Zack Kopplin Gets It

When you see a stand you know needs to be taken, you have two options.  You can wait and hope someone does something.  Or you can do something yourself.  The first option is by far the easier one.  Doing something yourself is much harder, but it's also what gets results.

I would much rather not have to fight with religious people.  My preference would be to not counter protest anti-choice people^[1].  I would rather not constantly fight for science to be taught in science class instead of Creationism.  It's exhausting.

But the alternative is letting them win.  The alternative is giving (more) power to people like Rick Santorum & Pat Robertson.  The alternative is letting terrible laws like the Louisiana Science Education Act stand.

Zack Kopplin chose to do something about it.  However, that wasn't his first choice.

No one was more surprised of his becoming a science advocate than Kopplin himself. In fact, after writing his English paper in 2008 — when he was just 14-years-old — he assumed that someone else would publicly take on the law. But no one did.

Now the law has a chance to be repealed, thanks in large part to Kopplin's efforts.  Like other young atheist activists, he stood up for what was right.  And like the others, Christians have tried to vilify him for it.

His efforts, needless to say, have not gone unnoticed — particularly by his opponents. He's been called the Anti-Christ, a stooge of "godless liberal college professors," and was even accused of causing Hurricane Katrina. Kopplin cooly brushes these incidents aside, saying they're just silly distractions.

They are indeed silly distractions.  It's meant to distract from the real issue, their blatant violations of the Constitution.  It's meant to intimidate us into silence.  Good for Kopplin for recognizing this and keeping up the good fight.

Unfortunately, Texas might need even more of a fight.

(Found via @rdfrs)

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1.  They call themselves "Pro-Life", but we all know that's a canard, so I call them what they really are.  Anti-choice.

Twelve Apostates - Young Atheist Activists

At Skepticon 5, I met young girl who responded to something on the table about prayer in schools.  She mentioned her school had Christian prayers displayed was visibly upset by it.  Her mother mentioned wanting to do something about it, but she also mentioned her son's opposition to it.  He didn't want to make waves.  This took place a few hours before Jessica Ahlquist was scheduled to speak.

They weren't that familiar with Ahlquist's case or that she was speaking later the same day.  I hope they stuck around to see Ahlquist speak, and more so, I hope they got a chance to speak to her.

Kids like Jessica Ahlquist and Damon Fowler go through tremendous turmoil for standing up for what is right.  They get treated like freaks for daring to stand up to religion being put into public schools in violation of the Constitution.

Damon Fowler, an atheist student at Bastrop High School in Louisiana, was about to graduate. His public school was planning to have a prayer as part of the graduation ceremony: as they traditionally did, as so many public schools around the country do every year. But Fowler -- knowing that government-sponsored prayer in the public schools is  unconstitutional and legally forbidden -- contacted the school superintendent to let him know that he opposed the prayer, and would be contacting the ACLU if it happened. The school -- at first, anyway -- agreed, and canceled the prayer.

Then Fowler's name, and his role in this incident, was leaked. As a direct result:

1) Fowler has been hounded, pilloried, and ostracized by his community.

2) One of Fowler's teachers has publicly demeaned him.

3) Fowler has been physically threatened. Students have threatened to "jump him" at graduation practice, and he has received multiple threats of bodily harm, and even death threats.

4) Fowler's parents have cut off his financial support, kicked him out of the house, and thrown his belongings onto the front porch.

Oh, and by the way? They went ahead and had the graduation prayer anyway.

Even considering that, I hope that family I met at Skepticon ends up standing up to the school's violation of our Constitution, but I certainly won't blame them if they do not go through all the drama that would entail.  I'm not really sure what I would have done if there had been a prayer banner up in my high school.

I suspect the most likely possibility is that I would have said something to a few people, never gotten any support, given up, and been annoyed as shit by it until graduation.  I already went that far without speaking up about how much the Pledge of Allegiance bothered me.  "Under God" first bothered me at least as far back as 3rd grade, but I never said anything about it until I had already graduated.  I never even really considered saying something about it.

Ahlquist and Fowler did what many teenage atheist have not done, and many cannot do it for fear of repercussions even worse than they felt.  They took stands many adults aren't even willing or able to take.  They are to be praised.  They are to be emulated.

And most importantly, their successors are to be supported.  If you know an atheist in their situation, child or adult, please do whatever you can to support them.  Help them to take that stand against religious violations of the Separation of Church and State.  Be there for them when the attacks come from the followers of Jesus.

The world needs more kids following in their footsteps.  Maybe the more we help them along, the less necessary it will be for this fight to have to be fought.