6 March 2007 · Australian politics
U.S. Atheist Congressman to come out of the Closet
The “NoGodBlog“, the official blog of the American Athiests, is all excited about the announcement that on March 12th, a U.S. Congressman/woman is apparently going to announce that he/she is an atheist. This is obviously a big deal in the country where, according to Richard Dawkins, a recent poll indicated that the majority of U.S. voters said they would not vote for an atheist.
I’m wondering how many “outed” atheists we have in Australian politics? We need a site which tracks such matters, something like “They Work For You“, the U.K. site. I’d love to see one of those operating in Australia. Does anyone have any idea where to find out the religious stance of Aussie pollies?
I seem to remember a few labour pollies in it’s hay day in the 70’s espousing thier atheism. Jim Cairnes for one.
pffft…. wasn’t Arnold Vinick the first Congressman… hey… The West Wing is fictional? what a gib…
I can’t imagine that outing yourself as an atheist is really such a big deal in Australia. Surely the response would be along the lines of “yeah… and?”. The point of stating that your a religious type is to attempt to gain a voting block. Do athiests really vote in blocks?
But no, haven’t found any sites which list Aussie pollies and their religious stances… I’m sure it’d be fairly easy to make one… maintaining one at the moment with all this Brian Burke stuff might be a little harder 🙂
Well I would certainly prefer to vote for an atheist over a “believer”. I want my politicians to be sane and rational.
Hmmm… but would you gather all your friends around on Sunday and say “vote for this politician, they are sane and rational”?