough and I am struggling with money personally too. But we need to send a message that we can swing elections. We need to send a message that atheists can be a political force.<\/p>\n<p>Stark also sponsored the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/darwin-day-resolution-goes-to-congress\" target=\"_blank\">Darwin Day Resolution<\/a> in congress. Will Swalwell?<\/p>\n<p>While you are at it, check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/charles-darwin-for-congress\" target=\"_blank\">Charles Darwin\u2019s race to Washington<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=266b7185-3628-46a9-a92a-28805e9e1aa2\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We need a rational voice in government and right now there is only one congressman who is an open atheist and a strong supporter of our secular values. That congressman is Rep. Pete Stark, Democrat from California\u2019s freethinking 15th. Now Stark is under fire in a tough political race with a fellow Democrat who just so happens to hate atheists. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,193,15],"tags":[38,232,226,229,234,230,233,225,228,231,227],"class_list":["post-218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-2","category-atheist-activism","category-election-2012-politics","category-politics","tag-atheism","tag-ca-15","tag-california","tag-charles-darwin","tag-congress","tag-democratic-party-united-states","tag-eric-swalwell","tag-pete-stark","tag-stark","tag-united-states-constitution","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/dangeroustalk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}