Defying the Defiers
Whew — that was a close one. Megan Barry was almost done in this town, and not for the heresy of preferring bro country to classic. The charge against Barry was much more serious, and would have precluded her from winning a seat on a condo board, let alone the mayorship. Megan Barry, according to an anonymous phone-wielding rabble-rouser, is an atheist.
Not true, Barry was quick to point out. The candidate professed her Christian faith to a parish of uneasy potential supporters, who were soothed enough by her statement to greet it with applause. It was politics at its predictable low: Barry's opponent David Fox claimed not to be behind the furtive campaign; Barry nevertheless called on Fox to refute the slanderous message. I can't blame Barry for wanting to set the record straight — a lie is a lie, after all. At any rate, Barry's discomfort at her private faith becoming a campaign issue is now painfully plain.
But Barry's desire to quash the claim didn't seem to be spurred only by its mendacity — she directly prefaced her testimony by saying that there have been "a lot of really not nice things" said about her. Apparently, being called an atheist is a really not nice thing. I don't doubt that her curt disavowal of atheism relieved the massive majority of Nashville voters by assuring them that their potential mayor is not a hell-bound heathen, and I'm not surprised that atheism-as-accusation slid by, unrecognized as a ho-hum condemnation of an entire group of people. But it does leave us faithless glancing at one another incredulously: Hey, you say hell-bound heathen like it's a bad thing!
It's no big risk for politicians to ignore atheists while tiptoeing around and pandering to other groups of voters, but it's not because our numbers are negligible. Avowed atheists — not including the swelling but noncommittal "no religious affiliation" group — make up about 2 percent of the population. That's the same as Jews, a group over whom pols are constantly scrapping. But atheists have an image issue, so even though our numbers are not negligible, we are.
I'm not going to get histrionic about atheist rights here; in fact, I can't think of one case of atheists being blatantly discriminated against — unless you count Article Nine of the Tennessee state Constitution, which blatantly discriminates against atheists by barring them from public office. In the document's defense, though, that same article bans elsewhere-needed ministers from office, as well as duelers, who were apparently an affront to a society striving for humanity and civilization — the selfie-takers of their day.
The fact that a mayoral candidate jerked back from being labeled an atheist like one would jerk back from being labeled a Nickelback fan says a lot; it's clear that the whole idea of possible future atheist mayor gives everyone — potential voters and the candidate herself — the pip. But can you imagine if someone had suggested that a candidate was Jewish, and that candidate claimed to have been called a really not nice thing? I'm not saying anyone would picket or boycott, but I bet there would be more reaction than one measly editorial.
I don't know what paints a more depressing picture for the atheist in Nashville: the fact that atheism was the rogue tipster's best idea to hit Barry where it hurts, or the way the famously liberal, ACLU-member Barry tacitly concurred by reacting to the "accusation" as she did. One would have hoped that Barry would at least placate nonbelievers with a firm but inclusive denial: I'm not an atheist — not that there's anything wrong with that.
But if you're not shooting them down, you're cozying up, which is so politically unwise that there are, in this land of more than 6 million unbelievers, exactly zero atheists in the U.S. Congress. These realists know that cheaters and hypocrites and Klan members will be tolerated, as long as they don't have the stink of godlessness on them.
This is not a big deal — just business as usual for pragmatic politicians, who know that their bread is buttered on the churchgoing side. But it represents a small but significant missed opportunity to point out that the atheists at work, at the gym, and even at church are people, too. To anyone who would hope that Nashville's progressive candidate would seize a chance to buck some common prejudices, I just say: Whew — that was a close one.
Pete Holland
Nashville
