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Published On: Fri, Feb 12th, 2016

Freedom From Religion group calls for President Obama to attend Reason Rally, welcome ‘nonreligious to American family’

A letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation co-presidents Annie Laurie Gaylor and Dan Barker to President Obama calls for the commander in chief to “do something no American president has ever done: reach out to secular America.”

The atheists penned a letter to Obama on Feb. 4, the same day that he addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, asking Obama to welcome the “nonreligious to the ‘American family.’”

photo/ 2012 Reason Rally via Flickr

photo/ 2012 Reason Rally via Flickr

“It is laudable for the president to embrace citizens of all colors and religious viewpoints as being part of ‘one American family’ and to caution citizens not to be ‘bystanders to bigotry,’” the letter read. “But there is one U.S. minority that has been consistently excluded from such notice: nonreligious Americans.”

“We respectfully invite you, in your final year in office, to do something no American president has ever done: reach out to secular America. Such attention from the Office of the President would demonstrate that freethinkers, atheists, agnostics, secular humanists and rationalists are accepted citizens.”

Gaylor and Barker asked Obama to “make a historic appearance” at the Reason Rally, an event planned in Washington D.C. on June 4 that will encourage atheists, agnostics and those unaffiliated with a faith to converge for a secular revival of sorts.

They claim that the event offers Obama “an ideal opportunity for the office of the president” to welcome and address those in attendance, claiming that atheists and agnostics fall victim to “unwarranted stereotypes, putdowns and assumptions that we cannot be good people or good citizens.”

Gaylor and Barker concluded by citing well-known religious skeptics who they said have made monumental contributions to society. They then renewed their call for Obama to attend the Reason Rally.

“By showing up on June 4, as you did at the mosque, and addressing nonbelieving Americans, you can send a signal that the marginalization of a quarter of the U.S. population is unacceptable,” the letter read. “Please use your ‘bully pulpit’ to help erase harmful attitudes toward the nonreligious minority in the United States, as you have done for religious minorities.”

Read the entire letter here.

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About the Author

- Roxanne "Butter" Bracco began with the Dispatch as Pittsburgh Correspondent, but will be providing reports and insights from Washington DC, Maryland and the surrounding region. Contact Roxie aka "Butter" at theglobaldispatch@gmail ATTN: Roxie or Butter Bracco

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  1. edwords says:

    What’s good for the Christian goose is good for the

    atheist gander.

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