San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Report details stigma faced by nonbelievers
For more than 35 years, Jayrod Garrett’s life was immersed in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He fondly remembers going on a missionary trip to Hawaii, participating in a Scouts program and making lifelong friends. He also recalls how hurt he felt when a church leader didn’t believe him when a group of kids called him the N-word or how tough it was grappling with the church’s stance against gay marriage.
In 2016, after years of feeling conflicted, Garrett left the church.
Now, he identifies as an atheist. He has adopted a new set of ideals, acknowledging “meaning comes from making a difference” and “people are more important than beliefs.”
But life as an atheist isn’t any less complicated.
Leaving the church affected his relationship with his brother, whose wedding he couldn’t attend because he was no longer in the church. He said it’s sometimes difficult to talk about his beliefs, which are often misunderstood.
“I think of the life I lived before and how I tried to navigate things, and even now I long for that simplicity, because it was very simple to live that way,” he said. “It is much more complex and challenging to live without someone telling you what your beliefs need to be.”
Garrett is not alone. A new study, “Reality Check: Being Nonreligious in America,” has found that nonreligious people face discrimination and stigma, conceal their nonreligious identities, and largely see themselves as atheists and humanists.
The report, released May 5, was produced by the nonprofit American Atheists, a civil rights organization that seeks to achieve religious equality for all Americans. It is the culmination of a survey of nearly 34,000 nonreligious people in the United States.
More than three-quarters of participants identify “very much” with the terms nonreligious (79.6 percent), atheist (79.4 percent) and secular (75.1 percent). Others strongly identify with the terms freethinker (64.9 percent), humanist (64.6 percent) and skeptic (61.4 percent).
More than half (57.1 percent) say their primary nonreligious identity is atheist. Few (6.9 percent) say their primary nonreligious identity is agnostic.
Most were raised Christian, in Protestant (54.7 percent) or Catholic (29.9 percent) households. One in 7 (14.3 percent) grew up in nonreligious households.
Alison Gill, the American Atheists’ vice president for legal and policy, says the report gives nuance to the identities of those who are nonreligious.
“This is a community that is often invisible. People don’t often talk about their beliefs even in nonreligious communities,” said Gill, one of the report’s authors.
Within the first eight hours of the survey going live, more than 10,000 people filled it out, Gill said. They initially hoped to get 5,000 participants. Many also took the time to detail instances of discrimination they’ve faced.
“It just goes to show how much this was needed and how much people feel like they really need to get these stories out,” she said.
The report shows that participants often report negative experiences, due to their nonreligious identities, in social media (58.3 percent) and within their families (54.5 percent).
Survey participants also report issues at school and work.
“Nearly one-third
(29.4%) of survey participants who attend school or who have children attending school reported having had negative experiences in an educational setting because of their nonreligious identity,” according to the report. “More than one in five (21.7%) employed or recently employed survey participants reported negative experiences in employment because of their nonreligious identity.”
The survey asked participants to rate how religious their local community is. Just under half (44.1 percent) of survey participants say they are from “somewhat religious” communities, while about a third (29.8 percent) are in “very religious” communities. Those in more religious communities report feeling more out of place.
The LGBTQ community, African Americans, Latinos and ex-Muslims report experiencing added layers of discrimination and stigma due to their race or their religious upbringing, according to the report.
A large number of Latinos (61.6 percent), for example, say they’ve had negative experiences for being nonreligious within their families. That’s compared to 54.2 percent of non-Latino participants.
The report also finds that while almost one-third (31.4 percent) mostly or always concealed their nonreligious identity from their immediate family, the rate went up to 42.7 percent when it involved extended family. Nearly half hid their nonreligious identity among people at work
(44.3 percent) and people at school (42.8 percent).
Rebecca Ray of Polk County, Fla., said she felt a need to conceal her identity as an atheist. Ray volunteers at her kids’ school and has observed how religious some teachers are. She said she feared her identity could affect her children’s education.
Ray, who was raised
Jehovah’s Witness, cofounded the Atheist Community of Polk County, which recently incorporated into a nonprofit. The group meets at the local library and has done charity drives for children and families who are homeless. The group also adopted a stretch of roadway to clean on a regular basis.
“People just assume the only good morals you can ever learn are from the Bible,” Ray said.
Arlene Ríos shares a similar story. Ríos, who grew up culturally Catholic, grappled with identifying as an atheist later in life. She felt it carried a negative connotation.
“The word atheist was just too ugly,” said Ríos, 43.
As she explored nonreligious labels, she realized the importance of making it clear she didn’t believe in God, but she believed in the humanity of people. Now, she identifies as an atheist humanist.
Ríos found it challenging coming out as a nonbeliever. Her sister, a Jehovah’s Witness, took the news hard and stopped talking to her for some time. They’ve mended their relationship, but Ríos sought therapy to cope with the aftermath.
The report details how people experience heightened loneliness and depression due to discrimination and stigmatization.
Those who participated in the survey also report that family rejection negatively affected their educational and psychological outcomes.
Just like with other marginalized groups facing stigma, these issues “can have a detrimental impact and create negative outcomes,” Gill said.
“If we want to make sure we have a society that’s thriving, we have to make sure that we’re treating everyone equally,” she said.